She earned her B.S. in Sociology and Psychology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and her M.A. and Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University. Previously, she taught at UMass-Amherst, where she was an award-winning teacher, and most recently at the College of William and Mary, where she chaired the Department of Sociology and directed the Center for the Study of Inequality and the Black Studies Program. Dr. Royster's first book, Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue Collar Jobs (University of California Press, 2003) received the 2004 Oliver Cromwell Cox Best Book Award. Her research interests cross-cut sociological areas including Racism and Racial Stratification, Economic Sociology/Urban Political Economy, Public Policy, Race/Class/Gender Studies, and Work/Labor/Labor Markets.