A geographer, Ms. Parks specializes in urban labor markets, residential segregation, immigration, and racial, ethnic, and gender patterns in low-wage employment. Ms. Parks is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation where she is working on a project with Dorian Warren (Columbia University) that examines local political responses by communities of color to economic inequality and the plight of low-wage work through a comparative case study of two anti-Wal-Mart campaigns in Chicago and Los Angeles. Other current research includes a cross-city examination of the racial, ethnic, and gender division of labor, especially in low-wage employment. Ms. Parks received her PhD in Geography (2002) and MA in Urban Planning (1997) from UCLA. Before her life as an academic, Ms. Parks worked as a community organizer.