Sherri Lawson Clark

Dr. Sherri Lawson Clark (Ph.D., American University) is an applied cultural anthropologist, who has conducted ethnographic fieldwork for over 25 years with low-income urban and rural African American, Latino, and white families across the United States. Dr. Clark’s research specialty surrounds housing instability among poor families and examines the intersections of housing policy with health and welfare policies, marriage initiatives, migration, and the effects of residential mobility on the well-being of poor children and families. Her research is guided theoretically through the lens of the built environment in which spaces where the poor live, work, shop, entertain and relax are seen as socially produced, constructed, contested, and embodied.

Dr. Clark teaches courses in cultural anthropology and social stratification in America surrounding her research foci. Many of her courses are cross-listed in the American Ethnic Studies program where she is the Director and Rubin Professor of American Ethnic Studies. In the classroom, she uses her teaching and scholarship to equip students with the necessary knowledge, training, and cultural sensitivities to aid them as future problem-solvers in our global world. Her pedagogy is praxis-oriented whereby students are able to deconstruct and comprehend conceptual arguments by applying them in real life contexts.