Daina Coffey is the Associate Director at LOSH, where she supports the Director in leading the center’s dynamic and growing portfolio of worker training initiatives, research, university teaching, and community collaborations. She is especially interested in addressing disparities in working conditions in immigrant worker communities and improving access to career pathways among underserved populations.

Before joining LOSH, Daina spent over ten years working with nonprofit organizations researching the health status of and providing direct services to formerly homeless and incarcerated adults with substance-use disorders. In particular, she served as the Assistant Director of Administration for New Bridge Foundation, a substance-use recovery program in Berkeley, CA.

Daina holds a PhD in U.S. History from the University of Chicago and a BA degree in History and Spanish from the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarly research traces the material experiences of low-wage workers and the unemployed in Depression-era Los Angeles, with a focus on how they found work, sustenance, and shelter, how they navigated social welfare systems, and how they organized to cope with an unstable labor market. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Daina also helped develop and teach classes such as U.S. Labor History and the History of American Capitalism and co-directed an oral history project on the experience of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Outside of work, Daina enjoys exploring new cities, trying new recipes, reading, and dancing.