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Biography

Heidi Nicholls (she/her) is a haole (white/settler) scholar and sociologist of race and U.S. empire. Her research analyzes race through the material and cultural processes of empire, claims to sovereignty, and people(s)' relationships to state power. Her first book project, Inherent Empire, demonstrates how racialization reorients politics in ways that reinforce the power of the empire-state by comparing settler uses of race in Hawai'i and Virginia. 

Nicholls received a PhD in sociology at the University of Virginia in 2022 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a postdoctoral fellow. Her research can be found in , , and . Her current research agenda intersects with health, medicine and environmental sociology through her work analyzing the experiences of those directly impacted by the Red Hill water crisis on the island of O‘ahu, Hawai'i.

Select Publications

• Nicholls, Heidi. (2022). "Antiracism amidst empire? Understanding the United States’ relationship to whiteness." , e13017. 
• Nicholls, Heidi. (2021), "Colonial and Decolonial Resignification: US Empire-state Sovereignty in Hawai'i." White, A.I.R. and King, K.Q. (Ed.), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 191-220. 
• Nicholls, Heidi. (2023), “Citizen, Subject, Human: For a Humanist Sociology at the End of the Eurocene.”
• Lee, Kristina and Heidi Nicholls. (2023), “Reflections from the CHS Mini Conference Organizers, Philadelphia 2023.” T, Vol 34 No. 1 Fall 2023. 
• Nicholls, Heidi and Matthew Ito (2020) “.” Religion, Race, and Democracy Lab, University of Virginia. 

Education

• Sociology PhD, University of Virginia
• Sociology MS, University of Virginia
• Social Science BA, Westmont College