Summer Sullivan (she/her) is a PhD candidate in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz. Summer’s research takes advantage of the evolving context in which technologies are transforming social and environmental relations, especially for already exploited, racialized workers. Her dissertation traces the uneven ways in which agricultural automation is unfolding, but also its profound limits within the delicate, leafy farming systems of California’s Salinas Valley. Through interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, her research shows how the materiality of crops like lettuce continues to organize labor and limit technology. Contributing to analyses of the uneven racial and class dynamics of the “future of work,” the project centers the emergent, uncertain relationships among farmworkers, the plants they care for, and the fragile futures of capitalism.

Summer also holds an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. from Lehigh University. She organizes with UAW 4811.