Current Graduate Students
Ates Altinordu
Dissertation topic: “Religious Politics: Political Catholicism and Political Islam in Comparative Perspective.”
Research interests: Ates is a Ph.D. candidate who works on religion and politics, secularism, immigrant incorporation, and citizenship. His dissertation is a comparative analysis of political Catholicism in late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century Germany (1870-1914) and political Islam in contemporary Turkey (1970-2008). Based on these empirical cases, the study analyzes and explains two major puzzles in the study of religious politics: the rise of successful religious parties and the incorporation of anti-system religious parties into mainstream polities. Ates received the 2009 Reinhard Bendix Award for the Best Graduate Student Paper given by the Comparative and Historical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association for his article “The Politicization of Religion: Political Catholicism and Political Islam in Comparison.” His publications include “After Secularization?”(with Philip S. Gorski), Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 34 (2008), 55-85.
Education: B.A. and M.A. Sociology (Yale Univeristy)
Dana Asbury
Research interests: Ethnography, life in the city, communities, community organizing, activist lifestyles, consensus building and collective decision making, theories of deviance and difference, and the sociology of knowledge.
Education: B.A. Sociology, magna cum laude (The University of Pennsylvania)
Dominik Bartmanski
Research interests: Dominik Bartmanski is interested in social theory and cultural sociology. His primary areas of interest are social hermeneutics, epistemology, political philosophy of liberalism, and social change. He has also focused on the issues related to various aspects of the European integration.
Education: M.A. Political Science (Jagiellonian University), Double M.A. Sociology and European Studies (Jagiellonian University and University of Exeter)
Saglar Bougdaeva
Research interests: My research interests focus primarily on Russia (Central Asia and the Caucasus) and secondarily on the United States. Areas of concentration include the relationship between mortality and ethnicity, social determinants of health, and the wellbeing of indigenous and ethnic minority populations. These problems are examined from both sociological and public health perspectives. My long-term goals are to gain a better understanding of the relationship between poverty, gender, and the individual and societal factors as they affect wellbeing of indigenous and minority populations. Employing training from sociology and public health, I plan to integrate knowledge about the importance of cultural practices with strong analytical research methods. Furthermore, I hope that results from my research will enable policy-makers to better address persistent ethnic inequalities and protect indigenous populations and cultures in an increasingly globalized world.
These research interests have evolved from my dissertation in Sociology, directed by Professor Ivan Szelenyi, entitled “Ethnicity and Mortality in Russia: Socialism, Breakdown, and Russia’s Return to the Growth Trajectory.” This dissertation is a comparative longitudinal study of mortality in Russia from the empire through post-socialism, a century in which demographic crises have occurred periodically while varying by a number of factors. This study focuses on the effects of nationalities/ethnicities on mortality. Using ethno-religious characteristics on regional and individual levels, this work explores whether mortality rates differ between Russian and non-Russian populations during this century, with a particular focus on the post-socialist transition.
Education: Saglar studied as an undergraduate student at Saint Petersburg University School of Oriental and African Studies in Russia, focusing on indigenous population groups of the Caucasus and Central Asia. In the United States, Saglar received MPH degree at Yale University where she studied the impact of social change on population wellbeing in Russia.
Publications:
Armbruster P, Prestin A, Lochner L, Chock C, Bougdaeva S, Lassalle M, Ewing L, DeVarennes V. The Neighborhood Place: An Alternative Mental Health Program. Community Based Clinical Practice. Eds. Lightburn A. and Sessions P. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Bougdaeva, Saglar. 2010.“The Russian Puzzle: The Minority Health Advantage in a Changing Society, 1994-2004.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies. Forthcoming Volume 45 Issue 3.
Completed Working Papers:
Bougdaeva, Saglar. 2010. “Posing the Paradox of the Muslim Mortality Advantage in Russia.” Planned Submission to the American Journal of Sociology.
Bougdaeva, Saglar. 2010. “Ethnicity, Mortality, and Social Change: A Case Study of Kalmykia.” Planned Submission to Comparative Studies in Society and History.
Elizabeth Breese
Research interests: Elizabeth Breese's interests include cultural sociology, trauma theory, and ethnography.
Education: B.A. Sociology, cum laude with Honors in Sociology (Wellesley College)
Sorcha Brophy-Warren
Research interests: Cultural sociology, ethnography, religious and ethnic identity, postcolonialism. Her previous work explored the way that communities and institutions articulate and evaluate religious identities through adherence to moral boundaries.
Education: A.B. The Comparative Study of Religion, with high honors (Harvard University)
Jennifer L. Bryan
Dissertation topic: “Terrorism in Your Own Backyard? The Impact of the World Trade Center Tragedy on Community Life in Jersey City.”
Research interests: Jennifer L. Bryan is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Yale University. Jennifer received a M.Phil. and M.A. in Sociology from Yale, with a special concentration in race and ethnicity and urban and community sociology. As an undergraduate, Jennifer earned a B.A. in Psychology, with a double major in Administration of Justice, and a Criminology Certificate from Rutgers University. Currently, Jennifer is writing her dissertation and expects to complete her Ph.D. in the Spring of 2005. Her dissertation is tentatively titled: “Terrorism in Your Own Backyard? The Impact of the World Trade Center Tragedy on Cross-Cultural Relationships and Community Life in Jersey City.” Building on original ethnographic research (participant observation, oral histories, interviews and content analysis), Jennifer's dissertation examines how the social construction of Jersey City as a “Terror Town” has affected social interactions and relationships among Arab Muslims, African Americans, and Italian Americans in working class neighborhoods of Jersey City. This research has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation; the Center for the Study of Race, Inequality and Politics at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University; the Center for Urban Research and Policy at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University; and the Yale University Dissertation Writing Grant. In addition to research expertise, Jennifer’s professional experience is in community building, conflict resolution, and fundraising for nonprofit community based organizations.
Education: B.A. Psychology, Justice Administration & Criminology (Rutgers University)
Seongsoo Choi
최성수/崔成秀
Research interests: Seongsoo Choi’s primary interests include changes in life courses under radical social changes and their impacts on social inequality, social mobility, political attitudes, and social norms. He is also interested in analytical sociology and social mechanisms.
Education: M. A. Sociology (Yonsei University)
Thomas Crosbie
Education:
Tabitha Decker
Research interests: Tabitha Decker's interests include urban sociology, comparative and historical sociology, and social/spatial theory. A former Thomas J. Watson Fellow, Tabitha examined the gendering of work through a study of women taxi drivers in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, and Malaysia. Tabitha is currently developing a dissertation focused on Dubai's urban development, which seeks to understand relations between the built environment and social, economic, and cultural processes.
Education: B.A. International Relations, Honors (Wellesley College)
Shai Dromi
Shai Dromi completed his B.A. in sociology, cultural anthropology and communication and his M.A. in sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His Master‚s thesis focused on the relation between moral evaluation, emotions and the media. He has worked at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute as part of a research group, Israeli Hearts: Culture and Emotional Praxis in Contemporary Israel. Currently Shai is a doctoral student at the Department of Sociology and a Fulbright doctoral fellow for the years 2009-2010. His research interests include cultural sociology, sociology of morality, and sociology of emotions.
Education: B.A. Sociology, Cultural Anthropology and Communication (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006); M.A. Sociology (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2009)
Sarah Egan
Research interests: Sarah’s interests include cultural and political sociology, and particularly the study of social movements. Her dissertation research examines the cultural conflicts surrounding foxhunting and its prohibition in England.
Education: (B. Soc. Sc., M. Soc. Sc., National University of Ireland (UCD), M.A. Sociology, Yale University).
Jesse Einhorn
Education: B.A. Sociology (Haverford College)
Rui Gao
Research interests: Rui Gao’s interests include cultural sociology, social theories, media studies, and gender studies.
Education: B.A. English (Beijing Foreign Studies University); M.A. Sociology (University of Notre Dame)
Alison Gerber
Education:
Caroline Gray
Dissertation topic: “Disfiguring Forms, Disabling Function.”
Research interests: Carrie Gray is interested in disability studies, the sociology of the body, and the cultural meanings of disability and bodily differences. Her research focuses on contrasting societal responses to the problem of disability and incorporation, ranging from genetic modification and medical cures to multicultural identity movements among disabled groups.
Education: B.A. Sociology & Gender Studies (University of California, Davis); M.A. Sociology (University of California, Los Angeles)
Stephanie Greenlea
Research interests: Stephanie is in the combined doctoral program with African American Studies. Her interests include theories of race and racism, intersectionality, social movements and technology. She is currently investigating articulations of and challenges to anti-Black racism in the information age. Her approach pursues interdisciplinary through sociological engagement.
Education: B.A. in Sociology from Emory University
Jeffrey Guhin
Research Interests: Jeffrey Guhin graduated from Loyola University New Orleans in 2003 with degrees in English Literature and Sociology. While living in New York City, he worked as caseworker in the South Bronx and taught high school in downtown Brooklyn.
First, I study literature and literary theory. My second-year paper (or master’s thesis) was about the role of irony in the United States, and I tried to integrate fiction, cultural studies, literary criticism, and empirical examples from media discourses in the tradition of the Strong Program.
I also study the sociology of religion, and my field exam is a history of the concept of secularism from the founders to today, showing how sociologists’ answers to whether or not we are secular is generally contingent on an implicit assumption about the source and purpose of religion. I am interested in religion and politics, Islam, and debates about tradition and democracy, particularly those within a postcolonial context. My thesis for the Middle East Studies Certificate is about Christianity in the Levant.
My third area of interest is the sociology of education. I look at how schools form moral subjects and the language of justification used about and within this formation. I am particularly interested in education outside of the United States. I am in the process of writing a few articles about education, including (1) a comparison of the pedagogies of John Dewey, Stanley Hauerwas, Muhammad ‘Abduh, and Sayyid Qutb (2) an analysis of why American sociologists of education do not discuss morality, and (3) a historical argument about the changing “telos” of American public schools.
All of these interests intersect in my dissertation, in which I ask how minority religious communities navigate the tension between the community of the faithful and the community of citizens. What role, if any, does the category of the “secular” play in their efforts? I will focus on religious schools as “strategic sites” for examining these questions in three distinctive national environments: Christians in Syria, Muslims in Argentina, and Muslims in the United States. These cases are relatively understudied examples of minority integration, noteworthy for their political moderation. My goal is to understand how these groups conceive and construct the boundaries between the religious and the secular, and between the religious and civic community, paying special attention to the role of “critical thinking”. I will use a combination of interviews and participant-observation, and I hope the resulting dissertation will combine solid empirical data with the latest theorizing about secularism, political integration, and moral education.
John Hartley
Research interests: Faith & Globalization, Iranian Studies, Culture, Religion & Economy, Culture, Religion & Politics, Urban Sociology.
Education: B.A., International Relations with Honors (UC Davis), M.A., Iranian History with Distinction (University of Isfahan, Iran)
Nadya Jaworsky
Research interests: Nadya completed her B.A. in Sociology and American Studies at Wellesley College (2005, summa cum laude). She is the Fanny Bullock Workman Fellow for 2005-2006 as well as a Junior Fellow of the Academy of Political and Social Science. She received departmental honors for her Sociology thesis, an ethnographic case study of two religious organizations using cultural pragmatics. Prior to that, she conducted research on American patriotism in the post-9/11 context, over the course of two summers with funding from Wellesley College and the National Science Foundation. In addition to cultural sociology, organizations, and American political culture, her interests include the sociology of religion and transnational studies. In particular, she seeks to probe the relationship(s) between religion, ethnicity, and citizenship—in other words, the boundaries of “belonging.” Currently, she is the primary research consultant for Peggy Levitt’s forthcoming book God Needs No Passport: Transnational Religious Life. Jointly, they are working on two related articles—one concerning cultural diffusion and social/symbolic boundaries and another about the transnational nature of American religious life. Under a grant awarded by the Metanexus Institute’s Spiritual Capital Research Program, Nadya will begin work on a three-city study of “spiritual capital” in January 2006, as site coordinator and co-investigator for the Danbury, CT site. The project goal is to examine how immigrants—both established and “new”—utilize this sub-species of social capital
Education: B.A. Sociology & American Studies, summa cum laude (Wellesley College)
Aaron D. Johnston
Dissertation topic: “Film in the Netherlands and Sweden: A Two-Country Comparison of the Film Field.”
Research interests: My substantive interests include (1) the distribution of inequalities in European societies and on how such inequalities are structured by the labor market as well as social policies, (2) the development of international institutions, and (3) the emergence of protest. My methodological interests are in statistical and computer simulation models.
Education: B.A. International Studies, summa cum laude (Middlebury College); M.A. Social Sciences, Honors (University of Amsterdam); M.Sc. Sociology, Distinction (University of Oxford)
Andrew Junker
Research interests: Andy has analytical interests in religion, culture, and politics and regional interests focused on East Asia, especially China. Andy has studied, researched, or worked in Japan, China, Thailand, Nepal and India, including one year researching Japanese and Tibetan artisanship as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow. His foreign language training is in Chinese and Japanese, including intensive study at the Associated Kyoto Program (Dõshisha University, Kyoto), the East Asian Summer Language Institute (Indiana University), and the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University (Beijing). At Yale, Andy has used ethnography to explore the interplay of myths, legends and truth claims in the mobilization of an immigrant community.
Education: B.A. East Asian Studies (Wesleyan University); M.A. Religious Studies (Indiana University)
Esther Kim
Research Interests: Immigration, ethnography, race and ethnicity, education, Asian American Studies. Currently studying migrant workers in New Haven.
Education: B.A. Sociology and Education (UCLA); M.A. Education, culture and society (University of Pennsylvania)
Joseph Klett
Research Interests: Art, New Media, and Social Movements
Education: B.A. Sociology, (University of California, San Diego)
Matthew Lawrence
Education: B.A. American Studies and English (2001) with university distinction and department honors, (Stanford University), and MEd Education Policy and Management (2007), (Harvard University)
Victoria Lee
Research interests: I am currently interested in social movements, the process of democratization, and the mechanisms that contribute to transnational inequalities. As a Presidential Scholar at Dartmouth, my research focused on comparative historical analysis of struggles against authoritarian regimes in countries such as Iran, South Korea and Indonesia. My senior thesis examined the role of the 1998 student movement in the overthrow of Indonesia's General Suharto based on interviews with former student leaders, teachers and journalists and the structural factors that allowed students to come to the forefront of the movement. As a former Fulbright Fellow in 2005-2006, I was a school teacher in East Java for a year and worked with a local NGO seeking to assist street children and victims of sex trafficking. Having travelled to Cambodia, Malaysia, and Vietnam during my Fulbright year has increased my desire to broaden my knowledge of Southeast Asia while at Yale.
Education: B.A. History and Sociology with High Honors, magna cum laude, (Dartmouth College), Recipient of the John M. Mecklin Prize in Sociology (2005). On Leave: Pursuing a J.D. at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
Eric Lum
Research interests: Eric Lum works in economic sociology, law and society, theory and historical sociology. He has recently presented papers on the sociology of private property rights.See personal webpage for more information.
Education: B.A. Sociology (2003), summa cum laude, and J.D (2006). (Cornell University)
Carolyn Ly
Research interests: Carolyn's main areas of interest are Stratification & Inequality, and Cultural Sociology. She plans to combine ethnographic and
quantitative methods to examine socioeconomic mobility in education and labor market sectors, with attention to micro level factors such as interpersonal relationships, and value systems. She also has conducted research on media and cultural images of Asian Americans.
Education: B.A. Sociology, summa cum laude (Hunter College, City University of New York); Phi Beta Kappa
Timothy Malacarne
Research interests: Tim is interested in cultural reasons for continued social inequality. He is currently looking at the meaning systems and cultural frameworks which pattern behavior enabling upper class stability. He also focuses on the way in which quantitative methods can enhance cultural sociology. Other substantive interests include rural and small town identity and the influence of entertainment and other non-overtly political spectacle on the formation of social groups and their ideologies.
Education: B.S.F.S. Culture and Politics (Georgetown University)
Patricia Maloney
Research interests: Patricia Maloney is a graduate student currently interested in social stratification and educational inequality. She has recently concluded her two-year commitment to Teach For America, a national organization designed to erase the achievement gap in American public schools. At the present time, her research focuses on the pro-anorexia internet movement and the effects of school and society on adolescent sexuality.
Education: B.A. Sociology and Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa; M.A. Education, University of Pennsylvania; M.A. Sociology, Yale University
Warren McKinney
Research interests: My research interests primarily include the effects of migration within the African Diaspora and the Pan Africanist development and social change initiatives originating from the diasporic community and the continent. My other interests surround the intersectionality of race, class and gender.
Education: B.A. Africana Studies and Sociology (Vassar College)
Shoham Melamed
Dissertation topic: “Maternal Politics, Fertility Levels and Reproductive Regimes: The Case of Jewish Women’s Activism in America and Palestine.”
Education: B.A. Sociology & Anthropology, and Film & Television Studies, magna cum laude (Tel Aviv University); M.A. Sociology & Anthropology, magna cum laude (Tel Aviv University)
Sylvia Mitraud
Dissertation topic: “Social Mobility in Conservation and Development Projects: A Comparative Study in Brazil.”
Research interests: Sylvia’s research interests are in the broad area of social ecology, and more specifically environmental sociology, social movements, and sustainable development. Her dissertation studies processes of social mobilization and change in regions where Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) are implemented. Empirical data comes from four case studies in Brazil: two in the Amazon floodplain and two in the northeastern portion of the Atlantic Forest known as the “cacao zone.” Adopting a temporal-relational framework, the major claim of the dissertation is that while environmental and economic sustainability are central to successful projects, social sustainability — understood not as the status of well-being and social justice indicators but rather as the processes behind them: the complex interactions among structures, agents, and culture through time in each specific place — is at least as important and thus should be reflected in our approaches to project design, implementation, evaluation, and research. The intellectual thrust for the dissertation project is the outcome of her prior work as ICDP manager and supervisor for World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Brazil for five years, and a thesis on sustainable development which she wrote as part of her M.A. in International Studies (1994, Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver). As a practitioner she favors grassroots organizing and facilitation of multi-stakeholder participatory processes. Sylvia is a native of Brazil and has a Bachelor's degree in History (1989) from São Paulo University, Brazil.
Education: B.A. History (University of São Paulo); M.A. International Studies (University of Denver)
Sam Nelson
Sam is interested in religion, politics and historical sociology. His dissertation research is on early modern transnational religion: the political and institutional conditions of early protestant missionary movements and the relationship between state formation and religious organization.
Education: B.A. Sociology, honors (University of Chicago)
Natalie Nitsche
Research interests: Gender, Work and Family; Social Demography; Fertility Transitions; Welfare States and Social Policy; Race and Inequality.
Education: B.A. and M.A. (Diploma) Political Science (Free University Berlin), M.A. Sociology (Yale University)
Matthew Norton
Research interests: Matthew Norton has focused on a linked series of questions relating to conflict, culture, sentiment, epistemology, and politics in a variety of professional and research settings. He is currently looking at the study of war from the vantage of meaning, the construction and destruction of moral communities, the role of art in enabling solidarity, and the interface of culture and disaster.
Education: B.A. Philosophy (Villanova University); M.A. Conflict Resolution (Bradford University)
Kristin Plys
Research interests: Historical sociology, labor and social movements, political economy, quantitative methods.
Education: B.A. Sociology, with Honors, Certificate in Cross-National Sociology and International Development (The Johns Hopkins University)
Elizabeth Roberto
Education: B.A. Human Services, cum laude, special honors (George Washington University); M.P.A. Public Administration, Education & Social Policy (George Washington University)
Jensen Sass
Education: B.A. History and Geography (Monash University)
David Scales
Research interests: David Scales is a joint M.D./Ph.D. student with interests in the mechanisms that initiate and perpetuate social inequalities, health disparities, and structural determinants of health. Just starting the Sociology phase of his combined degree, he hopes to focus on how epidemics mediate a community’s dynamics with the State.
Education: B.A. Chemistry and American History (University of Pennsylvania); M.Phil. History and Philosophy of Science & Medicine (University of Cambridge)
Inge Schmidt
Research interests: Inge Schmidt is interested in Political Sociology and Cultural Sociology. Currently, her research is on voting and elections in the United states with a focus on culture and meaning.
Education: B.A. Sociology and Politics, cum laude with High Honors (Mount Holyoke College)
Christine Slaughter
Research interests: Christine Slaughter has interests in the fields of culture, theory, and gender. She is particularly interested in the constitution of identity and solidarity in democratic and multicultural contexts. Her previous work has addressed gender in American political and civil discourse, using Nancy Pelosi as a case study.
Education: B.A. Ethics, Politics & Economics, cum laude with distinction in Ethics, Politics, & Economics (Yale University)
Yasushi Tanaka-Gutiez
Education:
Gulay Turkmen
Education:
Adrienne Wallace
Research Interests: Adrienne is interested in understanding cultural aspects of democracy, in particular she examines the ways in which literature and journalism impact democratic lay theory. All this is because she is ultimately interested in understanding the expression of choice as part of the democratic process and analyzing literary works as a manifestation of and a practice that encourages democratic reasoning.
Education: B.A. cum laude with High Honors, Sociology, Mount Holyoke College
Yingyao Wang
Education: M.A. Communication (Beijing University); B.A. Journalism (Fudan University)
Lucas Wiesendanger
Education:
Marianne Wilson
Education: B.A. Sociology, cum laude with Honors in Sociology (Wake Forest University)
Xiaohong Xu
Research interests: Xiaohong Xu’s primary interests include historical/comparative sociology, cultural sociology, social and political theory. He is currently working on projects dealing with religion and politics in early modern Europe.
Education: B.A. Sociology (Peking University); M.A. Sociology (University of Notre Dame)
Michael Yarbrough
Research interests: Michael Yarbrough works in the areas of law and society; family; the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality; cultural sociology, and South African studies. He is particularly interested in the ways that family and other interpersonal relationships intersect with law and legal institutions. A graduate of the Yale Law School through the joint J.D./Ph.D. program, Michael is currently beginning fieldwork on his dissertation studying the ways everyday South Africans construct family and intimate relationships in light of a rapidly changing legal context. South African family law currently recognizes three types of marriage and a form of civil partnership, with yet other forms of marriage and domestic partnership in varying stages of development. These legal developments echo an astonishing diversity of actual family formations on the ground, both recognized and unrecognized in the law. In this way, while mindful of the country's local particularities, Yarbrough argues that South Africa can also be understood as the bleeding edge of a global trend toward greater family diversity, and as an exemplary case of one potential political and legal response to that trend: the proliferation of an array of legally recognized family categories. While findings from South Africa cannot simply be generalized to other contexts, they can open up new lines of theoretical and empirical inquiry into a set of questions of urgent global importance for social scientists, activists, policy-makers, and people living in families and intimate relationships.
Yarbrough is also finishing work on a project theorizing the significance of deadlocked disputes for understanding the possibilities and mechanics of symbolic action under the highly differentiated conditions of late modernities, using ethnographic observation of small-claims trials among family members and other, as he calls them, “intimate litigants. ”
Education: B.A. Sociology, with honors (University of Chicago); M.Phil, J.D. Yale Law School, 2009; M.A. Sociology, Yale University, 2007
Alexei Zelenev
Research interests: Alexei Zelenev is a 3rd year Ph.D Student in the department of Sociology. His interests include social integration, inequality, socioeconomic development and qualitative, as well as quantitative methods. He is a member of the Center for Comparative Research as well as the Center for Inequality and the Life Course. Prior to joining Yale, he was an associate economist in the Regional Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. His research has been published in the “Journal of Urban Policy”and in the Chicago Fed?s“Economic Perspectives”, and has been cited by the Wall Street Journal.
Education: B.A. Economics, with honors (University of Chicago), M.A. Sociology, Yale University.
Sandy Zhao
Research interests: Culture and crime: cultural construction of criminal identity, the effects of cultural symbols on criminology, deviance theories; race/ethnicity,immigration, economic sociology, and social movements.
Education: B.A. Sociology and Government, magna cum laude. (Cornell University)