Dr. Paula Ioanide's research focuses on institutional forms of gendered racism in the post-civil rights era, including mass incarceration and policing, immigrant exclusion and detention, welfare reform, and warfare. Particularly, Ioanide investigates the ways dominant fantasies and feelings about race and sexuality are created and disseminated in order to help legitimate exploitation, exclusion and elimination. Ioanide also examines grassroots movements and practices of ethical witnessing that secure cultures of healing, dignity, self-determination and freedom.

Prof. Ioanide teaches courses in comparative race & ethnicity studies at the Center for the Study of Culture, Race & Ethnicity. Her book, Racial Fantasies and Feelings: Affective Economies in the Post-Civil Rights Era is currently under review with University of California Press.