Karyn Lacy is associate professor of sociology and African American studies at the University of Michigan. She earned her PhD from Harvard University, is a Ford Fellow, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Her work focuses on race relations, residential segregation, identity, parental socialization, social stratification, and suburban culture. Her book Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class (University of California Press) received the Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, and she is a contributing writer to media outlets including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Lacy's current work explores the construction and reproduction of racial and class-based identities among members of an elite children's organization.