Zoë West

Zoë West, PhD 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. 

Zoë is an elected academic representative of the Labor Research and Action Network (LRAN) Advisory Committee, an Einhorn Center Faculty Fellow in Engaged Scholarship, and an affiliate of Data & Society.