Shaquilla’s research examines how organizations—NGOs and for-profit corporations—primarily from the global north manufacture African people into globalized workers for the digital economy. Her research goals are to disrupt narratives of Western hegemony and incorporate concepts of coloniality and decoloniality into sociological perspectives. She does this work by integrating multiple research methods, mainly qualitative interviews, participant observation, and digital ethnography. Her research agenda has three lines of inquiry: 1) How are African young people being trained for the global digital workforce? 2) How does elastic transnational stratification shape the distribution of decision-making power across international organizations? 3) How do African organizations curate their workers’ experiences in response to DEI initiatives? These questions drive her broader aim of understanding how labor markets, institutions, and power relations evolve under globalization and technological transformation. Shaquilla received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2025.