Graduate Student Awards and Accomplishments
Our graduate students continue to accrue honors, grants, fellowships, and publications.
Here are just some of their recent accomplishments:
Diana Hernandez won a Law and Social Sciences Dissertation Fellowship from the American Bar Foundation to support work on her dissertation "Litigating Health Risks." Diana's project examines the effectiveness of legal services as a resource tool for low-income families in the prevention and intervention of child and family health risks. As a recipient of the fellowship, she will spend two years in residence at the American Bar Foundation to complete her dissertation.
Jenny Todd's co-authored paper with Steven Morgan, entitled "A Diagnostic Routine for the Detection of Consequential Heterogeneity of Causal Effects" is forthcoming in Sociological Methodology.
Jung Mee Park won a Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship from the East Asia Program at Cornell. The FLAS fellowship will cover Jung Mee's tuition and stipend for one year.
Kelly Patterson won a 2007-2008 Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship to support his dissertation, "Vetting the Entrepreneur: A Multi-dimensional Study of Information, Trust, and New Ventures." Kelly's project explores the relative importance of social information used by commercial credit agents to evaluate the reliability of new business owners, comparing credit rating trends to actual failure, insolvency and bankruptcy rates.
Kyle Siler's paper with Neil McLaughlin, "The Canada Research Charis Program and Social Science Reward Structures" is forthcoming in the Canadian Review of Sociology.
Sarah Thebaud was awarded a 2008 NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant for her proposal "A Cross-National Study of Entrepreneurship, Instituions and Cognitive Bias" and a Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship for her proposal "Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Cognitive Bias: A Cross-National Study of Gender Inequality in Venture Creation." Her project uses cross-national survey data and experimental studies to evaluate a multilevel theory of gender inequality in the business start-up process. Sarah was a co-winner of the 2007 Robin Williams Jr. Best Paper Award and winner of a Michele Sicca Graduate Fellowship from the Institute for European Studies. Sarah's paper with Shelley Correll and Stephen Bernard, "An Introduction to the Social Psychology of Gender" will appear in Advances in Group Processes.
In Paik's paper with Shelley Correll and Stephen Bernard "Getting a Job: Is there a Motherhood Penalty?" was recently published in the American Journal of Sociology paper. Another paper (with Correll and Bernard), "Cognitive Bias and the Motherhood Penality" appeared in the Hastings Law Journal. In Paik served as the 2007 Coordinator of Feedback Diversity Initiative for Cornell's Deputy Provost office.
Cate Taylor was awarded a 2007 NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant from the Decision, Risk, and Management Sciences program for her project, "Stress, Status, and Gender." Cate's research examines the experiences of women and men working in occupations that are non-traditional for their gender using national survey data and biological markers of stress response.
Ecehan Koc won a Cornell-Heidelberg Exhange Fellowship, and an International Research Travel grant from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Stuides to support her project, "Why and How Did Veiling Become a Human Right? The Headscarf Controversy in Turkey."
Chris Yenkey was awarded an NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant for his project "Transplanting and Translating Stock Markets into the Developing Countries of sub-Saharan Africa." Chris presented a paper, "Exploring the Origin and Evolution of Transparency: 70 Years of U.S. Securities Market Regulation," at the 2006 International Conference on Financial and Economic Sociology, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
Cyprian Wejnert won a 2007 NSF Dissertation Improvement grant for his proposal, "Networks and Norms: Enforcement through Association." Cyp's project will use respondent driven sampling to study how norms map onto the social network of two undergraduate populations.
Michael Genkin presented a paper with Alexander Gutfraind, entitled "How Do Terrorist Cells Self-Assemble? Insights from an Agent-Based Model, at the 2007 Risk Analysis Conference in San Antonio, Texas.
Ed Carberry was a co-winner of the 2007 Robin Williams Jr. Best Paper Award. Ed's paper is entitled, "Defending organizational legitimacy after Enron: The symbolic adoption of stock option expensing in the wake of the recent corporate scandals." Ed's work "An Analysis of Social Stratification in Companies with Shared Capitalism" is forthcoming in The Economics of Shared Capitalism, edited by Freeman, Kruse, Blasi. Ed has accepted a position as assistant professor in the Department of Business-Society Management at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.
Michael "Trey" Spiller's paper with Doug Heckathorn and Joan Jeffri, "Social Networks of Aging Visual Artists" was published in Jeffri's edited volume, Information on Artists III: Special Focus on New York City Aging Artists.
Youngjoo Cha won the 2006-2007 departmental teaching award for her excellent work in Soc 506 (graduate methods). Youngjoo is also a past winner of the Robin Williams Jr. award. Her paper with Steve Morgan, "Rent and the Evolution of Inequality in Late Industrial United States," appeared in the January, 2007 issue of American Behavioral Scientist.
Erik Williams won a national competition to be a Presidential Management Fellow with the CDC in Atlanta. He just started a two-year gig as a public health analyst in the Office of the Director of Policy and Planning in the National Center for HIV/Aids, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention. While there, he'll collect data for his dissertation.
Pi-Chun Hsu won a Starr Fellowship from the Cornell East Asia Program for her project on the household division of labor in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The Starr Fellowship will pay for Pi-Chun's tuition and stipend for one semester of dissertation work. (Pi-Chun also won a Starr Fellowship in 2005.)
Miles Garrett has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Miles is interested in labor markets and economic sociology, and his fellowship-winning proposal asks how norms affect the wage-setting process.
Tom Lento received a 2007 NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant
for his project, "Examining Network Effects on the Spread of Rumor and
Misinformation."
Matt di Carlo's paper with Kim Weeden, Young-Mi Kim (PhD 2006), and David Grusky, "Social Class and Earnings Inequality," was published in the January, 2007 issue of American Behavioral Scientist.
John Scott won a 2006 NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant for his proposal, "Cooperation and Collusion: The Ambiguous Role of Lobbying in America." His paper with Steve Morgan, "Intergenerational Transfers and the Prospects for Increasing Wealth Inequality," appeared in a recent issue of Social Science Research. John will join the faculty of the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the fall of 2008.
Esther Quintero was awarded a 2006 NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant for her project, "Gender and the Evaluation of Job Applicants in Interactive Settings." Esther recorded and observed 80 oral service examinations in Spain, and is using these data to show whether and how interactions between interviewees and employers in a "real life" interview setting contribute to sex segregation.
Steve Benard won a NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant for his project, "Intergroup Conflict and Emerging Social Structure." Steve and Shelley Correll (PI) received a NSF grant ($85,100) for their project on motherhood and wages. Steve and Shelley's paper, "Biased Estimators? Comparing Status and Statistical Theories of Gender Discrimination," was recently published in Advances in Group Processes. Related work with Shelley Correll and In Paik recently appeared in the American Journal of Sociology and the Hastings Law Journal. Steve's paper with 2006 PhD Robb Willer, "A Wealth and Status-Based Model of Residential Segregation," received the 2006 Graduate Student Paper Award from the ASA's Mathematical Sociology section and was published in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology. Steve received a 2007-2008 small grant from Cornell's Institute for the Social Sciences (with Pat Barclay and H. Kerne Reeve) and has a paper with Michael Macy forthcoming in Simulating Social Complexity, edited by Edmonds and Moss. Steve has accepted a position as assistant professor of sociology at the University of Indiana to begin fall 2008.
Seven of our students won 2007-2008 seed grants from the Center for the Study of Inequality and the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center:
- Nicolas Eilbaum, "Undocumented Immigrants in New York City: Hope and Fear"
- Jennifer Lauture, "Never-Married Black Women: The Roles of Social Distance and Racial Exclusion"
- Bartolo Liguori, "No Child Left Behind and Test Score Pollution in New York City"
- Catherine J. Taylor, "Stress, Status, and Gender in Decision-Making Groups"
- Jennifer J. Todd, "Under Pressure: Teaching Expectations and Student Achievement in the Era of School Accountability"
- Yujun Wang and Michael Genkin, "Understanding Onomastic Mechanisms in Immigrant Assimilation.
Finally, 18 students presented papers at the 2007 American Sociological Association meetings in New York City:
- Stephen W. Benard, "Group Conflict, Cultural Values, and the Emergence of Norms and Hierarchies"
- Ed Carberry, "Exploring the Limits of Convergence in the Global Technology Sector: The Institutionalization of Employee Stock Option Programs in India"
- Youngjoo Cha, "The Gendered Norm of Overwork and the Persistence of Gender Inequality"
- Michael Genkin, "A Theory of Open and Closed In-Group Cues"
- Diana Hernandez, "Commonalities, Competition and Linked Fate: On Latinos Immigrants in New and Traditional Receiving Areas" and "Living In Paradox: Low Income Families, Home and Neighborhood Challenges and (Non)Participation in the Legal System"
- Matthew Hoffberg, "The Problem with External Assistance: Institutions, Commitment and Trust"
- Pi-chun Hsu, "Recent Developments of the Principle of Equal Pay for Women and Men in the EU"
- Jennifer Lauture, "Never-Married Black Women: Interactional Accounts"
- Thomas M. Lento, "Builders, Connectors and Lurkers: How Early Social Network Structure Shapes Subsequent Role Taking and Retention in Weblogging Communities"
- In Young Paik, "Examining Graduate Student Success: Advancement of Women & People of Color in Academe"
- Kelly Patterson, "The Diffusion of Technology Transfer Offices Among U.S. Universities"
- Jared L. Peifer, "Towards a Theory of Solidarity and Religious Giving"
- Esther Quintero, "Gender and the Evaluation of Job Applicants in a Natural Setting"
- Judith E. Rosenstein, "Individual Threat, Group Threat, and Attitudes towards Legalizing Gay Marriage"
- John Scott, "Good Paths or Bad Paths? Phased Retirement and Opportunities in Transitioning from Work to Retirement" and "The Embeddedness of Lobbying"
- Kyle Siler, "A Networks and Organizations Perspective on (Inter)disciplinarity: A Meta-Analysis of Science and Technology Studies"
- Sarah Thebaud, "His, Hers, and Theirs: Class, Gender, and Race in the Vote Choice of Married Americans" and "Masculinity, Bargaining and Breadwinning: A Study of Men's Household Labor in 22 Countries"
Contratulations to all!