Write-up of 2021 UCI School of Social Sciences Research Award winners Laura Enriquez (Associate Professor Research Award) and Erin Lockwood (Assistant Professor Research Award).
Lockwood, a political scientist, is the Social Sciences Assistant Professor Research Award recipient. Established in 2005, the honor recognizes research excellence accompanied by a strong project proposal from a junior faculty member in social sciences.
Lockwood studies the impact financial derivatives have within the global political economy. She’s studied the role this $600 trillion market played in the 2007-09 financial crisis, and she’s interested in how it got so big with so little public oversight, given its importance in – and associated risk for – the global political economy. With funding from the school, she’ll assess how governmental policies and practices structuring international lending institutions shape global distributions of wealth and income. Her findings will provide a detailed analysis of how economic inequality is being discussed at the international level and how these discussions are shaping policies. Lockwood joined the UCI School of Social Sciences in 2017 after completing her Ph.D. at Northwestern University.