Ethel Mickey

Ethel Mickey (she/her) is sociologist of gender, race, and class; work and organizations; and science and technology. Her scholarship focuses on understanding persistent gender inequalities at work, especially in innovation industries that invest in diversity.  Her current project is titled, Networking to Nowhere: Relationships and Gender Inequality in Tech Work, that looks inside an elite software company to illustrate the workplace mechanisms disadvantaging women's careers. The Women in Engineering ProActive Network recognized Mickey with the Betty Vetter Research Award for notable achievement in research related to women in engineering. Mickey's research was also featured on a podcast episode of Technically Human.

Before joining CSUSB in the fall of 2022, Mickey was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with their ADVANCE program. In 2018, she received her PhD in Sociology from Northeastern University, with a Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is an affiliate scholar with Stanford University's VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab.

Recent Publications

Abromaviciute, Jurgita, Emily K. Carian, and Ethel Mickey. 2025. “A game of chutes and ladders: Gender and aspirational resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Sociological Forum. Online First.

Misra, Joya, Ember Skye Kane-Lee, Ethel Mickey, and Laurel Smith-Doerr. 2024. “‘I don’t believe that I have been wanted’: Processes of Overinclusion and Exclusion in Racialized and Gendered Organizations.” Social Problems. Online First.

Mickey, Ethel L. 2022. “The Organization of Networking and Gender Inequality in the New Economy: Evidence from the Tech Industry.” Work and Occupations 49(4): 383-420. *Lead article.

Mickey, Ethel L. and Laurel Smith-Doerr. 2022. “Gender and Innovation through an Intersectional Lens:  Re-imagining Academic Entrepreneurship in the United States.” Sociology Compass 16(3): e12964.

See my Google Scholar page for a full list of publications.