I am a
Research Professor of Sociology (
Directrice de recherche)
at the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). Since 2011, I've held my CNRS position at the Centre Maurice Halbwachs – a Research Center affiliated to the CNRS, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS-PSL) in Paris.
Prior to my CNRS position, I was an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at the
Institute of French Studies, NYU (2009-2011), where I returned to teach as a Visiting Professor in 2017. In 2021-22, I spent a sabbatical in New York, as a
Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Advanced Research Collaborative, Graduate Center, City University of New York, and as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of French Studies, New York University. During this time, I conducted fieldwork for my new research project on corporate sustainability workers and practices.
I teach graduate seminars at
Sciences Po Paris, and I am a board member of the Sociology of gender and sexuality master's program at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (
EHESS).
My research interests lie at the intersection of political sociology, the sociology of gender and race, and the sociology of work/organizations.
I am the author or co-author of several books, including a French handbook in gender studies,
Introduction aux études sur le genre (co-authored with S. Chauvin, A. Jaunait and A. Revillard, 3
rd edition, 2020). My first research book,
La bataille de la parité (
The battle for gender parity), which was published in 2015 (Paris, Economica), explores the campaigns that led to the adoption of the gender parity reform in France, which mandated a 50% gender quota on electoral lists. Based on my reflection on this case, I introduced the concept of
women's cause field [espace de la cause des femmes], which offers new theoretical insights on the architecture of collective protest in an era of social movement institutionalization.
My latest book,
Managing Corporate Virtue: The Politics of Workplace Diversity in New York and Paris (Oxford University Press 2025) is a revised, enriched translation from a French book published in 2023 (
Le management de la vertu, Presses de Sciences Po). Drawing on an in-depth, qualitative study of diversity managers and their work experiences in New York and Paris, the book exposes the contradictions of corporate virtue practices - offering a critical reflection on the promises of responsible capitalism. Its historical and comparative approach provides new insight into the current DEI crisis in the US.
I am coordinating a collective research project (
ProVirCap) funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche and involving a team of 13 scholars (2021-2025). Based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, the ProVirCap project offers a
new take on “responsible capitalism” by placing the lens on its managers, their work activities, and their professional environments in the United States, France, and Spain.
Recent publications:
Managing Corporate Virtue: The Politics of Workplace Diversity in New York and Paris, Oxford University Press, 2025.
"Diversity Wins? A Progressive Critique of the Business Case for Virtue",
Entreprises et histoire, 117(4), 2024.
"“Why not a blonde woman?” Identity realism and diversity work in New York and in Paris",
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 47(10), 2024.
"The women's cause in a field: rethinking the architecture of collective protest in the era of movement institutionalization",
Social Movement Studies, 20(2), 2021.
"Beyond confrontation: Capturing the diversity of interactions between the activist and economic worlds",
Revue française de sociologie, 61(4), 2020. With Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier.
