Research Project: Sex Work in an Age of SESTA-FOSTA
Graduation Year: 2023
Cecelia Lopez double majored in Sociology and Chicanx Studies at UC Berkeley. She is an advocate for sex workers and her creative work intersects social justice themes with photographic documentation. Cecelia's research interests include feminist/social theory; intersectionality; gender and sexuality; and social change. In 2020, she served as a Research Coordinator for an archival project on folk Heroine Modesta Avila through a U.S. Latino Digital Humanities Program (USLDH) grant. Currently, she seeks to understand how anti-trafficking legislation, SESTA-FOSTA, has impacted young sex workers. She hopes that her project will serve as an intervention by commencing a public discourse on sex work to oppose stigma. The broader impact of this project is to create more academic knowledge and increase cultural visibility through promoting attainable access to mental health resources, legal rights and protections. Her research and creative work are rooted in her love for storytelling and providing cross-cultural understanding to uplift communities. Through her educational pursuits, she hopes to become a faculty member to amplify BIPOC voices and create spaces for marginalized communities in academia.
