Dr. LeShae Henderson

Consortium for Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Henderson joined the Department of Sociology and Anthropology as a CFD Fellow this Fall ’25. Through the sociologies of race, punishment, inequality, and Indigenous studies, she asks how the law and social institutions construct racial categories; how people navigate and experience those categories; and how those categories shape socioeconomic and health outcomes. Trained as a mixed methods researcher, her work seeks to uncover pathways to more equitable, just, and liberated communities.
Dr. Henderson’s dissertation examines race and racial and indigenous identity in the context of incarceration. Drawing from interviews, legal documents, and prison newspapers, she explores how Native Hawaiian cultural practices and identities persist in an institution that is historically meant to “strip away the self.” Another vein of her research examines the relationship between racialized mass incarceration and inequality. In a current project, she studies the health of incarcerated people through the lens of community wellbeing.
Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship, the Reducing Inequality Network, and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Dr. Henderson worked at the Vera Institute of Justice. She also helped produce the Decarcerated Podcast. Dr. Henderson received her B.A. in Sociology from Harvard College.

Dr. Henderson’s courses include SOC 101: Introductory Sociology and SOC 370: ST: Race, Indigeneity and Punishment