- Interim Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences, Provost's Office
- Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Professor, International Migration Studies
Research Interests
- Immigration federalism in the United States, American political development, geographies of citizenship and membership, nativism and the rise of the new right.
Education
- Ph.D. in Geography, University of California, 2004
Monica Varsanyi is interim associate provost for academic affairs and dean for humanities and social sciences at the Graduate Center. At the CUNY Graduate Center, she is also a professor of geography in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Program and on the faculty of the International Migration Studies M.A. Program. She is also in the Political Science department at John Jay College, CUNY. She previously served as executive officer of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. program.
Varsanyi is a scholar of migration, membership, and the state, with a specific focus on unauthorized immigration and immigration federalism in the United States. Her books include Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States (Stanford University Press, 2010, edited volume) and Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines (with Doris Marie Provine, Scott Decker, and Paul Lewis; University of Chicago Press, 2016), winner of the 2018 Outstanding Book in Policing Award from the American Society of Criminology. She has published in academic journals including the Journal of American Ethnic History, Law & Policy, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Citizenship Studies, and the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, among others.
Her current research explores the nativist roots of voter disenfranchisement in the United States as well as immigration federalism during the Great Depression. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
She is on the editorial boards of the journal Territory, Politics, Governance and the sociolegal journal Law & Policy. She also serves on the research advisory board of the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City.
