Dr. Purifoye is an urban sociologist who specializes in ethnographic studies of public spaces and public transportation. Her research projects are interdisciplinary and intersectional. Much of her work focuses on how Blacks experience transit inequities and social aggression on and around public transportation and public places of leisure. At the heart of her work is understanding how the human dignity of racial minorities is undermined, and how it is regained and re-imagined by the communities themselves.