He earned his doctorate in sociology from the University of Colorado in 2006. His research concerns racism in the post-civil rights era and community resistance, from gang evolution and border surveillance to disproportionate minority contact and officer involved shootings. As an urban ethnographer he has conducted interviews and observations of gangs, and the public response to marginalized groups, in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. Dr. Durán’s 2013 book, Gang Life in Two Cities: An Insider’s Journey was published by Columbia University Press. He is the recipient of the 2010 Hispanic Faculty and Staff Caucus Junior Faculty of the Year Award and the 2011 New Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology Division on People of Color and Crime.