Erin Cech joined the sociology department at the University of Michigan in 2016. Before coming to the University of Michigan, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University and was on faculty at Rice University. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2011 from the University of California, San Diego and undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Sociology from Montana State University.
Cech's research examines cultural mechanisms of inequality reproduction--specifically, how inequality is reproduced through processes that are not overtly discriminatory or coercive, but rather those that are built into seemingly innocuous cultural beliefs and practices. She investigates this puzzle through three avenues of research. She is a member of the editorial board of the American Sociological Review and her research has been cited in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Time, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Forbes, Chronicle of Higher Education and the news sections of Science and Nature.