Dr. Melissa M. Valle is an assistant professor, jointly appointed in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Department of African American and African Studies, at Rutgers University-Newark. Dr. Valle’s work demonstrates the mutually reinforcing relationship between distributive injustice and demeaning representations. Her current book project is a relational ethnography that explores the criteria people use to determine what and who has worth, at different spatial scales, in the context of urban spatial and economic change in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. It demonstrates how race, ethnicity, gender and class are encoded in the value of urban spaces. In exploring the racialized dynamics of urban change, Dr. Valle addresses the ways in which race is relationally defined, strategically activated, ideologically articulated and empirically manifested. She is also currently working on a collaborative survey-based research project in conjunction with the afrolatin@ forum that is designed to test ways to accurately measure the Afro-Latinx population and paint a more vivid picture of the Afro-Latinx experience. Dr. Valle has also conducted research on Afro-descendants living in Santiago, Chile, exploring the mechanisms that lead to reduced life chances for marginalized groups and how such groups negotiate stigma perspectives that suggest their identities have been devalued.