Daniel Lobo is a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of California-Berkeley, with specializations in political economy and the sociology of organizations and markets at the Haas School of Business. As a cultural and economic sociologist, he is interested in the fundamental question of, who gets what and why in our society? More specifically, he is interested in how individuals experience organizations intersubjectively and behaviorally. How is talent conceptualized, discovered, selected, evaluated, compensated, and promoted (or not) to positions of power? How, and by whom, are meanings of merit constructed, contested, and diffused? How do organizations, especially elite organizations, thus mediate the broader social, political, and economic processes that constitute a global society of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy?

To date, most of his research has been focused on inequality in undergraduate data science education. He also has a project at the intersection of race and political economy that advances a theory regarding how and why divergent perceptions of fairness among Black and white Americans lead to differences in attitudes toward U.S. trade policy. His dissertation research, tentatively titled “Towards a theory on the causes, contours, and consequences of “culture add” (as opposed to “culture fit”) hiring in elite firms,” uses experimental methods to determine the extent to which this emergent talent selection paradigm may or may not reduce labor market inequality.

Daniel's research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative. He holds an A.B. in social studies, with honors, from Harvard College and a M.A. in sociology from UC Berkeley. Outside of academia, Daniel enjoys hiking, lifting, traveling, live music, meditation, community-based events, and spending time with loved ones. He identifies as Black (ethnically Cape Verdean), queer, and of the working class. He is also a first-generation American and college graduate.