haley pilgrim

haley pilgrim is a 6th year PhD Candidate in Sociology with a focus on intersectionality, inequality, racial group formation, and racial identity. Her dissertation uses the racial identification and external categorization of US second-generation multiracials as a site for analyzing how group boundaries are maintained and potentially being recreated. This work builds off her Master's Thesis, which earned the Social Science and Audience Choice award at Penn's first annual Graduate Ben Talks and Critical Mixed Race Studies Graduate Student Paper.

She has a passion for teaching and was honored as one of the top 10 graduate teachers across the university with the Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Students. Outside of the academic year, she engages in youth development, instilling in high school students the tools to become leaders in their communities through the Penn Summer’s Social Justice Research Academy.

In addition to this work mentoring young students, pilgrim has been actively involved in Penn's graduate community as a Fontaine Fellow, former co-President of the Black Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (BGAPSA), co-founder of the Graduate Sociology Society, former President of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA), founder of Penn's Ski Club, and Finance Chair for the Black Graduate Women's Association. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Young Involved Philadelphia and the African American Resource Center. For her commitment and impact on the Penn and Philadelphia community, she won the 2018 Women of Color Graduate Student Award, 2019 Student and Community Engagement Award, and 2020 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Involvement Recognition Award.

CV available upon request.

haley prefers she/her pronouns and lowercase.