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Graduate Students
Ph.D. Students in Sociology
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Guy Abutbul Selinger
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Meredith Bergey
B.A., Community Health with a focus in International Health (Brown University). M.Sc., Medical Anthropology (Oxford University). M.P.H., (Brown University). C. Everett Koop Health Policy Fellow (Brown University). Meredith's interests include medical sociology, public health, mental health, environmental sociology, and research methods. She spent several field seasons in the Samoan Islands assisting in research related to cardiovascular disease risk. Other past research surrounded psychosocial stress, ADHD, smoking cessation-related health policy, and outcomes research. Before coming to Brandeis, Meredith worked as an epidemiologist at the Rhode Island Department of Health and as a research specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. |
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Alison Better
B.A., Sociology (Skidmore College). M.A., Sociology and Women's Studies (Brandeis University). Alison is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at Brandeis University as well as the university's Consultant for GLBTQ Affairs. Her research focuses on sex and sexualities, gender, bodies, and the pursuit of pleasure. Her dissertation "Shopping for Pleasure: Sex Shops as a Key to Understanding Contemporary American Women's Sexuality" examines how sexualities are understood and embodied through women's visits to sex stores, purchases of sexual merchandise, and personal experiences. |
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Casey Clevenger
B.A., Comparative History of Ideas (University of Washington). M.A., Public Policy and Women's Studies (George Washington University). Prior to attending Brandeis, Casey worked at the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in Washington, D.C. where she was awarded the 2007-2008 IWPR/GW Fellowship in Women's Policy Research. Casey's general research interests include sociology of gender, sociology of culture and religion, and political sociology. Her current projects focus on service and community engagement among emerging adults; immigration, religion, and the social service sector; and intersections between social activism and religious vocation. |
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Brian Fair
B.A., English Literature (Wesleyan University). Brian's general interests are gender, culture, work, and medical sociology. Drawing on a year-long ethnography of high school wrestling, he is completing two articles on wrestlers' constructions of masculinity. His current fieldwork investigates the importance of sport to inner-city youth. Brian has two forthcoming publications, "Morgellons: Contested Illness, Diagnostic Compromise, and Medicalisation." in the Sociology of Health and Illness and "Religion, Spirituality, Health and Medicine: Sociological Intersections" with Wendy Cadge in the Handbook of Medical Sociology. |
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Nicole Fox B.A., Women's Studies and African American Studies (University of California, Davis). M.A., Gender and Global Studies (State University of New York at Buffalo). Nicky's general interests include the sociology of gender, social movements, nationalism and the sociology of violence. Her present research includes projects analyzing post-conflict zones, particularly post-genocide communities. Nicky's master's thesis was on the intergenerational transmission of trauma and memory in the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Her current project is on Rwandan genocide survivors and how memory, commemoration and religion function in the process of reconciliation. |
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Amanda Gengler B.A., (University of Wisconsin-Madison). MSSW, (University of Wisconsin- Madison). Amanda's interests include race, class, and gender inequality, collective action and social change, social psychology, and ethnographic methods. Her most recent work explores how women in a battered women's shelter resisted institutional control to protect their identities as capable mothers and autonomous adults. Before coming to Brandeis, she taught introductory sociology, race and ethnicity, social problems, and travel courses on racism and social change at Barton College in Wilson, NC. |
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Jennifer Girouard
B.A., Sociology (Marlboro College). Jennifer is a fourth-year PhD student in the Sociology Department at Brandeis University. Her main areas of interest include Political Sociology, Sociology of Culture, Sociology of Law and communities of place. |
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Clare Hammonds
B.S., Industrial and Labor Relations (Cornell University). M.S., Labor Studies (University of Massachusetts, Amherst). She is interested in the intersections of gender and union organizing in the contemporary U.S. labor movement. Her previous work looked at organizing among family child-care providers. She is currently working on completing GACs in social movements, gender, and work and occupations. |
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Emily Kolker
B.A., Women's Studies (San Francisco State University, 1994). M.A., Sociology and Women's Studies (Brandeis University, 1999). Emily's research interests include family and health, genetics, the experience of medical risk, breast cancer, and the social construction of health of illness. While at Brandeis, Emily published an article about the funding successes of the breast cancer movement in the U.S. in Sociology of Health & Illness. Emily also co-authored an article on evidence-based medicine with Stefan Timmermans in the Journal of Health & Social Behavior. Emily was awarded a dissertation grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Emily is currently writing her dissertation, which examines how women at risk for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer construct and negotiate risk identity over time. |
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Rachel Kulick
B.S., Psychology (Union College) and M.Ed., (Harvard Graduate School of Education). Rachel's areas of interest include contemporary social movements; gender and race relationality; youth media and activism; visual culture in social change work; and engaged feminist research methods. In 2007, she was a co-principal investigator for a collaborative media project - Youth Channel All-City: Building a Municipal Infrastructure for Media Education, Production, and Distribution - funded by the Social Science Research Council. She is currently conducting research on the intramovement dynamics of how young people collectively produce oppositional media as an organizing tool for media change and justice. |
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Meg Lovejoy
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Barbara Morgan-Browning
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Vanesa Lopes Munoz
B.A., International Studies and B.A., Spanish, summa cum laude (Emory University). M.A., Sociology (University of Maryland College Park). After graduating from Emory, Vanessa moved to Washington D.C. to work in health policy at the National Partnership for Women and Families & Pro-Choice Virginia. She was awarded a two-year research fellowship at the University of Maryland's Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, where she conducted research on health disparities. Her current research interests include medical sociology, sociology of gender, sociology of the family, and work/occupations. |
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Megan Renfrew
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Caitlin Orlandella Slodden
B.A., Anthropology and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Colby College 2004). M.A., American Civilization (Brown University 2006). Caitlin's areas of interest include medical sociology, death and dying, gender and family, and emotional labor. She is currently researching hospice organizations and the causes and consequences of the medicalization and professionalization of death and dying. Her dissertation will explore dying as a social process, with particular focus given to the ways in which it is managed and organized by various deathcare professionals. |
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Jill Smith
B.A., Humanistic Studies (Johns Hopkins University, 1998). A.M., History (Brown University, 2000), M.A., Applied Sociology (University of Massachusetts - Boston, 2006). Jill's areas of interest include Sociology of Education, Stratification/Mobility, Sociology of Culture, and Social Theory. One of Jill's long-term projects is a qualitative study of the alumni of a college access program hosted by an urban state university. Jill has presented her work at the Eastern Sociological Society and American Sociological Association annual meetings. |
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Roberto Soto-Carrión
B.A., Sociology/Latin American Studies (Wesleyan University), M.A., Sociology (The University of Chicago). Tito's general research interests include Race/Ethnicity, Popular Culture, Latin America/Latino Cultural Production, Stratification, Inequality, Globalization, Critical Pedagogy, and Gender/Sexuality Studies. While at Wesleyan Tito was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and the recipient of the Janina Montero Prize for outstanding activism and commitment to the Latino community. His current research explores the formation and proliferation of tourism in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil and the central role that race plays in the construction of the tourist market. His work investigates how racialized cultural activities are marketed by the tourism industry as "authentic" to promote tourism to Salvador and the ways in which conceptions of Blackness and citizenship are challenged and (re)negotiated. Tito is also a full- time volunteer and coordinator for the International Youth Leadership Institute (IYLI), a not-for-profit organization that prepares African American and Latino secondary students to assume active leadership roles in their community and global society. As a group leader with IYLI Tito has traveled with High School students to several countries in Africa and Latin America. |
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Ken Sun B.A., Linguistics (National Tsing-Hua University). M.A., Journalism (National Taiwan University). Joint M.A., Sociology and Women's and Gender studies (Brandeis University). Ken is a doctoral candidate in the department of Sociology at Brandeis University. His research interests include international migration, sociology of families, sociology of gender, race and class, medical sociology, and qualitative methods. In his dissertation project, Ken explores the processes through which Taiwanese immigrants experience and manage aging in the transnational social field. |
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Dana Zarhin B.A., Film and Television Studies (Tel-Aviv University, Israel). M.A., Sociology (Tel-Aviv University, Israel). Dana wrote her master's thesis on identity construction among Israeli street prostitutes, drawing on an ethnographic study of street prostitution and interviews with sex workers. Dana s dissertation examines the social experience of sleep disorders by observing sleep clinics and interviewing patients. Her research interests include medical sociology, sociology of the body, and intersections of gender, class, and ethnicity |
Ph.D. Students in Sociology and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
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Joshua Cypess B.A., Anthropology (Princeton University), M.A., Philosophy (Yeshiva University). Josh's interests are in sociology of religion and sociology of knowledge. In 1996, he received a Wexner Graduate Fellowship to pursue ordination and worked as an Orthodox pulpit rabbi for eight years, in New York and New Haven, CT, before returning for his doctorate. Josh is in the joint program in Jewish Studies and Sociology and he is studying end-of-life decision making, and perceptions of science and religion, in the Orthodox Jewish community. |
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Emily Sigalow B.A., Sociology/Anthropology and Mathematics (Swarthmore College). M.A., Jewish History (Ben Gurion University, Israel) Emily's research interests include religion, culture and gender, with a specific focus on contemporary Jewish communities. Before coming to Brandeis, Emily spent nearly five years living and working in Israel. |
Ph.D Students in Sociology and Heller School for Social Policy
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Tom Mackie
B.A., Psychology and French Studies (Wesleyan University, CT). Master of Public Health (Boston University School of Public Health). Master of Arts in Social Policy (Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University). Tom's general interests include the sociology of health and illness, sociology of public health, organizational theory and behavior, and mixed-research methods. His ongoing research explores the use of psychotropic medications among children and youth in the child welfare system, and state-level systems for coordinating healthcare to children in out-of-home placements. |
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Ashley Rondini
B.A., Sociology (Clark University). M.A., Women's Studies (University of Sussex). M.A., Social Policy, Assets and Inequalities Concentration (The Heller School of Social Policy and Management). GAC in Qualitative Research Methods; GAC in Race and Gender Relationality/Intersectionality. Research interests include Gender, Race, Social Stratification, Educational Access and Mobility, Violence Against Women, Feminist and Ethnographic Research Methods, Sexuality and Sexual Health, and Hip Hop Cultural Studies. Ashley has worked as a mentor for students in the Posse Scholars program at Brandeis since 2003, and as the Social Science Instructor for the Transitional Year Program since 2005. |
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Diana Schor B.A., Social Work and Political Studies (Gordon College, MA). M.A., Sustainable International Development (Brandeis University). M.A., Social Policy (Brandeis University). Diana's GAC areas include the sociology of youth and social movements. Her current dissertation work focuses on youth civic engagement and climate change. |
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Thomas Piñeros Shields
B.A., Human Development and Family Studies with Adolescence Concentration (Cornell University's College of Human Ecology). M.A., Urban and Environmental Policy (Tufts University). Tom's research interests include social movements, immigrant political action, the social construction of youth and youth civic engagement. Tom has worked as a professional program evaluator at the Center for Youth and Communities at Brandeis University for eight years where he has developed and conducted mixed-methods program evaluations for organizations and schools that work to build youth civic engagement, especially service-learning, and youth entrepreneurship of middle school, high school and college youth. In addition, he has developed university-community partnerships that engage youth in participatory action research projects. |
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Hannah Thomas
Hannah's main focus is understanding foreclosures and credit markets, and her interest areas include poverty and inequality, asset building and social movements. Her general areas of comprehension (GAC) are in social movements and urban sociology. She is a HUD pre-dissertation doctoral grant recipient, and a 2007 Rappaport fellow. She has published on community development finance, foreclosures and common assets. She currently works with the Institute for Assets and Social Policy on homeownership and foreclosure and teaches Wealth and Poverty. Her dissertation title is: Foreclosure sales through the Eyes of Real Estate Agents in Boston: An Institutional Ethnography. |
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Miranda Waggoner B.A., Sociology and Government (The University of Texas-Austin) and M.A., Social Policy (Brandeis University). Miranda is a joint Ph.D. candidate in sociology and social policy. Her research areas include medical sociology, sociology of families, and social policy, with a focus on maternal-child health, reproductive health, and public health practices. She has recently completed a co-authored study on the predictors of rapid subsequent births among adolescents. Miranda's dissertation examines the emergence of preconception care and the social implications of changing public health approaches to prenatal care and women's health. |
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Yasmin Zaidi
M.B.A., (Pakistan). M.A., Social Policy/Women & Gender Studies (Brandeis University). Yasmin's interests include social inequality, sociology of gender, social movements, and globalization. Active in women's networks in Pakistan and South Asia, her previous work focused on reproductive rights, gender violence, and local governance. Yasmin's dissertation examines how employment in 'globalized' worksites such as callcenters shapes identities and gender relations in Pakistan. She has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and Mellon Dissertation research grant |
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Rebekah Zincavage
B.A., Sociology & American Studies (Wesleyan University). M.A., Sociology (Boston College). M.A. Social Policy (Brandeis University). Rebekah's interests include social inequality, aging and long term care, work-family balance, the sociology of marriage and family, health policy and research methods. Her MA thesis entailed an ethnographic study of in home elder care providers and she has co-authored articles published in Gender & Society (2007) and the Gerontologist (2008). Rebekah is the recipient of an Altman Fellowship in Health Policy and has worked as a research associate for projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Metro-West Foundation, Commonwealth Fund and Ford Foundation. |
M.A. Students in Sociology
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Jennifer Kim B.A., Media and Society, minor in Asian Studies (Mount Holyoke College, 2002). At Mount Holyoke College, Jennifer focused on the symbiotic relationship between media and society. Working in the Office of Academic Services at Brandeis University since 2005, she began pursuing a part-time M.A. in Sociology with a tentative focus on the Asian/Asian-American experience, education, social class, and immigration. She hopes to eventually study this in the form of a documentary. |
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Xiaoliang Li B.A., Law (Southwest University of Politics and Law, 2003). Xiaoliang is an IFP/IIE fellow from China. Before coming to Brandeis, he worked in Lhasa for a few years. He conducted or participated in several different research projects in the field of Tibetology, mainly focused on the ethnic Tibetan schooling and the commercial intercourse between South Asia and TAR. He is looking forward to contributing more to the prosperity of TAR after graduation. |
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Elizabeth Morgan |
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Heidi Rademacher |
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Monica Timbo B.A., Honors, History (Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone). As a second year M.A. student in Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies, Monica's interests are gender and: development, human rights, politics. Monica has been a gender activist with a non-governmental organization engaged in democracy and human rights in Sierra Leone. |
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Julie Vera B.S., Music (Northeastern University, 2009). Julie's previous research focused on the women of the modern music business, protest music of the Vietnam War era, and analyzing the social networks in New York City's art music scene. Her interests include sociology of the music industry, social networks, sociology of culture and social movements. |
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Elena Wilson |
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Regina Wright B.A., Integrative Biology (University of California-Berkeley, 2005). Regina's interests are in sex and gender, sexualities, mental health, and education. |
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Shari Zingle B.A., Communications, minor in Journalism (Penn State, 1981). Shari is currently pursuing her M.A. in Sociology part-time, while working in the office of Academic Services at Brandeis. Her primary concentration is sociology of the family, with special interest in ethnicity, sexuality and identity. |
