Profile
Dr Erica Chito Childs is the Interim Ruth and Harold Newman Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. While new to the role, she has been at Hunter for twenty years, as a Professor of Sociology both here and at the Graduate Center. At Hunter, she has also served as a Senior Associate Dean, Chair of the Sociology department, and Co-Chair of the Council of Chairs.
Dr. Chito Childs is a leading qualitative researcher on issues of race, gender and sexuality, particularly in the areas of multiracialism, families, media and popular culture. She has written three books including Navigating Interracial Borders: Black-White Couples and Their Social Worlds (Rutgers 2005), Fade to Black and White: Interracial Images in Popular Culture (Rowman & Littlefield 2009) and The Boundaries of Mixedness: A Global Perspective (Routledge 2021). She is currently signed with a literary agent for her next book on global attitudes toward interracial sex and marriage drawing from research she has conducted in 18 countries over the past decade. She has held elected leadership positions in the American Sociological Association (ASA), the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Eastern Sociological Society. Her numerous awards and honors include a Fulbright Scholar award, the ASA Racial and Ethnic Minorities Early Career Award and the Feminist Press 40 under 40 award.
Her writing has appeared and been quoted in The New York Times, Fortune, Huffington Post, MSNBC, The Root, USA Today, NPR, Fox News, Slate, and a variety of other news outlets.