Dr. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at BMCC/CUNY. Newfield’s book, Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020), systemically explores the lives of others raised in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities who decided as young adults to leave that way of life. Newfield is also a podcast host with the New Books Network, interviewing scholars of Jewish and religious studies. He received his PhD in Sociology from New York University, with a focus on cultural sociology and the study of identity, narrative, and resocialization. Prior to arriving at BMCC, he taught sociology courses for two years in six New Jersey state prisons through Rutgers University Newark’s New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons (NJSTEP) program.