Department Chair
Dr. Lisa Sun-Hee Park
Title & Affiliations:
- Department Chair, Exercise & Sport Studies
- Director, Health Justice & Community Initiative
- Professor & Graduate Advisor, Department of Asian American Studies
- Co-Director, ÉXITO Program (https://exito.ucsb.edu/)
- Affiliate Faculty, Departments of Sociology & Feminist Studies
Specialization:
Migrant health justice, immigration and welfare policy, environmental justice, Asian American
Studies
Bio:
Lisa Sun-Hee Park is professor in the Departments of Exercise & Sport Studies and Asian American Studies, with affiliations in Sociology and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She serves as Director of the Health Justice & Community initiative and co-director of ÉXITO, an Ethnic and Feminist Studies teacher training program, with Rebeca Mireles-Rios. Park’s research focuses on migrant health justice, Ethnic Studies, and environmental justice. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University and is the author of five books, including The Third Net: The Hidden System of Migrant Health Care (co-authored with Erin Hoekstra & Anthony Jimenez, NYU 2024), which received the Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s International Migration Section in 2025. She is currently working on three different research projects: 1) medical deportation of low-income migrants in the U.S.; 2) collaborative study of the impact of high school ethnic studies courses on college students; and 3) environmental history of the laundry/dry cleaning industry.
Education:
- Ph.D. Northwestern University, Sociology
- M.A. Northwestern University, Sociology
- B.A. Trinity University, Sociology & Communication
Selected Publications:
The Third Net: The Hidden System of Migrant Health Care. (with Hoekstra, E., and Jimenez, A.M.) New York University Press, 2024. [Thomas & Znaniecki Best Book Award. American Sociological Association, International Migration Section, 2025]
Entitled to Nothing: The Struggle for Immigrant Health Care in the Age of Welfare Reform. New York University Press, 2011.
The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden. (with Pellow, D.N.) New York University Press, 2011. [Outstanding Book Award. American Sociological Association, Environment and Technology Section, 2014]
Consuming Citizenship: Children of Asian Immigrant Entrepreneurs. Stanford University Press, 2005. [Outstanding Book Award. American Sociological Association, Asia and Asian America Section, 2006]
Silicon Valley of Dreams: Immigrant Labor, Environmental Injustice, and the High Tech Global Economy. (with Pellow, D.N.) New York University Press, 2002.