Education
MPhil., Graduate Center, CUNY (2021, Sociology)
M.A., University of Essex (2015, Theory and Practice of Human Rights)
BA.., SOAS, University of London (2011, History)
Bio
Nick Rodrigo is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY where he is currently writing his PhD thesis titled “Wielding The Border: A genealogy of US-Mexico borderland practices and the purposes they serve from conquest to today”. Through the construction of a robust theoretical lens, archival research and qualitative investigation in the US borderlands he will trace how the practices of bordering have evolved, and the central purpose they serve to the US racial capitalism and the expansion of the security state.
Nick is a founding member of the Social Anatomy of Deportation Regime at John Jay college, where he has coordinated their public events and research projects since its establishment in 2018. He has written several op-eds and book chapters on the state of US-Mexico borderland violence and the nature of detention and deportation proceedings in the US, as well as producing a podcast on the deportation regime in the US called “They Are Just Deportees”. He has over five years of experience in analysing and reporting on Middle Eastern politics and affairs as well as issues pertaining to refugees, stateless peoples, social movements, border enforcement, criminal justice and human rights issues more broadly having worked in this field in the occupied Palestinian territories, the United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States.
Course Taught
Crime and Migration (SOC 335)
Special Topics in Sociology: Abolition (SOC 282)
Penology (SOC 301)
Sociology of Violence (SOC 308)
Social Stratification (SOC 232)
Political Sociology (SOC 278)
Sociological Theory (SOC 315)
International Human Rights (POL 320)
Honors and Awards
Research Summary
Nick Rodrigo is a PhD candidate at the City University New York Graduate Center and a Research and Communications Fellow at the Office for the Advancement of Research at John Jay College. Nick is an experienced researcher having written long and short form opinion and research pieces as well as policy briefs and legal memos. Nick also has an extensive background in grant writing, teaching and curriculum development.
