Graduate Studies Updates

Picture of person sitting in front of Strong Hall Jayhawk

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 2025 graduates and award recipients.

Graduates

Matt Bettencourt, MA

Kaniz Fatema, MA, with honors
Gendered Flexibility: Unpacking the Career Paths of Non-Tenure Track Academics

Charles Herro, MA
Masculine Agitators: Online Leadership in the Manosphere

Zahra Mansour, MA
Verses and Lies: Rhetorical Analysis of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Speeches During the Islamic Revolution

John Kaiser, Ph.D.
The Path to Medicine: Exploring the Pre-Medical Phase of Physician Socialization

Awards

Jennifer Babitzke

  • College of Liberal Arts & Sciences REI Graduate Student Grant Writing Incentive
  • Christopher Gunn Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Kayla Curry

  • Christopher Gunn Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Alanna Daniels

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Gabrielle Dobbs

  • Christopher Gunn Scholarship

Kaniz Fatema

  • Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Foundation, Sherman and Irene Dreiseszun Scholarship
  • Carroll D. Clark Award for Professional Service
  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Charles Herro

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Mia Kogure

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Alyssa Lewis

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Zahra Mansour

  • Laura Bassi Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Qixin Pan

  • Christopher Gunn Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Rafael Pinto Martinez

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship

Matheus Romanetto

  • KU International Affairs Pre-Dissertation Travel Grant
  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Abi Scoville

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship

Heeyoun Shin

  • Office of Graduate Studies Summer Research Scholarship
  • Carroll D. Clark Award for Teaching Excellence
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Nina Soltero

  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Servet Tas

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

Sepideh Yadegar

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship

Yurong Zhang

  • Morris C. Pratt Scholarship
  • Samuel and Freda Sass Professional Development Fund

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:

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.

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. ”