Whitney Pirtle

Dr. Whitney N. Laster Pirtle is an Associate Professor of in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health, and affiliated faculty in the Department of Sociology at UCLA. Dr. Pirtle is trained as a critical race sociologist with interdisciplinary subject area expertise in race, racism, and anti-Blackness; health disparities and health equity; Black feminist sociology and praxis; and mixed methodologies.

Dr. Pirtle, as Director, is re-building a research center housed in CHS guided by the mission to use interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and methods to critically examine the role of race, racism, and related intersections in shaping health disparities. The center’s aim is to work creatively and collectively towards equitable solutions that address social factors as root causes to racialized health disparities, with an emphasis on justice-centered praxis, knowledge production, mentorship, and community engagement. In this capacity, Dr. Pirtle continues to lead the Sociology of Health and Equity (SHE) Lab, which she founded at the University of California, Merced, where she was a faculty member for ten years.

Dr. Pirtle is co-editor with Dr. Zakiya Luna, of the field defining volume, Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis (2021) with a second edition slated for release in 2026. Her forthcoming book on race in contemporary South Africa, Coloured-Blind, is expected to be published soon. Dr. Pirtle is also a Co-PI on an NSF-funded grant that incorporates data innovations from WEB Du Bois into an interdisciplinary learning module.

Dr. Pirtle has garnered international recognition for her contributions to the field, including the MacArthur Foundation Chair in Human Rights and International Justice and inaugural Equity and Justice Award from the University of California Merced, the A. Wade Smith Award for Teaching, Mentorship, and Service from the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS), and a Ford Foundational Postdoctoral Fellowship. Throughout her research, as well as her teaching and service to the field and communities, Dr. Pirtle centers equity, inclusion, and justice.  

Education

  • PhD, Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
  • MS, Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
  • BS, Sociology, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI, USA

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Featured Publications

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5357-8629

Book:

Luna, Z., & Pirtle, W. (2021). Black feminist sociology: Perspectives and praxis. Routledge.

Selected Articles:

Luna, Z., Brown, M. C., Johnson, M. S., & Pirtle, W. N. (2024). On joy and war: Black feminism/intersectionality. Annual Review of Sociology, 50(1), 61-83. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-090123-032434

Ford, C. L., & Pirtle, W. N. (2024). Invited commentary: race, ethnicity, and racism in epidemiologic research—perspectives from Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP). American Journal of Epidemiology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38806449/

Franco, K., Patler, C., & Pirtle, W. L. (2024). COVID-19’s unequal toll: Differences in Health-Related Quality of Life by gendered and racialized groups. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 65(1), 60-74. https://doi.org/10.1177/002214652311997

Laster Pirtle, W. N., & Wright, T. (2021). Structural gendered racism revealed in pandemic times: Intersectional approaches to understanding race and gender health inequities in COVID-19. Gender & Society, 35(2), 168-179. https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432211001302

Pirtle, W. N. L. (2021). Racial states and re-making race: Exploring Coloured racial re-and de-formation in state laws and forms in post-apartheid South Africa. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 7(2), 145-159. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649220960164

Pirtle, W. N., Brock, B., Aldonza, N., Leke, K., & Edge, D. (2021). “I Didn't Know What Anti-Blackness Was Until I Got Here”: The Unmet Needs of Black Students at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Urban Education, 59(1), 330-357. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859211044948 

Pirtle, W. N. (2020). Racial capitalism: a fundamental cause of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic inequities in the United States. Health education & behavior, 47(4), 504-508. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198120922942   

Pirtle, W. N. L., Valdez, Z., Daniels, K. P., Duenas, M. D., & Castro, D. (2020). Conceptualizing ethnicity: how dimensions of ethnicity affect disparities in health outcomes among Latinxs in the United States. Ethnicity & Disease, 30(3), 489. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.30.3.489

Patler, C., & Pirtle, W. L. (2018). From undocumented to lawfully present: Do changes to legal status impact psychological wellbeing among Latino immigrant young adults?. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 39-48.