The Harvard University Department of Sociology

Sociology Ph.D.s on the Job Market

This page is designed to provide information about our Ph.D. candidates and recent Ph.D.s who are now on the academic job market.

Weihua An
Ph.D. Date:  November 2011
Dissertation title: Peer Effects on Adolescent Smoking and Social Network-Based Interventions
Areas of teaching/research: Social Policy and Development, Organizations, Methodology (especially social network analysis, causal inference, and field experiments)
Committee: Christopher Winship (co-chair), Martin K. Whyte (co-chair), A. James O'Malley (Harvard Medical School)
See Curriculum Vitae or Email: weihuaan@fas.harvard.edu

Victor Tan Chen
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "Without Merit: Unemployment and the Social Safety Net in a Culture of Meritocracy"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Work and labor markets; urban poverty and joblessness; social stratification and inequality; health policy; qualitative methods.
Committee: William Julius Wilson, Katherine S. Newman, and Bruce Western
See Curriculum Vitae, or email: vchen@fas.harvard.edu

Oana Dan
PhD Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation title: "Contouring the public sphere in the European Union: public opinion, party discourse and the European Commission"
Areas of teaching/research: Political sociology, public opinion, citizenship, transnational institutions, the European Union, sociological theory, quantitative methods.
Committee: Jason Beckfield, Michele Lamont (co-chairs), Vivien Schmidt
See Curriculum Vitae or Email: odan@fas.harvard.edu

Nathan Fosse
Ph.D. Date: November 2011 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "When Tomorrow is Never Promised: Drug Use, Sexual Health, and Beliefs Toward the Future Among Low-Income Emerging Adults"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Social stratification, sociology of health and sexuality, transition to adulthood, culture and poverty, mixed method analysis.
Committee: Michèle Lamont (chair), Kathryn Edin, William Julius Wilson
See Curriculum Vitae or email fosse@wjh.harvard.edu

Andreea Daniela Gorbatâi 
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: “Social Structure and Mechanisms of Collective Production: Evidence from Wikipedia”
Areas of Teaching/Research: collective action, sociology of organizations, social movements, social networks, social psychology, social entrepreneurship, organizational behavior
Committee: Mikołaj Jan Piskorski (chair), Peter V. Marsden, J. Richard Hackman, Toby Stuart
See Website or email agorbatai@hbs.edu

Alison Denton Jones
Ph.D. Date: November 2010
Dissertation Title/Topic: "A Modern Religion?: The State, the People, and the Remaking of Buddhism in Urban China Today"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Cultural and organizational sociology, religion, social movements, civil society, development, globalization, China and East Asia, reesearch design and methods.
Committee: Martin K. Whyte (chair), Christopher Winship, Nancy T. Ammerman
See Curriculum Vitae or email: adjones@fas.harvard.edu

Jiwook Jung
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title: "Shareholder Value and Workforce Downsizing, 1984-2006"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Organizational sociology, economic sociology, stratification, quantitative methodology
Committee: Frank Dobbin (chair), Peter V. Marsden, Christopher Marquis
See Curriculum Vitae or Email: jwjung@fas.harvard.edu

Kevin Lewis
Ph.D. Date: (expected May 2012)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "Stratification in the Early Stages of Mate Choice”
Areas of Teaching/Research: Culture, social networks, theory, social psychology, family, inequality
Committee: Peter V. Marsden (chair), Michèle Lamont, Jocelyn Viterna, Martin Whyte
See Curriculum Vitae or email kmlewis@fas.harvard.edu

Eunmi Mun
Ph.D. Date: November 2011
Dissertation Title: " The Organizational Reproduction of Gender Inequality: The Equal Employment Opportunity Law and Women’s Employment in Japan, 1986-2009"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Gender stratification in the labor market, organizations, labor market institutions, work and employment in East Asia
Committee: Mary C. Brinton (Chair), Jason Beckfield, Frank Dobbin, Peter V. Marsden
See Curriculum Vitae or email: emmun@fas.harvard.edu

Ann Owens
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "The New Geography of Subsidized Housing: Implications for Urban Poverty"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Urban sociology, sociology of education, social stratification and inequality, social policy, sociological research methods, sociology of the family, sociology of crime and punishment
Committee: Robert J. Sampson (co-chair); Christopher Jencks (co-chair); William Julius Wilson, and Kathryn Edin
See Curriculum Vitae or Email: aowens@fas.harvard.edu
website:http://scholar.harvard.edu/aowens/

Mark A. Pachucki
Ph.D. Date: May 2010
Dissertation Title/Topic: "A taste for tastes: Social influence, food choice, and health behaviors in a social network."
Areas of Teaching/Research: Culture, Social disparities in health, Social Networks
Committee: Nicholas Christakis (chair), Michèle Lamont, Filiz Garip
See Curriculum Vitae or Email: pachucki@berkeley.edu

Sabrina Pendergrass
Ph.D. Date: May 2010
Dissertation Title: "Making Moves: Place, Culture, and Stratification in the African American Reverse Migration to the Urban South"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Race and Ethnicity, Stratification, Internal Migration, Cultural Sociology, Regionalism, Research Methods
Committee: Michèle Lamont (chair), William Julius Wilson, and Prudence Carter
See Curriculum Vitae or E-mail: sabrina.pendergrass@duke.edu

Sanjay Pinto
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "Nations and Occupations: Towards a New Political Economy of Work"
Areas of Teaching/Research: International and comparative political economy; economic sociology; political sociology; stratification and inequality; work and occupations; social policy; social theory; social movements.
Committee: Jason Beckfield (chair), Torben Iversen, Bruce Western, Ben Schneider
See Curriculum Vitae or Email: sjpinto@fas.harvard.edu

Erin M. Reid
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "Is the Ideal Worker Still Real? Sources and Consequences of Men’s Professional Identities"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Gender, organizations, identity, institutions, social and organizational change, sustainability, qualitative methods. Committee: Robin Ely (Chair), Michel Anteby, Peter Marsden
See Curriculum Vitae: Email: ereid@hbs.edu
website: Erin M. Reid

Sameer Srivastava
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "Hunkering Down and Venturing Out:  Social Capital Activation during Uncertain Times in Organizational Life." 
Areas of Teaching/Research: Organizational Sociology; Organizational Theory; Network Analysis; Culture and Cognition; Economic Sociology; Research Design and Methods.
Committee: Peter V. Marsden (co-chair), Toby E. Stuart (co-chair), Frank Dobbin, Roberto M. Fernandez (MIT), J. Richard Hackman
See Curriculum Vitae or email: ssrivastava@hbs.edu
website: http://scholar.harvard.edu/srivastava/

András Tilcsik
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: Remembrance of Things Past: Individual Imprinting in Organizations
Areas of Teaching/Research: Organizations; economic sociology; work, labor markets, and discrimination; institutional theory; political processes in organizations; research methods
Committee: Frank Dobbin (chair), Christopher Marquis, Peter V. Marsden
See Curriculum Vitae or email tilcsik@fas.harvard.edu
website: http://scholar.harvard.edu/tilcsik

Tamara Pavasovic Trost
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: "Construction and Contestation of Ethnic Identity: Identity Discourse amont Serbian and Croatian Youth"
Areas of Teaching/Research: Ethnic and race relations, construction of ethnicity, nationalism and ethnic violence, historical memory, political and comparative-historical sociology, ethnic distance/stereotypes in children, research design and qualitative methods, special focus on the Balkans and Southeast Europe.
Committee: Mary C. Waters (chair), Jocelyn Viterna, Christopher Winship, Veljko Vujacic
See Curriculum Vitae or email: tpavasov@fas.harvard.edu


Joshua Wakeham
Ph.D. Date: May 2012 (expected)
Dissertation Title/Topic: “Managing Ambiguity and Uncertainty: How Competing Logics Come Together in Juvenile Justice Organizations”
Areas of Teaching/Research: Organizations, Juvenile Justice, Social Services, Law, Justice and Morality, Crime and Deviance, Knowledge, Decision-Making and Sense-Making, Social Theory, Pragmatism, Ethnography and Qualitative Methods.
Committee: Michèle Lamont, Orlando Patterson, Susan Silbey (MIT), and Christopher Winship (Chair)
See Curriculum Vitae or email: jwakeham@fas.harvard.edu

Updated: November 21, 2011