Sociology Ph.D.s on the Job Market
The following Ph.D. candidates and recent graduates from the Brown University Department of Sociology are seeking positions in the field:
Rebecca Altman
Ph.D. expected in May, 2008
Full Bio Page || Rebecca's CV
Research Interests:
Medical Sociology; Social Movements and Health; Science, Knowledge, & Social Change; Political Economy of Health and the Environment; Human Body Burden; Grassroots Leadership; Environmental Consequences of Health Care
Dissertation - Biomonitoring across the Chemical Life-Cycle: Bodies as Evidence and the Burden of Proof
Using the technique of multi-sited ethnography, I study the articulation of science, publics, and politics regarding chemical pollution inside human bodies, what is popularly called body burden. This work has taken me to Appalachia, Maine, and Alaska—three places where public groups have involved themselves in research that measures environmental chemicals such as pesticides, flame retardants, and industrial solvents in blood. Within and across sites, I examine how the political and economic organization of chemical production and regulation influence the meaning of body burden science for action, as well as how communities and movement organizations navigate the constraints, consequences, and opportunities they encounter as active participants in, and users of, this increasingly policy-relevant science.
Afra Chowdhury
Ph.D. expected in May, 2008
Full Bio Page || Afra's CV
Research Interests: Social Demography, Marriage and Family, Intra-household Resource Allocation, Gender, Migration, Fertility and Reproductive Health, Quantitative Methods
Dissertation - The Persistence, Expansion and Inflation of Dowry in Rural India: Myth vs. Reality
My dissertation examines the institution of dowry in the context of rural India at both micro and macro level. At the macro level, the increasing prevalence of dowry practice and the change in the average dowry paid by caste and class over time for the last three decades has been analyzed. By decomposing dowry into groomprice and brideprice, I investigate the factors influencing the practice of dowry and the amount paid as dowry at the micro level. Using a nationally representative data of rural India, my findings suggest that even though the prevalence of dowry practice has increased in India for last three decades, the real value of the amount paid has declined over time. I did not find any significant differences in the practice of groomprice or brideprice between the North and the South as was suggested earlier in the literature. Groom’s landholding and bride’s level of education are the most influential factors among others affecting the amount paid as dowry.
Julie Fennell
Ph.D. expected in Summer 2008
Full Bio Page || Julie's CV
Research Interests:
Contraception, Fertility, Family and Intimate Relationships, Sexuality, Classical Theory and Feminist Theory
Dissertation -
Sex, Drugs, and Negotiations: Understanding the Contraceptive Decisions of American Couples
My dissertation seeks to gain a better understanding of how the relationship context influences the process of contraceptive decision-making among American adults in established relationships. My data consist of in-depth interviews I conducted with both members of 30 couples in opposite-sex relationships where the woman is age 18-30 about their fertility and contraceptive preferences and behavior. The interviews contain details about the current relationship, initial contraceptive decisions and fertility preferences, and changes in these preferences and behaviors over time. My primary outcome of interest is the process of contraceptive decision-making, of which individual decisions, couple negotiations, and actual contraceptive behavior are three key parts.
Contributions include a new theoretical perspective emphasizing couples and the role of power, trust, and pleasure in contraceptive decision-making. Initial analysis supports the importance of these aspects of decision-making and further analysis will analyze men's role in the contraceptive decision-making process.
Blessing Mberu
Ph.D. expected in May, 2008
Full Bio Page || Blessing's CV
Research Interests:
Migration, Urbanization, Poverty, and Adolescent Reproductive Behavior in sub-Saharan Africa
Dissertation -Internal Migration and Adolescent Premarital Reproductive Behavior in Nigeria
My doctoral dissertation project examines the linkages between internal migration and adolescent premarital reproductive behavior in Nigeria. The study builds on the theoretical and empirical linkages between geographical mobility and risky reproductive behavior; the high rates of migration in Nigeria, particularly of young people, in the context of increasing poverty; and the changing context and implications of adolescent reproductive behavior for health and disease transmission (particularly in the era of HIV/AIDS pandemic). With an annual growth rate of 2.83% and a 2007 population of 140 million (63% of whom are under the age of 25 years), and an increasing HIV/AIDS burden that is heaviest among adolescents, the challenge of teen sexual behavior and its consequences for morbidity and mortality have become a topical public health issue in the country.
Adriana Lopez-Ramirez
Ph.D. expected in May, 2008
Full Bio Page || Adriana's CV
Research Interests:
Family Formation and Household Structures, International Migration, Population Aging, Latin America
My main interest is to address how the experience of migration, in particular international migration, affects family formation processes in communities of origin, in both migrants and non-migrants. I am interested on the mechanisms by which migration shapes the early stages of family formation and co-residence patterns.
Holly Reed
Ph.D. expected in May, 2008
Full Bio Page || Holly Reed's CV
Research Interests:
Internal and International Migration, Forced Migration and Refugees, Urbanization, Social Networks, Demography, Development, Sub-Saharan Africa, Globalization and Transnational Processes, Research Methods (Statistical, Demographic, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods), Theory, Survey Design, International Health
Dissertation - Networks in the New Democracy: Internal Migration and Social Networks in South Africa
My dissertation employs event history analysis to investigate the relationship between rural-to-urban migration and social networks in South Africa, particularly as it relates to the changing socio-political context. Using nationally representative survey data on migration among black South Africans (from the 1999-2000 South African Migration and Health Survey), I examine how patterns of internal migration changed and/or persevered since democratization, and what the key social, political, and economic determinants of migration were during different time periods. I also explore how migrants form and maintain social network ties in their origin and destination communities. This dissertation contributes to a fuller understanding of historical changes in migration patterns in South Africa and contributes to the empirical literature on internal migration and social networks in transitioning societies.
Daniel Schensul
Ph.D. expected in May, 2008
Full Bio Page || Daniel's CV
Research Interests: Development, Urban Sociology, Space, Political Economy, and the State
Dissertation - Remaking an Apartheid City: State-led Spatial Transformation in Durban, South Africa
My dissertation
examines one of the most pervasively planned urban areas of racial and economic exclusion in the world. To understand post-apartheid transformation, I ask what a democratic state with political will, resources, and institutional capacity can do to redress hardened spatial legacies of extreme inequality and racism. Despite massive constraints, I find that the state has been able to drive race and class transformation in pockets of the city, a finding with potential implications for urban contexts and state policy around the world. Geocoded census and municipal infrastructure data, together with extensive data-driven key informant interviews, form the empirical basis of my dissertation.
Carrie Spearin
Ph.D. 2007, Brown University
Visiting Assistant Professor
Full Bio Page || Carrie Spearin's CV
Research Interests: Social Demography, Family Formation, Gender, and Health