"Whatever sociology may be, it is the result of constantly asking the question, what is the meaning of this?"—C. Wright Mills

Graduate Students

Abdusabur Abdusamadov: aacp5@mizzou.edu
I received my master degree from the Department of Classical Literature of Tajik State National University and Candidate of Philosophical Sciences from the Tajikistani Academy of Sciences in 2007. I am currently fourth year PhD student studying 'sociology of conflict resolution' and focusing on the issue of social conflicts in the region of Central Asia, particularly on the role of religion in conflict studies in Ferghana Valley.

Marzouqah Al-Azmi: ma5g9@mail.mizzou.edu

Charise Albritton: cmahd3@mizzou.edu

Stephen Barnard: srb221@mizzou.edu
After completing a B.A. and M.A. in Sociology at MU, I decided to continue my studies here as a doctoral student. My master’s thesis, entitled “Crooked Coverage: A Study of (De)Racialized Texts in Print Media,” focused on exploring various ways in which print media outlets (de)racialize issues via implicit racial codes and spatial (mis)representation. On top of my overarching interest in media, I am also drawn to the areas of inequalities, social control, deviance, and social movements. Given my longing for social justice and interests in practicing and promoting public sociology, I plan to continue my research and teaching with these ends in mind.

Andrew Bisto: amb7p2@mail.mizzou.edu

Katie Brueggemann: kmbhz6@mail.mizzou.edu

Stephen Christ: src257@mail.mizzou.edu
My primary interests are in immigration, race and ethnicity, social inequalities, assimilation, culture and identity, and Mexican Americans. Up to this point in my research, I have focused largely on the sway of the Catholic Church in the assimilation trajectories of immigrants in the United States. Specifically, how Mexican immigrants use popular religious practices to create communities, sustain ethnic identities, and to selectively assimilate to mainstream American culture. Since one of the only institutional foundations which remains consistent in Mexican immigrant transition from Mexico to the United States is the Catholic Church, I have found that it is being used as a platform for social and political identity formation and as a means of achieving change.

In my future research I plan to move towards studying ethnomethodologically how legality/illegality and native/foreigner is constructed and reified in the everyday lives of Mexican immigrants in the many new destinations in the Midwest. I am particularly interested in the everyday experiences of Mexican immigrants that contribute to Mexican-American identity formation. More specifically, I am interested in how Mexican Americans experience daily life at home, at work, in public life and on how these experiences impact their sense of personal identity, their relationships with natives, their interactions with their families and community, and the identity work that goes into producing such categories and social worlds.

Amanda Clough: clougha@missouri.edu
I am currently a doctoral student at MU. I have completed a B.A. in Sociology at Mizzou and an M.S. in Criminal Justice at Columbia College. My interests include criminology, deviance, and social control. My master’s thesis focused on child rearing and how it impacts juvenile delinquency.

Matt Cousineau: mccn7@mail.mizzou.edu
I'm a doctoral candidate, and in general, I'm interested in the sociology of technoscience, cultural sociology, qualitative methods, and ethnography. In particular, I'm doing a multi-sited ethnographic dissertation to explore agency and subjectivity in robotics research.

David Criger: dwcwv5@mizzou.edu

David Derossett: dld6wc@mizzou.edu

Allen "Curtis" Edwards: acer34@mizzou.edu
My primary research interests include urban development policy and inequality. My Master's research focused on the social factors contributing to business opposition to a light rail transit system in Kansas City, Missouri. Building on this research, I am currently exploring the historical relationship among transportation policy, spatial inequality, and the social construction of place(s) in Kansas City. I am also interested in the areas of race, social movements, and political sociology.

David Elliott: dle46f@mizzou.edu
I come from the pragmatist/interactionist tradition in sociology, and my master’s thesis and publications to date reflect that background. My thesis, “Living Acts of Semiosis: John Dewey’s Model of Esthetic Experience as Key to a Temporal Theory of Signs,” introduces an alternative to the structuralist conception of semiotics widely considered almost synonymous with the term. For my dissertation research, I plan to study the effects on ethical theory production in the U.S. of the bioethics movement, which began in the 1960s and has grown rapidly since. This research can be seen as touching on the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of science, technology, and medicine, as well as historical sociology. I am also interested in the complementarities, tradeoffs, tensions, and boundaries between qualitative and quantitative approaches to sociological research. As a natural corollary, I am interested in mixed methods of research.

My teaching to date has been in social research methods, including social statistics. I am interested in teaching courses in theory and in research methods as well as other courses. In addition to adjunct teaching, I am a part-time research consultant with the Project Construct National Center. The center promotes a constructivist and developmentally appropriate approach to teaching preschool and elementary school children.

Publications:
David L. Elliott. 2007. “Pragmatism” and “Primary Groups.” Entries in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology , edited by George Ritzer. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

David L. Elliott, Kevin McElmurry, and Peter M. Hall. 2003 “Interactionism and the Construction of Sociology.” Review of The Faultline of Consciousness: A View of Interactionism in Sociology by David R. Maines. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 32: 467 - 471

Derek Evans: djedz2@mizzou.edu

Andrew Fisher: arfxvc@mail.mizzou.edu

Roslyn Fraser: rsfpp9@mizzou.edu
I am currently a PhD student interested in the sociology of health and illness, specifically women's health, the commodification of health, and health care policy. I am passionate about health care policy issues including health technology, health care rights, Medicare, Medicaid, the overall payment system, policy making, and how policy affects people's lived experiences. I received my B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and my M.A. in Sociology from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. After completion of my M.A. courses, I worked for 4 years in Health Services Research (HSR) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. I was fortunate to have had the experience in HSR where I was included in a variety of research projects. Some of the most influential projects for me were the Nebraska State Planning Grant study of Uninsurance and Underinsurance, the Nebraska Rural Health Works Project, the study of Rural Independent Pharmacies' Experiences with Medicare Part D, the study of Health Care Delivery in Wyoming, the study of Adolescents' Attitudes and Beliefs About Anti-Drug and Alcohol Programs, and (although not directly involved but observed from the sidelines) the Culture of Patient Safety Project.

Lindy Hern: lsh8r4@mizzou.edu

Olivia Hetzler: orh013@mizzou.edu
I am currently a PhD student in the department of sociology. My masters thesis "Politics of Homelessness: Hidden Motivations for Criminalizing the Homeless" examined group power in the context of managing a social "problem", examining city power, the use of aesthetics and economic justifications, and the treatment of "non-citizens" by municipalities. While this project is still of key interest, specifically in relation to aesthetics, tourism, social policy, and the construction of space, I have taken a turn for in my research interests to the areas of consumption, over-consumption (particularly of basic needs of food, clothing, shelter), waste, accessibility to consumption, and the impacts that the aforementioned issues have upon Nature, as well as the development of consumer culture over time. In addition the shifting of the Environmental Movement since the 1960's in coordination with the growth of consumerism.

Steve Kehnel: sck3k5@mizzou.edu
My general areas of research are gender/sexuality, shopping/marketing/advertising discourses (the “production of consumption”), and the relationships between the body and social/cultural/historical location. Currently, I am working on ways to chart the relationships between bodily experiences of biology/physiology, psychology, and larger social-cultural definitions of masculinity. In other words, how specific ideas of who and how we should be as men and women, are put into specific practices of “building” environments so as to encourage particularly gendered bodily experiences. In this work, I will also need to explore a variety of novel approaches to research and experience embodiment (methodology).

Previously, I have researched the commodification of masculinity in US culture, the production, use, and deployment of the marketing category of “metrosexual” as an organizer (sense-making device) of masculine disruptions, and the “work” (in the ethnomethodological sense) involved in deploying the concepts of “bias” and “academic freedom” to limit critical education. The primary sociological/theoretical inspirations for this work come from Dorothy E. Smith, Michel Foucault, Zygmunt Bauman, George Herbert Mead, Judith Butler, Aldous Huxley, James Baldwin, and Patricia Hill Collins.

Katie Knop: krknq6@mail.mizzou.edu

Kathleen Krueger: kekgf3@mizzou.edu
Kathleen Krueger is in her sixth year of the PhD program at Mizzou. Her dissertation focuses on how sorority women use beauty, fashion, and appearance in negotiating organizational identity as members of their sororities. Kathleen's research interests include gender, social inequalities, youth culture, and beauty culture. To date, Kathleen has taught a wide variety of courses, including Introduction to Sociology, The Female Experience, Class, Status, and Power, Youth in Today's World, and Sociology of the Family.

Braden Leap: btltdd@mail.mizzou.edu

Kevin Martin: kwm9rc@mizzou.edu
I attended Mississippi State University where I obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Certification in Criminal Justice. I attended University of North Dakota and obtained a Master of Arts in Sociology. My thesis was entitled, A Rose By Any Other Name: An Examination of Rural Lesbian Identities in the Upper Midwest.

Currently, I am a first year PhD student in Sociology and Gus T. Ridgel Fellow. My areas of interest are gender and sexuality, specifically GLBTQA issues, identity, and social movements. I am also interested in the sociology of teaching, the media, and activism and public policy development. I am a macro-level theorist and employ both quantitative and qualitative research methodology. My influences spring from general symbolic interactionism, as well as the theories and writings of C. Wright Mills, Goffman, Berger, Judith Butler, and Brekhus. I am also currently serving as the Chairman of the Midwest Rainbow Sociologists Society.

Lisa Martino-Taylor: lmvd3@mizzou.edu
I am a completing my PhD with specializations in Political & Economic Institutions and Social Movements, and Social Control & Deviance. My research areas include Elite Deviance, Political Sociology, Environmental Corporate Crime, Chemical and Biological Weapons, State-Corporate Crime, Globalization, Military Sociology, and the Social Effects of Industrial Toxins on Communities. In April, 2007, I presented a paper, "In the Shadow of Agent Orange: The Broad Impact of the Times Beach Legacy", at the Midwest Sociological Society in Chicago. I recently appeared in an international documentary, "Auslandsreporter", regarding chemical weapons and the Monsanto Company, that aired on German Public Television. My most recent journal article, "The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex and a New Social Autism", was published in the Journal of Political and Military Sociology in August, 2008.

Jeffrey McCully: jcmbv9@mizzou.edu
I joined the department in 2005. I completed the Masters program in 2007 and am currently working on a PhD with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. http://www.missouri.edu/~jcmbv9

Kara McGhee: kemc6d@mizzou.edu

Veronica Medina: vemm93@mizzou.edu
I received my BA in sociology and English from the University of Kansas in 2004. Shortly thereafter I ventured into Tiger Country and completed my MA in May, 2007. “Theorizing American Girl”-- my thesis-- critiques American Girl Inc.’s complex of self-einforcing cultural industries which produce and market both material objects and a whitewashed set of “American” ideologies and values to race- and class-privileged girls. I am especially concerned with American Girl’s perpetuation of the myth that the legacies of Native American and Mexican American internal colonization are individual problems rather than structural problems.

Broadly, my areas of interest include social inequalities and culture and identity. My projects include reconceptualizing the definition of the immigrant second generation to account for parents with differing nativity statuses, push and pull factors of immigration with regard specifically to Missouri’s Latino immigrant population (Cambio Center), and children’s popular culture. I am co-author, along with Olivia Hetzler and David Overfelt, of two articles published by Sociation Today which examine racialized aspects of gentrification. The articles are “Race, Immigration and Economic Restructuring in New Urbanism: New Orleans as a Case Study” and “Gentrification, Displacement, and New Urbanism: The Next Racial Project.”

Julia Mulligan: jm7t5@mail.mizzou.edu

Gudmundur Oddsson: gfoqpd@missouri.edu
I am a PhD candidate in sociology and I plan to graduate in the spring of 2013. My current research interests include social control and social inequalities, mainly the subjective dimensions of class. My dissertation "Challenging Classlessness as Doxa: Change, Crisis and How Icelanders Think About Class" is on how structural and cultural changes in Iceland leading up to and following an economic collapse in the fall of 2008 changed how Icelanders think about class division. I am planning to study similar developments in the United States.

I am presently working on a book about crime and punishment in Iceland along with professor Helgi Gunnlaugsson and professor John F. Galliher. I also have two articles in the pipelines, along with my colleagues Andrew Fisher and Takeshi Wada, that examine the determinants of police force strength in urban America.

I received my M.A. in sociology from University of Missouri in 2009. I have a B.Sc. in Business Management, a B.A. in Socio-Economic Development and a GCE – Post Graduate Certificate of Education. I have a background in research, having worked as a researcher for almost three years in the University of Akureyri Research and Development Center parallel to my undegraduate studies. I have also participated in large research projects.

Publications:
In Press. "Representations of Classlessness In a Small, Homogenous and Egalitarian Society." Berkeley Journal of Sociology Vol. 56.

2011. "Ideas About Icelandic Classlessness." Islenska thjodfelagid [Icelandic Society] Vol. 2, No. 1, 27-46.

2010a. "Class Awareness among Icelanders in the Wake of an Economic Collapse." Islenska thjodfelagid [Icelandic Society] Vol. 1, No. 1, 5-26.

2010b. "Class Awareness in Iceland." International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Vol. 30, No. 5/6, 292-312.

Joshua Olsberg: jeobk4@mizzou.edu
I am primarily interested in how political and economic contexts mediate the ways in which people are able to understand and express their identities. Drawing from Post-Colonial, Feminist, and Critical theories I explore the impact of Global Development on our notions of immigration, community, belonging, and citizenship. I seek to tie together Comparative and Historical, Interactionist and Constructivist, and Ethnomethodological traditions to create new methodological possibilities for the discipline. Above all, I strive to find new ways to communicate the knowledge produced in the field of Sociology in our classrooms. I believe that teaching within and beyond the boundaries of our institutions of higher learning is our mandate if we are to contribute to a better informed and more critical public dialogue about the problems of today.

Daniel Petrin: dtpcn6@mail.mizzou.edu

Jenna Pirok: jnpzq8@mail.mizzou.edu

Chelsea Platt: cap6w3@mail.mizzou.edu

James Polk: jtpkt2@mizzou.edu

John Pruit: johnpruit@gmail.com
John C. Pruit is a graduate student at the University of Missouri. He is the former managing editor for Symbolic Interaction and Societies Without Borders, and the current editorial assistant for Journal of Aging Studies. His interests include narrative, identity, social control, and qualitative methods. He is currently researching the tensions between cultural, institutional, and personal narratives of those involved in preschool education.

Faiza Rais: frr2nf@mail.mizzou.edu

Margaret Ralston: mlrgzd@mizzou.edu

Adam Rendall: ajrzv6@mizzou.edu

Anastacia Schulhoff: amsv36@mail.mizzou.edu
Anastacia received her Bachelor's degree in Sociology and Human Services (double-major) from Black Hills State University in Spearfish, SD and her Master's degree in Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in College Teaching at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. Broadly speaking, her research looks at the intersections of identity construction, narratives, and social institutions. Her Master's thesis "More than Bows and Arrows: Subversion and Double Consciousness in Native American Storytelling" used narrative analysis to examine the stories told by Native American storytellers - finding stereotypical identities being subverted and "authentic" identities being constructed. Her dissertation will follow a line of investigation that includes: Culture/Identity, Symbolic Interaction, Social Construction, Human Rights, Native Americans/Indigenous Peoples, narrative analysis, ethnography, social inequalities and social institutions.

Michael Sickels: msswf9@mizzou.edu

Jennifer Stafford: jdsn96@mizzou.edu

Leslie Stoltz: ldsgy5@mizzou.edu
I attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where I obtained both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Sociology. My thesis was entitled, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Collective Memory over a Quarter Century. Primarily a qualitative sociologist, I focused specifically on the New York Times and the Washington Post where I uncovered themes of politics, healing, controversy, religious significance, etc.

Currently, I am a first year PhD student in Sociology. My primary areas of interest are culture and identity. I am also interested in collective memory and memorialization.

Juan Suarez Gomez: jdsd54@mail.mizzou.edu

Colin Suchland: ces6df@mizzou.edu
I completed my master's degree in Sociology at Mizzou in 2008, and I am now conducting field research in support of my doctoral studies. My project in urban sociology concerns gentrification and redevelopment in St. Louis' "Grove" neighborhood. In addition to my research I teach as an adjunct instructor at several St. Louis institutions. I also work as a free-lance photographer and journalist. Check out my work here: http://www.colinesuchlandphotos.com

James Thomas: jmt552@mizzou.edu

Ashley Vancil: advgg3@mail.mizzou.edu
My general research interests include social inequalities, culture and identity. However, more specifically, I focus a great deal of my research on food insecurity and gender. Particularly, I'm interested in the relationship food insecure mothers have with their children. I am originally from Massachusetts. However, I attended undergraduate at Beloit College in southern Wisconsin. I really enjoy the Sociology Department and the larger community here at the University of Missouri.

Jesse VanGerven: jpvxb6@mizzou.edu
I am working to complete my PhD in the areas of environmental sociology, political sociology, social movements, social inequalities, and the environmental justice movement. The empirical focus of my dissertation is the anti-nuclear movement on the local, national (U.S.) and international levels. I show anti-nuclear activism on these analytic levels constitutes an emergent form of environmental justice activism; environmental justice energy activism, which links locally-based struggles for environmental justice with movements targeting energy policy on national and international scales. My analysis of the discursive strategies employed by anti-nuclear social movement organizations not only reveals new insights into the multidimensional nature of the “justice” in environmental justice, but also raises new and important questions about social movement theory in general, the environmental justice movement in particular, and the relationships between the state, the energy industry and civil society. I will be entering the academic job market in the fall of 2012, and I expect to complete my dissertation in the spring of 2013.

Jennifer Beggs Weber: jjby87@mizzou.edu

Evonnia Woods: ew2mf@mail.mizzou.edu

Samuel (Mark) Youngblood: smy4zc@mizzou.edu
I am currently a master’s student at the University of Missouri. I received my B.A. in Crime and Society at Missouri State University in 2004 and was a police officer for sixteen years prior to finishing my undergraduate degree. My interests include criminology, social theory and cognitive sociology. My Master’s research is focused on a small mid-western drug court.