Sofia Locklear is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and also has family roots in Kenora, Ontario. She graduated with her PhD in Sociology from the University of New Mexico and was a recipient of the American Sociological Association's Minority Fellowship as well as the University of New Mexico's Critical Race Scholar Award in 2020-2021. Sofia's research investigates racial inequities, whiteness, and the racialization of Indigenous people. She is also a public health practitioner whose work focuses on Indigenous Evaluation Methodologies, social determinants of health, and medical sociology.
Her areas of teaching include, decolonizing research methodologies, whiteness studies, and centering Indigenous perspectives and voices.