Sofia Locklear

Dr. Sofia Locklear is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. She graduated with her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of New Mexico in 2021 and was a recipient of the American Sociological Association's Minority Fellowship Program in 2020-2021 (MFP Cohort 47). She is currently a CIFAR Global Scholar with the Humanity’s Urban Future program (2026-2028). Her research more broadly studies the racialization of American Indian/Alaska Native individuals living in urban settings. She is currently working on two major projects. The first is focused on urban Indigenous housing outcomes and the second explores the experiences of colorism for Indigenous individuals across the U.S. She also works in field of Indigenous Evaluation. She is an enrolled citizen of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.

Recent Publications

Locklear, S. (2026) “People love playing the ‘what are you?’ game with me”: Street Racialization of American Indian and Alaska Native People”. Social Problems. DOI:10.1093/socpro/spaf081

Locklear, S., Korver-Glenn, E., Frants, T., Feather A., and Urban Indian Health Institute. (2025). “Indigenous Urban Housing:Research Report.” Urban Indian Health Institute.

Echo-Hawk, A., Locklear, S. McNally, S., Baker L., & Gurule, S. (2025) “Towards the Elimination of Data Genocide”. American Medical Association Journal of Ethics

Locklear, S., Hesketh, M., Begay N., Brixey, J., Echo-Hawk A,. and James, R. (2023) “Reclaiming our Narratives: An Indigenous Evaluation Framework for Urban American Indian/Alaska Native Communities”. The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation. 38(1):8-26.

Korver-Glenn, E., Locklear, S., Howell, J., and Whitehead E. (2023). “Displaced and unsafe: The legacy of settler-colonial racial capitalism in the U.S. Rental Market”. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and the City 4(2):113-134.