He received his PhD in sociology from UC Berkeley in 2012, and was a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar. He is interested in how people understand their class and status positions, the ways these understandings are mediated by the organizations of which they are a part, and how such understandings preserve and, occasionally, unsettle existing inequalities. Reich is the author of four books, the most recent of which is Working for Respect: Conflict and Community at Walmart (Columbia U Press, forthcoming), co-authored with Peter Bearman. He is also the author of several peer-reviewed articles, which have appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology and Social Science & Medicine.