Abel Valenzuela Jr. is Professor of Labor Studies, Urban Planning and Chicana/o & Central American Studies and Director of UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Professor Valenzuela is one of the leading national experts on day labor and has published numerous articles and technical reports on the subject. His research interests include precarious labor markets, worker centers, immigrant workers, and Los Angeles. His academic base is urban sociology, planning, and labor studies. He has published numerous articles on immigrant settlement, labor market outcomes, urban poverty and inequality, including co-editing (with Lawrence Bobo, Melvin Oliver, and Jim Johnson) Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles (2000) and Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence (with Ramiro Martinez Jr., 2006). He has published in American Behavioral Scientist, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Annual Review of Sociology, New England Journal of Public Policy, and other journals.  Dr. Valenzuela earned his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.C.P. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.