Department of Sociology

Before entering academia, Lauren worked as a social science and art educator in public and private schools. Lauren currently researches and writes about racial capitalism, property, and racial inequality with a strong historical focus. She also has a strong interest in activism and pedagogy, and always looks for new ways to build students' sociological analysis through music, art and political theory and practice.

• BA (Psychology and Sociology), St. Xaviers College, Mumbai, India

• MBA (Communications), MICA, Ahmedabad, India

• MA (Social Sciences), University of Chicago

Before pursuing a career in academia, Sanchita worked in Indian advertising as a strategic planner for five years. Primarily a qualitative methodologist, her research interests revolve around gender, race, social movements and caste dynamics in South Asia. In particular, she is interested in the field of critical caste studies and draws theoretical inspiration from whiteness studies.

Korey's interests include sustainability, development, consumption, culture, qualitative coding and mixed methods. His previous work looked at sustainable development efforts in Sikkim, India, to further explore how actors in the region navigate the complex intersection of economic growth and the environment.

Zachary's thesis work was on media framing of Antifa. In a content analysis of top U.S. newspapers, Zachary found that reports of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the Unite the Right rally in 2017 played a major role in the framing of counter-protesters as members of Antifa absent any self-identification as such. In other words, publications were effectively creating their own Antifa. Zachary's research interests include media framing, societal unrest, social movements, social theory and mechanisms of social change.

Stephanie is interested broadly in inequality, poverty, and mobility, and specifically in labor market decisions and geographic mobility. Before coming to Brandeis, she worked at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, where she served as a senior editor of Pathways Magazine and helped direct the American Voices Project.

Kwame is from Jamaica and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology with a concentration in African Studies from Macalester College, a master's degree in International Training and Education from American University and an education specialist (Ed.S.) degree in Secondary Education from Worcester State University. After completing his master's degree, Kwame was an assistant director of admission at St. Mark's School, a private boarding school in Massachusetts; then was the Manager of Secondary School Admissions Counseling at Due West Education, an education consulting company based in Beijing, China.  Kwame is also TEFL certified and has taught in ESL in Japan, Myanmar, Jamaica and the USA. Often described as a jovial and positive individual who brings a ray of light into any room he enters, Kwame loves traveling, the performing arts, and eating good food.

Before attending Brandeis, Rachel worked in northern Thailand with an NGO advocating for the release of political prisoners in Burma. Her research interests include cultural sociology, race/ethnicity, gender relations, and sexuality, particularly in Southeast and East Asia.

Jing specializes in the sociology of culture, and economic sociology with a focus on consumer and consumption.  Her research is centered on understanding the relationships between culture, the economy, and the state. This interest has led to studies that examine consumer cultural implications of state-market relations in China. She has also created original instruments to identify and operationalize consumer cultures in different contexts, such as new media. 

Her dissertation traces the evolution of consumer cultures in China, where the state plays a prominent role in directing economic activities and status construction. With a focus on economically disadvantaged county-level towns, this dissertation examines how small-town consumers’ material experiences and consumer aspirations are influenced by institutional changes in the political economy, which shape the status hierarchy and landscape of cultural legitimacy that fosters distinct consumer cultural expressions. Jing employs mixed methods in her research, using a combination of observation, online ethnography, interview, archival, and survey data.

Danielle is an incoming sociology PhD student with broad interests including community and environmental sociology, political economy, globalization, inequality, mobility, culture, consumption, and food systems. As an undergrad, she researched the impact of U.S. trade policy on organic agriculture and subsistence farming in Cuba. For her master’s thesis, she spent 10 months conducting ethnographic research in rural Bulgaria, studying heritage narratives, rural agency, and the social construction of place as a Fulbright student researcher. She has also worked on farms, for food justice organizations, and as a cheesemonger.

Ersie is a PhD student in Sociology at Brandeis University, focusing on the intersection of climate change and labor. Ersie’s research specifically investigates the impacts of climate change on outdoor workers. Her research explores how rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and environmental changes affect the experiences of letter carriers. Ersie is passionate about understanding the social dimensions of environmental issues and aims to contribute to policy development that safeguards workers' rights and health in a changing climate. She holds a Master's in Sociology from UMass Boston, where she conducted research on the working conditions of restaurant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lijun's research interests include religion, transnational migration, China and Chinese diaspora, gender and family. Her previous work focused on Christianity among Chinese immigrants in Italy. Before coming to Brandeis, Lijun was a visiting researcher at Boston University for one semester, and worked as a Chinese language teacher at the University of Bologna for four years

Riagan is a doctoral student pursuing a PhD in sociology at Brandeis University. With an emphasis on sociocultural theory and trends, she is interested in topics related to identity, perception, gender, class, and media, with current research focusing on the nature of our online lives. Riagan also draws from her work in public relations and media to inform her research, including a background leading strategic communication programs for tech companies like TikTok and Patreon. She holds an MA in sociology from The New School for Social Research and a BA in communication and sociology from SUNY Geneseo.

Bachelor of Arts (Social Sciences) Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati

Master of Arts (Sociology and Social Anthropology) Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati

Basil's research interests include caste, neighbourhood, modernity, christianity, nationalism in India. His previous work looked at the consolidation of Hindu identity and Hindutva nationalism in Assam, India.

• Bachelor of Arts (Sociology and Music), Bard College

Before pursuing a Sociology PhD at Brandeis, Liv studied sociology and ethnomusicology at Bard College in the Hudson Valley. Liv's interests involve music history, cultural meaning-making, pedagogy studies, and the sociology of knowledge. Liv previously completed a research project at Bard that investigated popular music museums in the United States in an ethnographic and interview-based qualitative study.

Sneha is from all over the map, with the United States being her second country of residence and Boston being her fifth home in a decade. For her doctoral work, she is interested in looking at how/what social, symbolic and physical boundaries intersect in the concept of citizenship.

Jonathan Jacob is a doctoral student pursuing a joint degree in Sociology and Social Policy at the Heller School. His research interests include issues of labor, social inequality and culture. Jacob’s current research examines the inverse relationship between the usefulness of certain jobs and their pay in capitalist societies, and focuses on developing a metric to assess the social value of work. Before joining the Heller School, Jacob worked as a high school educator in Los Angeles County. He holds a MA in social sciences from the University of Chicago and a BA in business from Brandeis University.

Manning's interests include culture, creative arts, media, technology, health, migration and urbanization. Her previous work looked at the opinions on land conversion among different generations of farmers during the urbanization of a village in East China. She is currently working on a collaborative project that examines the social process behind individual eating disorders.

Rachel graduated from Cornell University in 2015 with a BA in Spanish and minors in international relations and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies. She currently works as a Brandeis staff member at the International Students and Scholars Office. Her research interests include marginalized immigrant communities (especially LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers), cultural integration, and the intersection of race, gender and culture.

Charley is a graduate student pursuing a dual master's degree in sociology and women's, gender, and sexuality studies. Their research interests are rooted in understanding marginalized peoples and identities in the United States. Focusing on transgender and queer theory, Charley is guided by black feminist critique in their interests in studying and understanding subcultures. They are particularly animated by sociology of the body, specifically the trans and queer body and how queer people create and understand queerness. They study these interests through qualitative research and alternative (queer) methodologies, inspired by their work as a peer support partner in the healthcare system in Maine where they studied compassionate interviewing skills as they worked closely with teens experiencing psychosis.