Zoë West is a Senior Researcher of Worker Rights and Equity at the Worker Institute, ILR School at Cornell University. For over 15 years, Zoë’s research and education work has centered on labor and migration, with a particular focus on the low-wage economy, precarious work, and care work. Her research examines the structural roots of exploitation and precarity and explores how race, ethnicity, gender, and immigration status shape workers’ experiences. She also explores emerging models of policy, training, and collective representation. Zoë’s work relies on qualitative and participatory methods to contextualize workers’ lived experiences within broader systemic structures. Zoë holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford.
Recent projects include studies on home care workers, including research on consumer-directed home care and on financialization in the home care sector; standards-raising initiatives for domestic workers; and the impact of generative AI on workers in the fashion industry.
Publications
- Zoë West & Ariana Shapiro. (2025). Regenerative Organizing: A Pilot Program Promoting Personal Healing and Collective Resilience for Care Workers.
- Michael Lenmark, Megan Thorsfeldt, Anne DeCecco, Russell Weaver, Jillian Morley, Zoë West, Anne Marie Brady, & Avalon Hoek Spaans. (2025). Empire State Poll 2025.
- Zoë West, Ketchel Carey, & Anne Marie Brady. (2024). Domestic Workers Rising: An Evaluation of the We Rise Peer Training Program.
- Zoë West & Michael Lenmark. (2024). New York Care Workers: The Weight of Stress and Unpaid Caregiving.
- Zoë West, Michael Lenmark, & KC Wagner. (2024). The Impact of Sexual and Racial Harassment and Violence on Working New Yorkers.
- Zoë West & Anne Marie Brady. (2023). Unpaid Care Work and Its Impact on New Yorkers’ Paid Employment.
- Zoë West & KC Wagner. (2023). The Impact of Sexual Harassment and Gendered Violence on Working New Yorkers.
- Zoë West, Russell Weaver, & KC Wagner. (2022). Unvarnished: Precarity and Poor Working Conditions for Nail Salon Workers in New York.
- Sanjay Pinto, Zoë West, & KC Wagner. (2021). Healing into Power: An Approach for Confronting Workplace Sexual Violence. New Labor Forum, 30(2), 42-52. (DOI:10.1177/10957960211007494)
- Sanjay Pinto, KC Wagner, Russell Weaver, & Zoë West. (2021). A High Road for Home Care: Program Assessment of the Healthcare Workers Rising Transportation Pilot.
- Zoë West, Sanjay Pinto, & KC Wagner. (2020). Sweeping Change: Building Survivor and Worker Leadership to Confront Sexual Harassment in the Janitorial Industry.
- Sanjay Pinto, Zoë West, Phoebe Strom, & Sara Ziff. (2020). Fashioning a Response: Results from the Model Alliance COVID-19 Survey and a Call to Action.
- Sanjay Pinto, KC Wagner, & Zoë West. (2019). Stopping Sexual Harassment in the Empire State: Past, Present, and a Possible Future.