Professor Vargas is a social scientist and data artist interested in research on cities, law, and race, especially through a spatial lens. His writing, art works, and teaching focus on identifying and describing the forces shaping the conditions of communities. To date, the bulk of his work has focused on violent crime and health care. His multi award-winning book "Wounded City: Violent Turf Wars in a Chicago Barrio" brought a political analysis to the study of urban violence by showing how ward redistricting shapes levels of block-level violence in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. He has also published in a variety of journals such as Social Problems, Criminology, and the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. His forthcoming book "Uninsured in Chicago: How the Social Safety Net Leaves Latinos Behind" (March 2022 with NYU Press) is a longitudinal and intersectional ethnography of uninsured Chicagoans' experiences with the Affordable Care Act. Read more about Professor Vargas here.