DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

News Archive

2015 Faculty, Graduate Students and Undergraduate Students Awardees:

Africa Misperceived Graduate Student conference (April 2015) was organized by volunteers from the Africa Seminar (AfriSem) through the Program of African Studies.

The conference organizers are PhD candidates from Anthropology, Political Science and Sociology:

• Vanessa Watters (Anthropology)
• Marco Bocchese (Political Science
• Sasha Klyachkina (Political Science)
• Priscilla Adipa (Sociology)
• Kofi Asante (Sociology)
• Sakhile Matlhare (Sociology)

The conference was the first of an annual graduate student conference organized by AfriSem, an interdisciplinary work shop group with representatives from Anthropology, Archeology, English, History, Law, Performance Studies, Political Science, Religious Studies, Sociology, and Theater. The work shop's adviser this year is Rachel Riedl (Political Science).

Sociology faculty member named to ASG Honor Roll
Karrie Ann Snyder, Assistant Professor of Instruction, was recently named to the 2013-14 Faculty and Administration Honor Roll by NU’s Associated Student Government (ASG). The honor roll list was voted by undergraduate students Spring 2014.

• First joint-PhD graduate with NU Sociology and Sciences Po (Paris): Pierre Penet! Pierre is the first graduate student to complete the joint-PhD program between Northwestern's Sociology Department and Sciences Po, and successfully defended his dissertation in Paris, November 24. This picture was taken right afterwards, and includes Pierre and all the members of the jury. From left to right are: Olivier Borraz (Sciences Po), Wendy Espeland (Northwestern), Bruce Carruthers (Northwestern), Pierre Penet PhD (Northwestern and Sciences Po), Michael Loriaux (Northwestern), Louis Chauvel (Sciences Po), and Gregoire Mallard (formerly Northwestern, but now at The Graduate Institute, Geneva).
• Carol Heimer has received the Star-Nelkin Award from the Science, Knowledge and Technology (SKAT) section of American Sociological Association for her paper on "Inert Facts and the Illusion of Knowledge: Strategic Uses of Ignorance in HIV Clinics" (Economy and Society 41(1):17-41, published in February 2012) (2014)
• Hannah Wohl has been awarded this year's Herbert Blumer Graduate Student Paper Award for "Modeling Judgement: Interacting Appropriately in an Erotic Arts Club." Drawing on interviews and two years of participant observation in a "sensual" figure drawing class, this paper examines the general phenomenon of how individuals act appropriately in face-to-face interactions when social rules never fully circumscribe the situation. (2014)
• Alka Menon has been awarded a Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council. Alka will participate in the dissertation development group on the topic of “Making the Biotech Body: Technologies, Knowledge, and Global Markets.” The fellowship includes funds for her to conduct preliminary research this summer to develop her prospectus. (2014)
• Jordan Conwell received an honorable mention from the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program (2014). Ford Foundation Fellowship awards are offered at the Predoctoral, Dissertation and Postdoctoral levels and awarded in a national competition. In the judgment of the review panels,candidates have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students
• Amy Myrick was awarded a Mellon American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Completion Fellowship for her dissertation "The Politics of Text: How Textual Norms Shape Substantive Agendas in U.S. Constitutional Amendment Advocacy, 1900 to 2010". For nearly ninety years, providing fellowships for scholars in the humanities and related social sciences has been one of the signal activities of ACLS. (2014)
• Cassidy Puckett was awarded a Mellon American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Completion Fellowship for her dissertation "Digital Adaptability: A Study of the Social Determinants of Adolescents' Propensity to Learn New Technologies." For nearly ninety years, providing fellowships for scholars in the humanities and related social sciences has been one of the signal activities of ACLS. (2014)
• Iman Sediqe received an honorable mention from the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program (2014). Ford Foundation Fellowship awards are offered at the Predoctoral, Dissertation and Postdoctoral levels and awarded in a national competition. In the judgment of the review panels,candidates have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
• Monica Prasad was given the American Sociological Americant Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award for her book The Land of Too Much: American Abundance and the Paradox of Poverty (Harvard Press 2012). This annual award is given for a single book or monograph published in the three preceding calendar years (2014).
• Ann Orloff has been invited to spend 2014-15 at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University to work on her book, “Toward a Gender-Open Future? Transformations in Gender, Global Capitalism and Systems of Social Provision and Regulation."
• Joshua Kaiser has been selected for the Law and Social Science Dissertation Fellowship and Mentoring Program sponsored by the Law and Society Association, the American Bar Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. Josh's dissertation topic is "Punishment without Purpose? The Historical Origins and Effects of the Hidden Sentence.”
• Congratulations to Jaimie Morse, who has been awarded a Northwestern Presidential Fellowship to complete her dissertation! The Presidential Fellowship is described by the university as the most prestigious fellowship awarded by Northwestern. Jaimie’s dissertation, which combines approaches from STS, law and society, and sociology of culture, is entitled “Technologies of Commemoration: Knowledge Production in Documentation of Mass Rape” (February 2014).
• Gary Fine received a Fellowship at Princeton’s distinguished School of Social Science Institute for Advanced Study. He will be doing research on “Political Commitment and Group Culture” and writing about his ethnographic project “Medium Rare: Community, Theory, and Practice in the Training of MFA Art Students (February 2014).
• Jack Davis, who graduated with honors last year, a 2013 Fulbright. Jack's project will be in the form of a documentary examining the informal social networks developed by refugees for survival in the context of a post civil-war Mozambique. He will be in the country doing his research from January to October of 2014.
• Monica Prasad was given the American Sociological Americant Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award for her book The Land of Too Much: American Abundance and the Paradox of Poverty (Harvard Press 2012). This annual award is given for a single book or monograph published in the three preceding calendar years. (2014)
• Ann Orloff has been invited to spend 2014-15 at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University to work on her book, “Toward a Gender-Open Future? Transformations in Gender, Global Capitalism and Systems of Social Provision and Regulation."
• Joshua Kaiser has been selected for the Law and Social Science Dissertation Fellowship and Mentoring Program sponsored by the Law and Society Association, the American Bar Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. Josh's dissertation topic is "Punishment without Purpose? The Historical Origins and Effects of the Hidden Sentence.”

2013 Faculty, Graduate Students and Undergraduate Students Awardees:

• Lincoln Quillian’s article, "Segregation and Poverty Concentration: The Role of Three Segregations," published in the American Sociological Review, is this year's winner of the award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship in Population (August 2013).
• Elyse Kovalsky received a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research fellowship for her project titled "Housing Instability, Foreclosures and Family Health." Using the example of home foreclosure, this dissertation aims to document the strategies and resources that families draw on as they negotiate instability. It also explores specific ways this experience affects families, especially in the areas of family health and young adults' educational trajectories. The study draws primarily on interviews and long-term observations of families in Stockton, California, a city hard hit by the foreclosure crisis (October 2013).
• Joshua Kaiser was one of eight selected by the Searle Center for Advancing Learning & Teaching for the 2013-14 academic year. The Graduate Teaching Fellows play a critically important leadership role at the Searle Center. Joshua's responsibilities will involve leading workshops at the New TA Conference in September, developing and leading a Searle Center graduate workshop, conducting teaching observations for fellow graduate students, and implementing a discipline-specific project that contributes to the pedagogical development of graduate students in the Department of Sociology (October 2013).
• Monica Prasad, Professor of Sociology, has won the Barrington Moore book prize from the Comparative-Historical Sociology section for her book, "The Land of Too Much" (September 2013).
• Elisabeth Anderson has won the best paper section prize from Comparative-Historical Sociology, for "Ideas in Action: The Politics of Prussian Child Labor Reform, 1817-1839" (September 2013).
• Bruce Carruthers, Professor of Sociology, has been elected President of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (September 2013).
• Celeste Watkins-Hayes, Professor of Sociology and AFAM will be the inaugural recipient of the Jacquelyn Johnson Jackson Early Career Award from the Association of Black Sociologists at our conference this August in New York City (August 2013). This award is given to an individual who has been in receipt of the doctoral degree for no more than ten years who reflects one or more of the following standards: 1) a record of scholarly publication that reflects distinction for an early career scholar, 2) a record of administrative or public sector service that reflects emerging leadership in the areas of social justice, diversity, multiculturalism, and the dissemination of sociological ideas or insight into one’s domain of professional service, or 3) a record of service to the Association for Black Sociologists that indicates strong capacity for becoming a future leader of the organization.
• Monica Prasad, Professor of Sociology, has won the Barrington Moore book prize from the Comparative-Historical Sociology section for her book, The Land of Too Much, and Elisabeth Anderson has won the paper prize, for "Ideas in Action: The Politics of Prussian Child Labor Reform, 1817-1839." Please join me in congratulating them both!
• Bruce Carruthers, Professor of Sociology, has been elected President of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics.
• Jack Davis, who graduated with honors last year, a 2013 Fulbright. Jack's project will be in the form of a documentary examining the informal social networks developed by refugees for survival in the context of a post civil-war Mozambique. He will be in the country doing his research from January to October of 2014.
• Anthony Johnson has been awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation for his project titled, "Becoming a Scientist: Identity Formation of Aspiring Minority Scientists in Labs," and Alka Menon has received an honorable mention for her project titled, "Understanding Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in American Cosmetic Surgery." The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce in the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in fields within NSF's mission. The GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in social science, science and engineering research.
• A paper written by Lisa-Jo Van den Scott, Clare Forstie, and Savina Balasubramanian entitled “Shining Stars, Blind Sides, and ‘Real’ Realities: Exit Rituals, Eulogy Work and Allegories in Reality Television” has won the Society for the Study of Social Problems' 2013 Sport, Leisure, and the Body Graduate Student Paper Award. Please join me in congratulating Lisa-Jo, Clare, and Savina!
• Jaimie Morse has won a Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council in the field of "Critical Approaches to Human Rights." SSRC brings together two tenured faculty members and a group of selected graduate students to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue around the identified research field and provide expertise and input on the development of each student’s dissertation proposal. Jaimie will participate in two workshops and receive a $5,000 grant for summer research.
• Paul Lee is a double major in WCAS in Sociology and Chemistry. He recently won a 2013 Northwestern University Undergraduate Research Grant to finance the use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance techniques in finding the rate of exchanges of protons between phenols and water and for how long the phenol “dances” with a particular water partner over time. Titled “Solvent Structure and Dynamics: Counting Water Partners in a Phenol-Phenolate Equilibrium”, this study focuses on the breaking and formation of hydrogen-oxygen bonds between phenols and water to help develop a deeper understanding of the structure and behavior of water.
• Cassidy Puckett won a 2013 National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. Her project is titled, "Digital Adaptability and the Stratification of Cultural Practices."
• Bethany Polhamus is a double-major in WCAS in Sociology and Statistics. Her study, "Decision Points: How Evangelical Women Navigate Marriage and Careers" focuses on the unique decisions that women from Evangelical Christian backgrounds make in regards to family and jobs, specifically as it relates to choices around timing of first marriage. To research this, Bethany used her Summer URG to conduct interviews with women in the Chicago area and observe multiple women's Bible Studies for field research. By comparing half the sample of women who married before and after age 26 she seeks to determine the main factors that influence the timing of first marriage for these women.2013.
• Marina Mason (2013) was awarded a Senior Theses grant from Weinberg College to assist with research for her thesis “Identity and Boundary Formation of Latino College Students.” Marina’s research will investigate how Latino students in college have come to define themselves ethnically, nationally, and racially, and how their social environment affects that self-identification. This research will help determine what the new formation of Latino identity is and why there is a creation of boundaries within subgroups in different collegiate environments. The purpose of this study is to determine if there is environmental influence on identity formation and cultural group segregation.
• Birong Vivian Wang is a winner of the 2013 University Research Grant for her senior thesis project "Speaking dilemma: the language use of Tibetan students at Tsinghua University and its role in Tibetan and Chinese identity construction." Vivian's research asks how schooling and social contexts influence the ways in which Tibetan students use their native language and Chinese, what shapes individuals’ choice of language, and how identity is affected in these negotiations.
• Daphne Ann Demetry won the prestigous Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship Program which support dissertations in the area of entrepreneurship (2012-2013). Daphne's dissertation is broadly examining temporary, project-based organizations. She is conducting an ethnography of pop-up restaurants and underground supper clubs (temporary restaurants that take place in people’s homes and other unusual locations) to better understand how these transitory forms of work are organized and utilized by emerging entrepreneurs.

2012 Faculty, Graduate Students and Undergraduate Students Awardees:

• Sherilyn DeStefano (Undergrad) won a 2012 Northwestern University Undergraduate Research Grant to assist with her research for her thesis "The Effect of the Premedical Experience on Empathy Levels Among Students" Sherilyn's thesis is on empathy levels among premedical students. By measuring empathy levels of undergraduate sophomores and seniors via the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a self-reported empathy test, and comparing the results, she hopes to determine whether empathy levels are affected over the course of the premedical experience. To determine the mechanism by which these changes may occur, she will conduct interviews with both current premedical and former premedical seniors, asking them to reflect on how they have changed over the course of the premedical curriculum.
• Wendy Griswold has received a fellowship to spend academic year 2013-14 at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
• Gary Alan Fine has won the 2013 Cooley-Mead award, which is the award given for lifetime achievement in research by the Social Psychology section of the American Sociological Association.
• Northwestern University has named Ann Shola Orloff, Professor Sociology, and Political Science, to the Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition Chair (2013).
• Armando Lara-Millan, PhD Candidate, Honorable Mention for the 2012 SSSP Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division Graduate Student Paper Award and SION Art Stinchcombe award in Organization Studies. "Public Hospital Overcrowding in the Era of Mass Incarceration." "This paper contends that criminal justice officials now play a critical role in the way that contemporary public emergency rooms manage overcrowding."
• Alok Nadig (undergrad) received an honorable mention for the sociology department's 2012 Best Thesis Award for his project entitled From "Gender-Inversion" to "Object Choice": Reconciling Stratified Identities to Form a Coherent Political Gay Consciousness in India.
• Rebecca M. Orr (undergrad) was awarded a Princeton in Asia (PiA) fellowship to Singapore for 2012-2013. Rebecca is a Communications Studies Major in the School of Communications. Sociology is her 2nd Major, and she is minoring in Film & Media Studies. She will be travelling to Singapore in September to begin teaching at Ngee Ann Polytechnic University through Princeton in Asia. Rebecca will be teaching public speaking and a writing course through the Film and Media Studies Department at Ngee Ann. "I am very excited to begin my career as a teacher through this opportunity with PiA.
• Diana Rodriguez-Franco, PhD Candidate, has won the 2012 Best Graduate Student paper award from the Comparative Historical Sociology section of ASA.
• John N. Robinson III was awarded a 3-year Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship. John studies how poor people use legal forums and institutions to negotiate social policy outcomes (2012).
• Lisa-Jo van den Scott, PhD Candidate, was awarded the 2012 SSSP Environment and Technology Section's Brent K. Marshall Student Paper Award for her paper "Mundane Technology: A Case Study of the Introduction of Permanent Walls to the Inuit of Arviat, Nunavut, Canada." In this work she examines modes of engagements with mundane technology, looking at both the impacts of walls and the agency exercised by the users.
• Lisa-Jo van den Scott, PhD Candidate, was awarded a 2 year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship. Lisa-Jo researches the Inuit experience of the intersection of technology and sedentism in Canada's central Arctic region (2012).
• Cristian Ziliberberg, PhD Candidate, received a 4-year fellowship from the Open Society Foundations Doctoral Fellows Program. He is in a joint degree program in the Kellogg School of Management and the Department of Sociology (2012).
• Robert Vargas, PhD Candidate, has received a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research fellowship at Harvard University. After his post doc at Harvard, he will take a position as Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wisconsin. 2012.
• Marina Zaloznaya, PhD Candidate, is a recipient of the NSF, Law and Society Association, and Open Society Institute grants for her dissertation work on bureaucratic corruption in higher education in Eastern Europe. She has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa.
• John Hagan, John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law, has won the Harry J. Kalven, Junior Prize from the Law and Society Association. Harry J. Kalven, the Junior Prize is awarded annually in honor of a body of "empirical scholarship that has contributed most effectively to the advancement of research in law and society." The award was announced at the 2012 International Conference on Law and Society
• Lisa-Jo van den Scott, PhD Candidate, was awarded a 2011-12 Canadian Studies Doctoral Student Research Award Program Grant from the Canadian Embassy. Lisa-Jo's research with the Canadian Inuit explores their experience with sedentism and the cultural consequences of the introduction of permanent walls.
• Jess Koski, PhD Candidate, was awarded a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, from the NSF Science, Technology, and Society Program (2012). Jess's dissertation project is titled Human Rights and the Warming World: Investigating the Use and Impact of Social Knowledge Claims in the Climate Debate.