Shelly is an economic sociologist focusing on the changing nature of work in American society. An expert in labor, culture, and public policy, she holds a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines how people understand their position in the labor market and the economy more broadly. Her dissertation examined experiences of precarious and insecure work in the oil and tech industries. She has been a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, a Kinder Scholar at Rice University, and an Assessment and Evaluation Fellow at UC Berkeley. Her research has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, the Journal of Consumer Culture, and the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, and she has presented her work across the US and internationally. Prior to becoming a sociologist, Shelly taught middle school science on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota as a Teach for America corps member. She holds an AB from Harvard College.