Dr. Gifford is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Sociology. Her research focuses on the global processes involved in transnational migration, lived migrant experiences, and global hierarchies of social class, gender, race, and sexual identities. Her research has focused on Southeast Asia, primarily transnational migration trends from the Philippines island. She also has a publication in a Social Psychology journal, examining the relationship between parent-child bonds and college success. Dr. Gifford's general topics of interest involve examining the role of global and institutional processes in creating hierarchies of power and inequality and social activism that drive social change. She teaches Sociology classes in Methods, Theory, Global Social Problems, Globalization, Race, Gender, Sexuality, Human Trafficking, and Criminal Justice courses in Victimology. She has attended and presented at multiple Sociology conferences; served on the Social Action Committee for the Midwest Sociological Society and as a research mentor for the Illinois Science and Technology Institute; and is a member of the Alpa Kappa Delta International Sociology Honor Society.