Box 1916

Maxcy Hall

112 George Street

Providence, RI 02912

Telephone: (401) 863-2367

Sociology@brown.edu

 

M.A. in Sociology, Brown University

Contact Information:
Brown University
Department of Sociology
Box 1916
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: (508) 653-7927
Fax: (401) 863-3213
Laura_Senier@brown.edu

Year of Entry: 2003

Previous Degrees:
M.A. in Sociology, Brown University (2005)
MPH in Epidemiology and Social and Behavioral Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health (2000)
BA in American Studies, Colby College (1990)

Curriculum Vitae

Areas of Interest:
Medical Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Risk, Trust

The principal theme that animates all of my interests in sociology concerns risk. My dissertation explores how genomics is influencing public health research and practice in the United States. I am exploring the mental models and assumptions that scientists draw upon in designing epidemiologic research on breast cancer. Scientists deploy these paradigmatic assumptions about the nature of health and illness, what causes disease, and how these forces interact at individual and population levels to produce estimates of risk that inform policy, influence the development of health interventions, and profoundly influence the patient’s illness experience. This qualitative, interview based project engages many different scientists who have embraced a range of approaches, from conventional, multifactorial epidemiology, to social epidemiologic models, to genetic epidemiologic approaches. As a social scientist, I'm particularly interested in how institutional forces influence these choices about research design. This project also examines recent initiatives to synthesize knowledge on the effect of genes on health, and in doing so, extends our theoretical notions of the role that abstract knowledge plays in professionalization and in organizational legitimacy. My master's thesis focused on parental confidence in vaccine safety. Drawing on interviews with 20 parents, I examined how they process information about risks and consequences of disease and the risks and benefits of vaccines, and how they evaluate the trustworthiness of different sources of information about vaccine safety.

I received an environmental leadership fellowship from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation for the 2007-2008 academic year. From 2005-2007, I worked for Phil Brown as a Research Assistant on the Community Outreach Core of the Brown University Superfund Basic Research Program. Through the Outreach Core, Brown provides technical assistance and leadership development training to community-based organizations throughout Rhode Island that are coping with toxic contamination. Since 2003, I have been a member of the Contested Illnesses Research Group, and under the direction of Phil Brown and Rachel Morello-Frosch, I participated in research projects that sought to characterize the field of health social movements and advance the theoretical and empirical tools for studying them. As part of this project, I worked on a study funded by the National Science Foundation examining coalition formation between labor and environmental organizations, and how they invoke health concerns in staging their campaigns.

Finally, I benefit from collaborations with investigators at other institutions. I am involved in an ongoing multidisciplinary collaboration with a team of researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health on an NIEHS-funded project to identify communication problems that arise among different stakeholders involved in the design of community health studies: community activists, scientists, and government regulators. I am also collaborating with researchers at the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University on a study of health beliefs and behaviors among residents of assisted living facilities.