Image description: a photo of Carlo Sariego, wearing a black corduroy shirt, standing in front of lush foliage in New Haven, CT.

Photo by Lukey Ellsberg.

About

Hi there!

I’m an interdisciplinary sociologist and PhD candidate in Sociology & Gender Studies at Yale University.

Research Areas: Gender/Sexuality, Political Sociology, Medical Sociology, Race & Ethnicity, Borders and Migration, Science and Technology Studies, Disability Studies, Transgender Studies, Reproduction and the Family.

Subfields: Racial Nationalism, State Power, Queer and Feminist Theory, Qualitative Research Methods, Histories of Science and Medicine, Queer of Color Critique.

My research and teaching explore the racialized and gendered social, cultural, and historical forces that shape reproductive politics and the family.

Situated at the intersection of transgender studies, medical sociology, disability studies, feminist science and technology studies (STS), and gender/sexuality studies, I use qualitative and queer/feminist methods to examine how fluctuating bodies and shifting borders produce social consequences in the U.S. and transnationally.

My two most recent articles reflect my core interests in race, reproduction, and state power.

  • In Signs, I analyze distinct forms of reproductive coercion targeting Latina migrants across two political eras.

  • In Feminist Theory, I explore the limits and possibilities of contemporary reproductive discourse and propose a transfeminist approach to pregnancy.

You can find a full list of my publications here.

Background

I completed my undergraduate education in liberal arts at Sarah Lawrence College in 2017. In 2019, I earned a Master’s degree with distinction from the University of Cambridge, where I studied in the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) under the advisement of Professor Sarah Franklin. There, I trained in feminist theory and qualitative, queer methods, and wrote a thesis on racialized state reproductive violence—work that has since been published in Signs.

I’m currently a PhD candidate in the joint program in Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, among the first cohorts to graduate from this unique interdisciplinary program. At Yale, I’ve received both an MA and MPhil, and continued to deepen my commitments to feminist, queer, and decolonial approaches to sociological inquiry.

My research is inextricable from who I am. I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. I’m Cuban American and trans—identities that have shaped my longstanding fascination with bodies, borders, and kinship. My father came to the U.S. as a Pedro Pan child, and his early separation from family sparked my enduring interest in the politics of reproduction and the nation-state.

I currently live in New Haven, Connecticut, with my one-pound chihuahua, Valentino, and make fiber art in my spare time.

Research

Trans Reproduction and Family

My dissertation and book project, Conceiving Transgender Reproduction in America, traces the past, present, and future of trans fertility and reproductive politics in the U.S. Bridging transgender studies, medical sociology, disability studies, and the history of science and race, I reframe reproduction as a speculative, imaginative, and political site.

Drawing on archival research, legal analysis, and 100+ interviews, I explore how trans reproductive life is shaped by racialized fertility science, anti-trans legislation, and queer kinship. A chapter from this work, published in Feminist Theory, offers a transfeminist perspective on pregnancy.

Bodies, Borders, and Babies

My second research area explores how reproductive politics reinforce racial nationalism. I focus on the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration policy, and transnational fertility.

In my work published in Signs, I introduce the concept of “reproductive outsiders” through analysis of two cases involving Latina migrants; one denied abortion in detention, the other forcibly sterilized. This work reveals how state power regulates reproduction differently across race, era, and political context.

Disability × Trans Studies

As a graduate researcher with Enduring Conditions, a Mellon-funded disability justice collaboratory led by Kalindi Vora, I co-create accessible, community-driven pedagogy and research.

Rooted in the politics of disability and chronic illness, this work emphasizes interdependence, shared care, and the labor of access. I integrate these frameworks with trans studies to challenge normative assumptions about health, time, and embodiment.

For more details on currently published and forthcoming work, click here!

Teaching

I have designed and taught both introductory and advanced courses for undergraduates, community college students, and high schoolers. At Yale, I served as sole instructor for Introduction to Critical Sociology for two semesters and co-taught the advanced seminar Queer Science with Juno Richards.

My teaching encourages students to ask sharper questions, follow their curiosity, and develop critical perspectives that extend beyond the classroom. I am also a CRC Mellon Teaching Race Graduate Pedagogy Fellow.

For my full teaching philosophy, background, and class descriptions, click here.

Service & Policy Work

I am a Health Policy Research Scholar with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where I received interdisciplinary training in both policy analysis and public engagement; skills I bring to my work as a teacher and policy thinker. At Yale, I’m affiliated with the Research Initiative on the Histories of Sexuality and the Ethnography Hub, and I co-lead both the WGSS Colloquium and the Graduate Policy Fellows Program.

I’ve helped organize numerous academic events, including the Reproductive Futures pre-conference at the 2024 ASA, the Expanded Reproduction panel at NWSA 2024, After After Trans Studies at ASA 2025, Disability 102: Disability Justice seminar at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Summer Institute, and the upcoming 2026 Reproduction Mini-Conference at ESS featuring the special theme “Disability Wordmaking and Reproductive Justice.”

Yale Sociology Profile

Yale WGSS Profile

History of Sexuality Initiative

Health Policy Research Scholars

Institute for Social and Policy Studies Profile