Principal Investigators
MICHAEL JONES-CORREA is Presidential Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Immigration (CSERI) at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught previously at Harvard and Cornell, where he served as the Robert J. Katz Chair of the Department of Government from 2014-2016. He is a co-author of Latinos in the New Millennium (Cambridge, 2012) and Latino Lives in America: Making It Home (Temple, 2010), the author of Between Two Nations: The Political Predicament of Latinos in New York City (Cornell, 1998), the editor of Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition and Conflict (Russell Sage Foundation, 2001) and co-editor of Outsiders No More? Models of Immigrant Political Incorporation (Oxford 2013. He has been a co-PI for the 2006 Latino National Survey, the Philadelphia-Atlanta Project, and the Latino Immigrant National Election Survey (LINES), as well as the author of several dozen publications on immigration, race, ethnicity and citizenship in the United States. This research has received support from the Carnegie, Ford, MacArthur, Russell Sage and National Science foundations, among others. Jones-Correa has been a visiting fellow at the Russell Sage Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University, and was the team leader and ISS fellow for the 2010-2013 theme project “Immigration: Settlement, Immigration and Membership,” at the Institute for the Social Sciences at Cornell. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation and on the Council of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
HELEN B. MARROW is Associate Professor of Sociology at Tufts University, with affiliations in Latin American Studies and the Consortium for the Study of Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora. Her research focuses on immigration, race and ethnicity, social class, health, and inequality and social policy. She is author of New Destination Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural American South (Stanford, 2011), co-editor of The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration since 1965 (Harvard, 2007), and co-editor of a special themed journal volume on ethnoracial disparities in access to health care during early implementation of the Affordable Care Act (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2017). Before joining Tufts, Helen served as a Robert Wood Johnson Postdoctoral Scholar in Health Policy (UC-Berkeley and UCSF) in 2008-10, a European Network on Inequality Research Fellow (Harvard University and University College Dublin) in 2006, and a Doctoral Fellow in Inequality and Social Policy (Harvard University) in 2001-07. She has received several awards for her research, including the 2008 Best Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association, the 2011 Distinguished Contribution to Research Article Award from the Latino/a Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, the 10th Anniversary Recognition Award from the Association of Mexicans in North Carolina (AMEXCAN), and the 2017 Donald W. Light Award for the Applied or Public Practice of Medical Sociology from the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. In 2014-15, Helen served as the Boston chapter co-leader of the Scholar Strategy Network, a group of scholars formed to help make the democratic and policy implications of academic research more broadly accessible to policymakers, citizen associations, and the media. She also served as a Faculty Fellow in Tufts' Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, where scholars engage in interdisciplinary discussions about how to build the capacity of Tufts faculty to integrate active citizenship into their work. In 2017-18, Marrow is a Visiting Researcher at the Russell Sage Foundation, as we write up data from this SINAP project into a book.
DINA OKAMOTO is Class of 1948 Herman B. Wells Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society (CRRES) at Indiana University. She is author of Redefining Race: Asian American Panethnicity and Shifting Ethnic Boundaries (Russell Sage Foundation, 2014) and has published numerous research articles in the areas of immigration, race, and ethnicity. Her main interest lies in understanding the adaptation and incorporation of immigrants and racial minorities in the U.S. She received an Early Career Award from the Asia and Asian America Section of the American Sociological Association, and a Scholars Award from the William T. Grant Foundation to fund a multi-year research project focusing on how community contexts shape the lives of immigrant youth in the U.S. She was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in 2003-04 and a visiting fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 2011-12. Okamoto has conducted extensive research on community organizations within immigrant communities, and has worked with these organizations to improve their outreach and recruitment efforts. She has also authored policy briefs on how community-based organizations help low-income immigrant mothers move out of poverty. One of her recent research projects focuses on anti-immigrant activities as well as the civic and political incorporation of immigrants in new destinations across 55 different metropolitan areas in the U.S. Her research has been funded by National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Center for Research on Poverty at UC Davis, West Coast Poverty Center at the University of Washington, UC Center for New Racial Studies, and the American Sociological Association.
LINDA R. TROPP is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research concerns how members of different groups approach and experience contact with each other, and how group differences in status affect cross-group relations. She received the 2012 Distinguished Academic Outreach Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst for excellence in the application of scientific knowledge to advance the public good. Tropp also received the 2013 Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring Award and the 2003 Allport Intergroup Relations Prize from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, as well as the Erikson Early Career Award from the International Society of Political Psychology, and the McKeachie Early Career Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Tropp is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. She has worked with national organizations to present social science evidence in U.S. Supreme Court cases on racial integration, on state and national initiatives to improve interracial relations in schools, and with non-governmental and international organizations to evaluate applied programs designed to reduce racial and ethnic conflict. She is co-author of “When Groups Meet: The Dynamics of Intergroup Contact” (2011, Psychology Press), editor of the “Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict” (2012, Oxford University Press), and co-editor of “Moving Beyond Prejudice Reduction: Pathways to Positive Intergroup Relations” (2011, American Psychological Association Books) and “Improving Intergroup Relations” (2008, Wiley-Blackwell).
Project Managers
DIANE WONG is currently a doctoral student at Cornell University's Department of Government. Her research focuses on American politics, Asian American politics, race and ethnicity, urban politics, intersectional identities, and youth activism. As a scholar activist and organizer, her research stems from a passion for community-building. After receiving her bachelor’s degree at Binghamton University, Wong spent time at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) based in New York City. She worked closely with local residents and small businesses to piece together a walking tour titled “Voices from Ground One: Post-9/11 Chinatown” that documents the profound changes and hardships that the effects of 9/11 and post-9/11 policies have had on the residential area. Her current research explores how the process of gentrification impacts the lives of communities of color living in urban spaces. Diane's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, American Political Science Association Minority Fellows Program, Latino Studies Program at Cornell University, and American Studies Program at Cornell University.
ROBBIE DEMBO is a PhD student in sociology at Indiana University. His research focuses on the effects of providing disability care on caregivers’ health and well-being, and the impacts of raising a child with developmental disabilities on a family’s life course. Before embarking on his exciting grad school journey, Robbie was a research analyst at NORC at the University of Chicago, where he engaged in large-scale evaluation studies of federal health programs and social policy interventions. Robbie also served as a social policy research fellow in the Governor’s Office in Illinois, where he developed evidence-based recommendations for juvenile justice reform and the delivery of high-impact human services. Robbie received his BA from the University of Michigan in Sociology and Judaic Studies. |
Graduate Research Assistants
MELISSA ABAD is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is examining the non profit organizational field in a new immigrant destination. Distinct from most studies on immigrant organizations, this study focuses on the experience of staff within distinct organizational forms (private, government, and ethnic/ community based) to examine how racialized and gendered meanings associated with the professional and client interact with the professional logics staff have internalized. Her research interests include migration to the US, new immigrant destinations, immigration organizations, and the intersection of race, class and gender. She's also received a Masters in social sciences from the University of Chicago and a BA in sociology from Northwestern University.
ISABELLA ALEXANDER is a doctoral candidate in Emory University's Department of Anthropology. Her current dissertation research project is based in Morocco and focused on an ethnographic examination of the nation's rapidly expanding sub-Saharan migrant population and the role of the Moroccan border in E.U. immigration politics. Alexander's research interests include: Transnational migration, political economy, labor, social stratification, citizenship and 'Illegality,' borders, legal anthropology, radicalization, Islam, ethnographic film, postcolonial Africa, and Maghribi history.
JACKIE BASS is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science hailing from the state of West Virginia. After several years living and studying abroad, she returned to the United States to begin her doctoral studies at UC-Berkeley. Her research focuses on changing religious doctrine and its impact on African American political attitudes. Her project also focuses on how these doctrinal changes shape interactions between churches and their communities.
JESSENIA CARREDANO grew up in Lynn, MA where she got to interact with many different cultures and people from different walks of life. Currently, she is a masters student at the School of Public Policy at UMass Amherst. Her main focus is on international economic development and social policy. Jessie has mainly been focusing her studies in Latin America to better understand the Latin American culture and how American policy is affecting countries in Latin America. She focuses on Latin America because she is a first generation Guatemalan-American and wants to better combine and understand Latin American culture and policy issues surrounding that area. As her degree is coming to a close she is applying to law school in hopes of fulfilling my dream of working in immigration law.
MARIO JAVIER CHAVEZ was born in Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico and currently lives in Canutillo, a small colonia outside of El Paso, Texas. He is currently a student and teaching assistant in the department of Sociology at the University of Texas at El Paso. His personal history has fueled his drive to understand and research several topics related to immigrant incorporation, labor, and border issues, most by way of research assistantships. His tenure at UTEP has allowed him to understand immigrant-native relations on the border. He now looks forwards to understanding the dynamics of these relationships in new receiving communities, specifically Atlanta, Georgia. He is also the President of the Sociological Student Society at UTEP, an organization that encourages the participation of marginalized groups in graduate school and graduate student development. His research interests include employment conditions, sociology of health, inequality and Latinos in the US. He looks forwards to entering PhD program next year to pursue training in sociology and demography.
ESTHER YOONA CHO is a Sociology graduate student at UC Berkeley with interests in immigration and race & ethnicity. Her current work examines how racialized notions of illegality shape the experiences of Asian and Latino undocumented young adults. Before coming to Berkeley, she worked at the Social Science Research Council, received her Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her B.A. from Duke University.
DIANE GARBOW is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Temple University. Set against the backdrop of Philadelphia’s local government efforts to attract immigrants through the creation of local policies and institutions, her dissertation research examines how Colombian migrants develop new meanings of citizenship and alter the dynamics of racialization in the city. Her primary research interests are immigration, citizenship, race and racialization, affect, US immigration policy, political/legal anthropology, immigrant incorporation, new immigrant destination, urban studies, US Latin@s and Latin America.
CIAUNA HEARD is a 3rd year doctoral student at Temple University in Philadelphia with interests in intersectionality, racial theory, and negotiations of symbolic capital in the service of structural change. She received a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and became particularly interested in dynamics of race and class after moving to the east coast. Most recently, she has done research on the political and cultural discourses within black voluntary organizations. In her spare time, she is learning to speak Portuguese (it's going very slowly).
KAYLA PREITO-HODGE is a second year doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst with interests in race, class, gender, and sexuality. Her current research explores the intersections of race and policing and how these intersections have come to shape the current state of affairs in the United States. Before enrolling at UMass, Kayla received her BA in sociology from Boston College where she studied interracial relationships as a McNair Scholar. In her free time, Kayla likes to tap into her creative side and explore the realms of acrylic painting.
SAMUEL KYE joins the Department of Sociology at Indiana University after coming from Houston, TX, where he spent a year working with Dr. Elaine Howard Ecklund for the Department of Sociology at Rice University. Sam’s broad research interests include race/ethnicity, immigration, neighborhood effects, and educational inequality. Specifically, his current research examines the formation of suburban ethnic communities and their relation to processes of segregation, white flight, and the formation of multiethnic communities.
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A native of the Southeast and a second-generation immigrant whose ancestral ties are rooted in Punjab, India, SHEENA SOOD currently lives in Philly—where she is pursuing her doctoral degree in Sociology at Temple University. Sheena’s research focuses on systemic racism, racial justice, South Asian American identity, the organization of racial and political identity, and the meaning of cross-racial solidarity in social movements. Her dissertation seeks to understand and compare the organization of racial and political alliances among second-generation South Asian American youth in Philadelphia, PA and Atlanta, GA. Beyond the realm of academia, Sheena is a Yogini and certified yoga instructor who enjoys any opportunity to share the benefits of this sacred, holistic practice and mental, philosophical discipline with her family and community. Sheena also loves riding her bicycle, gardening, cooking dancing, and involving herself in community and political organizing campaigns such as East Coast Solidarity Summer, the Climate Confluence and the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home.
META VAN DER LINDEN is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Leuven in Belgium. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree (cum laude) in Social Psychology from the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. Her multidisciplinary research focuses on the role of contact, threat, and trust with regard to prejudice toward ethnic minorities and immigrants in Western Europe and the United States. In addition, her research focuses on contextual variables that are likely to have a (in)direct impact on intergroup relations (e.g. ethnic diversity, mass media). In the winter of 2016, she is a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) to study native-immigrant relations in Philadelphia and Atlanta.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
DOMINIK DOEMER is a junior at Tufts University, double majoring in Sociology and Environmental Studies. Born in Germany, he immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 11 and lives in western Massachusetts. His interests include issues of social class, income and wealth inequality, and housing segregation. Dominik is also dedicated to social justice, volunteers with COLAGE, a national non-profit for children with LGBTQ parent, and is a member of the nation’s only undergraduate mime troupe, Hype!, at Tufts University.
ALEX KOWALICK-ALLEN is a junior at Tufts University, majoring in International Relations. She grew up in a heavily-Latino area of Northern California and speaks fluent Spanish. She is interested in Latino communities in the US and in immigrant advocacy. She has experience working with day labor centers in Northern California where she has helped connect members--mainly Latino immigrants--to work, resources, and day laborers' rights movements in their communities. At Tufts, Alex advocates for the janitorial staff through the Tufts Labor Coalition, and helps undergraduates hone their writing skills as a Writing Fellow."