Graduate Studies Updates
Congratulations!
ChangHwan Kim, Director of Graduate Studies, along with Graduate Studies Committee members Brian Donovan, Mehrangiz Najafizadeh, and Jarron Saint Onge, would like to congratulate our 2023 graduates and award recipients.
Graduates
Damilola Adepeju-Fashina, MA
Religious Diversity and Conflict in Nigeria: Identity Formation and Economic Development
Alanna Daniels, MA
Have You Ever Seen a Commie Drink a Glass of Water? Sociological Explanations for the Anti-Fluoride Movement of the 1950s and 1960s
Laura Muñetón, MA
Whose Work is Essential? Rethinking Class in a Time of Crisis
Qixin Pan, MA
A Psychological Contract or a Golden Chain? Revisiting a Case Study of Kansas Power & Light Workers, 1956-1958
Anna Poudel, MA, with honors
Hybrid Racial Identities of Asian/Black, Asian/Brown, and Asian/White Mixed-Race Individuals: A Comparative Analysis
Matthew Erickson, Ph.D., with honors
Changing Marriage Dynamics in the United States, 1990s to 2010s
Survey Statistician, Census Bureau, Population Division, Local Government Estimates and Processing Branch
Melissa Irwin, Ph.D.
"My grief is my own" - Gen X Views on Mourning 2.0 and Continuing Bonds between the Living and the Dead on Facebook
Andrew Kim, Ph.D.
Three Essays on the Intersection of Race and Gender in the Labor Market
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, Population Studies Center
Kafayat Mahmoud, Ph.D.
Associations between Family Structures, Formal Social Participation, and End-of-Life Care Quality
Postdoctoral Fellow, Boston University
Alexander Myers, Ph.D.
Laboratories of Bureaucracy: The Development of Labor Market Institutions in Wisconsin, 1900-1940
Lecturer, Washburn University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Scott Tuttle, Ph.D.
Degrees of Separation: The Impact of Race and Immigration Status on Professional Career Paths
Management Analyst, Jackson County Circuit Court, and Lecturer, University of Kansas, Department of Sociology
In Memoriam
Gregory Goldman, Ph.D.
Civil Judaism in Crisis: Antisemitism, Israel, and American Jewish Identity Politics
Awards
- May J. Geis Opportunity Scholarship for Student-Faculty Research, with Dr. David N. Smith
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Helen Waddle Roofe Research Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Helen Waddle Roofe Research Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Office of Graduate Studies Carlin GTA Award
- Helen Waddle Roofe Research Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Office of Graduate Studies Summer Research Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark Award for Teaching Excellence
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
Kafayat Mahmoud
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Outstanding MA Thesis Award
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Midwest Sociological Society 3-minute Thesis Competition, 2nd place
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Helen Waddle Roofe Research Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark Award for Professional Service
- Christopher Gunn Graduate Student Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
- Samuel and Fred Sass Summer Dissertation Scholarship
- Carroll D. Clark and Morris C. Pratt Graduate Student Scholarship
Graduate Student Activities
Jennifer Babitzke- Jennifer Babitzke has progressed to doctoral candidate after successfully defending her dissertation proposal titled, “The Hidden Dimensions of Care: Understanding the Mental Labor of Informal Caregivers”. Jennifer has also been working as a graduate research assistant with Dr. Carrie Wendel-Hummel in the Center for the Advancement of Healthcare for Everyone (CAHE), formerly the KU Center for Research on Aging and Disability Options (CRADO) since 2021. Over the past year this research team published the following articles:
- Wendel, C., Sullivan, D. L., Babitzke, J., & La Pierre, T. A. 2025. “They seemed to forget about us little people”: the lived experiences of personal care attendants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Sociology, 10, 1460307. file:///C:/Users/jenba/Downloads/fsoc-3-1460307-2.pdf
- LaPierre, T. A., Wendel, C. L., Babitzke, J., Sullivan, D. L., Swartzendruber, L., & Olds, D. M. (2024). Experiences with care coordination and backup plans in home and community based services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kansas. Disability and Health Journal, 101677. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S193665742400116X
Jennifer assisted Dr. Misty Heggeness in the School of Public Affairs and Administration to develop a report for United Women’s Empowerment (United We) focused on the economic barriers for childcare providers in Kansas.
- Heggeness, Misty, Jennifer Babitzke, and Lilly Springer. 2025. Report: “The Economics of Child Care and Child Care Licensing in Kansas.” United Women’s Empowerment: Kansas City, MO. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/545815dce4b0d75692c341a8/t/6759f6a6578d4172e982f715/1733949103095/Heggeness+Report-01242024_final.docx.pdf
Jennifer also serves as managing editor for the Social Thought and Research (STAR) journal within the department. The journal published their most recent volume in February 2025: https://journals.ku.edu/star/issue/view/2770
Kayla Curry - I attended and presented the project "Third Places in Crisis: Social Isolation and Drug Deaths during the COVID-19 Pandemic" at the 2024 Southern Demography Association in collaboration with Jarron Saint Onge. I also presented my preliminary thesis results at the 2025 Kansas's Data Science Consortium and won the award for "Best Overall Poster." My thesis is called "The Role of Third Places in Out Epidemic of Loneliness."
Kaniz Fatema - Kaniz Fatema, a graduate student in Sociology, has had a meaningful year of academic and professional development. She recently completed her first Area of Specialization (ASD) in Gender and will begin a second ASD focused on Work and Inequality in the upcoming semester.
Kaniz has been recognized for her outstanding scholarship and service with several awards and honors, including the prestigious Sherman & Irene Dreiseszun Scholarship from the Harry S. Truman Foundation for 2025–2026. She was also nominated for KU’s Outstanding Master's Thesis or Research Project Award. Additional honors include the Samuel and Freda Sass Fund for Professional Development, Carroll D. Clark Award for Professional Service, Morris C. Pratt Scholarship, Alpha Kappa Delta Research Travel Grant,and a Student Travel Award from the Midwest Sociological Society (MSS).
In May 2025, Kaniz was selected to participate in KU’s Applied Humanities Bootcamp through the Hall Center for the Humanities, further strengthening her interdisciplinary engagement. Her academic contributions have been shared widely, including two recent presentations at the 2025 MSS Annual Meeting in Chicago:
- “Work-Life Balance Ideology and Practice: A Bourdieusian Perspective”
- “Reassessing Tokenism: Critiques and Contemporary Perspectives”
She will also present at the upcoming ASA Annual Meeting, co-authoring a paper with her advisor, Dr. Kelly Chong, titled “Gendered Flexibility: Unpacking the Career Paths of Non-Tenure Track Academics”, based on her MA thesis.
Looking ahead to the upcoming academic year, Kaniz will be teaching Self and Society, continuing her service roles as Assistant Editor for the STAR journal and Vice President of the Sociology Graduate Student Association (SGSA). She will also continue her work on a second Area of Specialization (ASD) focused on Work and Inequality.
Zahra Mansoursharifloo - Over the past academic year, Zahra successfully defended her master’s thesis—Verses and Lies: A Rhetorical Analysis of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Speeches During the Islamic Revolution—and advanced to the Ph.D. program. In support of this research, she was awarded a Kovler Fellowship from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. She also received the Laura Bassi Publication Scholarship to develop an article based on her thesis.
Zahra will present this work at several major conferences, including the International Mobilization Conference (San Diego, CA), the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting (Chicago, IL), and the Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting (Washington, D.C.). To support her participation in these events, she was awarded the Sass Scholarship by the Sociology Department.
In the coming academic year, Zahra will pursue her Area Specialization Defenses (ASDs) in cultural sociology and political sociology. Building on her research on social movements in Iran, she will focus on the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising and its impact on the Iranian diaspora. To support this next phase of her research, she has applied for several competitive fellowships and scholarships.
Qixin Pan - During the 2024–2025 academic year, Qixin Pan published a book review titled “Gary Alan Fine and Tim Hallett, Group Life: An Invitation to Local Sociology” in the International Sociology Review. He also presented a paper, “Waitresses in Sichuan Cuisine Restaurants: Segregated Performance and Doing Gender in Service Work,” at the 2024 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting.
Qixin’s second ASD on “Cultural Sociology” was accepted in Spring 2025. He was awarded both the Samuel and Freda Sass Fund for Professional Development and the Christopher Gunn Scholarship for the 2024–2025 academic year.
In Summer 2025, Qixin will serve as the instructor for SOC 130: Comparative Societies. Continuing his research on labor relations and work culture in the U.S. and China, he is currently revising an article focused on Kansas workers in the 1950s, exploring the gendered meanings of work within the Kansas Power & Light Company. Qixin is also in the process of developing his dissertation proposal over the summer and into the fall.
Matheus Romanetto - I had a book chapter accepted for publication, called "Information and capital: elements for a political economy of AI". in: Bhabani Nayak (ed.), Dialectic of Digital Enlightenment. London: Palgrave Macmillan. To be published October 2025.
I presented different aspects of my research for the PhD at the MSS, two different CLACS/KU events, and one online conference. At the MSS I also discussed by book Critique and affirmation in Erich Fromm. In the upcoming 5th ISA Forum of Sociology (July 6-11) I will present twice: once regarding my fieldwork results, and once regarding theoretical results in critical theory.
I was awarded the following five grants: Tinker Field Research Grant; KUIA Summer Pre-Dissertation Travel Grant; Samuel and Freda Sass Fund for Professional Development; and twice the Morris C. Pratt Scholarship.
Since the beginning of June, I have been conducting interviews and fieldwork for my dissertation, thus far with great success.
Yurong Zhang - We're excited to share excellent progress from doctoral candidate Yurong Zhang, who has achieved significant milestones during the 2024-2025 academic year. Most notably, she successfully published her first dissertation chapter in Social Science Research, co-authored with Professor ChangHwan Kim. The article, "Amid Union Decline: State-Level Unionization and Overwork of American Workers," represents a major step forward in her research profile. In addition, Yurong continues to work as a graduate research assistant for Professor Misty Heggeness, collaborating on important research examining U.S. mothers' labor market experiences and health outcomes. This summer, she will present her ongoing work at two sociology conferences: the RC28 Summer Meeting at UCLA and the ASA Annual Meeting in Chicago. ”