Julia Chuang is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland.  She is a qualitative researcher with research interests in development, land-use, and migration.  Her work has utilized ethnographic and interview-based methods.  Julia completed her postdoctoral training at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.  She received a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in Social Studies from Harvard University.

Her past research has examined investment migration markets, transformations in land-use in China, and construction and real estate markets in China. Her book, Beneath the China Boom: Labor, Citizenship, and the Making of a Rural Land Market, won multiple awards from the American Sociological Association.  Other pieces have also been published in journals like Politics & Society, Gender & Society, Journal of Peasant Studies, The China Quarterly.

Currently, she is conducting research on the local politics of the data center industry in the U.S.