Bio
Daniela Campos Ugaz is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. Her broad research program focuses on labor governance and globalization, examining how institutions of work, migration, and citizenship are reconfigured in response to global pressures and how these transformations shape inequality across transnational, national, and organizational scales.
Research Interests
Her current project, The Politics of Skills Shortages: Labor Sourcing in the Transition to the Knowledge Economy in the United States, Germany, and Costa Rica, examines how states source skilled labor during the transition to the knowledge economy, focusing on the relationship between training and migration. Situated at the intersection of labor migration and comparative political economy, the project examines how states define “skills shortages” in the context of high-tech development and inquires into the implications of these constructions for labor market stratification and migrant workers’ access to rights.
Her previous research explored a range of topics, including meaning-making processes behind the implementation of conditional cash transfers in Peru and Mexico, time and work precarity in the context of Italy's labor market deregulation, gender and racial inequality in academia during COVID-19, access to justice in U.S. family courts, and precarious work and internal and international migrant workers’ incorporation in Peru’s labor market. She employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. Committed to translating research into policy-relevant insights, she has presented her research to policymakers in Peru and at ILO roundtables on Latin American labor markets.
Areas of Expertise
Labor, Migration, Economic Sociology, Political Economy, Development, Comparative-Historical Sociology, Law and Society, Latin America
Degrees
PhD in Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2025