News and Events

Eric Klinenberg and Anisya Thomas' op-ed, "How the First Family Can Lead on Swine Flu," ran in the Wall Street Journal on September 29th.

Brian McCabe has been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

David Schleifer was named the winner of the 2009 Sally Hacker-Nicholas Mullins Graduate Student Paper Award, given by the Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology of the American Sociological Association.  He was awarded for his paper "The Dovetailing of Activism, Industry, and the Technological Backburner: How trans fats became healthy."

Patrick Sharkey wrote a report called "Neighborhoods and the Black-White Mobility Gap" for the Pew Charitable Trusts Economic Mobility Project which was written about in the Washington Post and also conducted interviews about the report on NPR's "Tell Me More" show and on the Michael Eric Dyson show.

The American Sociological Association Population Section has recognized a paper written by Willie Jasso (with co-authors Douglas Massey, Mark Rosenzweig, and James Smith) that was published in International Migration Review in 2008 with the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship in Population.  The award acknowledges an outstanding published article in demography or population studies by a sociologist.  Their paper entitled "From Illegal to Legal: Estimating Previous Illegal Experience Among New Legal Immigrants to the United States" was cited by the committee for "developing an important new framework."  The committee was impressed that the authors "addressed a significant academic and public question with substantial insight and innovation."  In addition, they praise the authors "for exemplifying scientific ideals while addressing a controversial topic."

Grace Yukich's paper, "The Role of Subcultural Identity in the Survival of Radical Religious Community," was chosen to win the Association for the Sociology of Religion's 2009 McNamara Graduate Student Paper Award.  Grace was also recently selected as a Research Fellow for the national Changing Spirituality of Emerging Adults Project.

Alumna Mary Bernstein's article with Elizabeth A. Armstrong,  "Culture, Power, and Institutions: A Multi-Institutional Politics Approach to Social Movements," published in Sociological Theory 26(1): 74-99, has been recognized as the Outstanding Published Article Award Winner from the Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section of the ASA.

Ann Morning's article, “Reconstructing Race in Science and Society: Biology Textbooks, 1952-2002,” published in 2008 in the American Journal of Sociology, has won the 2009 Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award from the Racial and Ethnic Minorities Section of the ASA. This award recognizes the author(s) of the best research article in the sociological study of race and ethnicity published in the past three years.

Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) will award David Garland a Doctorate Honoris Causa in appreciation of his "achievements in research and teaching in the field of law, criminology and sociology.  More particularly, the conducting of scientific research on an interdisciplinary basis aimed at integrating the fields of criminology, law, sociology and philosophy."

NYU's Department of Sociology is ranked #3 in the list of top sociology programs for undergraduates on collegecrunch.org.

"The Department of Sociology at NYU offers their students a multifaceted program with limitless opportunities. The curriculum is designed to encourage students to engage in theoretical study, to become immersed in practical analysis, and to gain a deeper understanding of the pressing issues of the world in which they live. The faculty members are proclaimed experts in the diverse disciplines taught."

Go here for the entire list.

Sarah Damaske has been selected as the winner of the Dennis Wrong Award for her paper entitled, "For the Family: How Women Account for Work & Family Decisions."  This award honors the best sociology graduate student paper published or written during academic year 2008-2009.

Harvey Molotch has been selected by the ASA Environment and Technology section for the Fred Buttel Distinguished Contribution Award.  The Fred Buttel Distinguished Contribution Award is to recognize individuals for outstanding service, innovation, or publication in environmental sociology or sociology of technology. It is intended to be an expression of appreciation, to be awarded when an individual is deemed extraordinarily meritorious by the section.

Steven Lukes has been invited to receive an honorary Doctor of Letters (LittD) by the University of East Anglia.  Throughout its history, the University of East Anglia has honored people of distinction and high achievement.  Over the years, the University has been distinguished by eminent people from the arts, learning, science and public life accepting honorary degrees.

Florencia Torche has been chosen to be a 2009-2010 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.  This year 20 fellows were selected from a competitive pool of over 150 applications from scholars of education.  The fellowships are administered by the National Academy of Education, an honorary educational society, and are funded by a grant to the Academy from the Spencer Foundation.

Cynthia Jordano has been named a recipient of a Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Grant for Spring 2009.

Florencia Torche was awarded the National Academy of Education/ Spencer Post Doctoral Fellowship. This prestigious nonresidential postdoctoral fellowship supports early career scholars working in critical areas of education research. It funds proposals that make significant scholarly contributions to the field of education. The program also develops the careers of its recipients through professional development activities involving National Academy of Education members

Juan Corradi will be giving a series of 20 lectures on "Latin America: Regional and Individual Adjustments to the Crisis" at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy, and 2 lectures on "Latin America, the US, and Europe" at the Institute of Italian-Latin American Affairs of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the University of Rome.

Sarah Kaufman and Poulami Roychowdhury have been selected to receive 2009 GSAS Summer Predoctoral Fellowships.

Jenna Appelbaum has been selected to receive a 2009 Robert Holmes Travel/Research Award for African Scholarship.

Jen Petersen has been selected to receive the 2009-2010 Dean's Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award in the Social Sciences.

A paper co-authored by John Hagan, Gabrielle Ferrales, and Guillermina Jasso, "How Law Rules:  Torture, Terror, and the Normative Judgments of Iraqi Judges" (Law and Society Review, 2008), has been selected Co-Winner of the 2009 Best Article Prize awarded by the Law and Society Association.

Tey Meadow has been selected as the Georgette Bennett Fellow in Applied Sociology for AY2009-10.  Tey plans to work at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute (NGLTFPI), the preeminent think tank in the US working on policy analysis on behalf of the LGBT community.

Willie Jasso has been appointed to the Board of Directors of DIW DC.  DIW DC is an independent, nonprofit institution involved in economics research and policy formulation.  It is affiliated with DIW Berlin (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung -- German Institute for Economic Research) and IZA Bonn (Forschungsinstitut zur Zufunkt der Arbeit), leading economics research institutions in Germany.

Allison McKim has been awarded an Arts and Science Prize Teaching Fellowship for 2009-10.  The fellowship recognizes excellence and promise in both scholarship and teaching by post-MacCracken Graduate School students who are writing their Ph.D. dissertations.

Emily Rauscher has been awarded a fellowship from the Institute for Education Sciences-funded Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training (IES-PIRT) program.  The program is an interdisciplinary fellowship program designed to train students of diverse backgrounds to become outstanding researchers in the educational sciences.

Sarah Damaske has accepted a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Sociology Department at Rice University.

Florencia Torche has received the Stephen Charney Vladeck Junior Faculty Fellowship from NYU's Wagner School of Public Service for the project "Is a
College Degree still the Great Equalizer? Intergenerational Mobility across Levels of Schooling in the US."

The Eastern Sociological Society has awarded Sarah Damaske honorable mention for the Candace Rogers Student Paper Award for her paper entitled, "For the Family:  How Women Account for Work & Family Decisions."

Owen Whooley has been awarded a 2009-2010 Deans Dissertation Fellowship.

Willie Jasso has been appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research).  The German Institute for Economic Research is one of the leading research institutes in Germany.  It is an independent, nonprofit academic institution which is involved in basic research and policy advice.

Ashley Mears has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University.

Craig Calhoun has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association.  In addition to organizing membership activities, AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as many scientific newsletters, books and reports, and spearheads programs that raise the bar of understanding for science worldwide.

Dalton Conley delivered the Inaugural University Professorship Lecture on December 1, 2008.  He was named a University Professor in 2005, and NYU continues the tradition of inaugural lectures by its University Professors.  Dalton Conley was also the Faculty Speaker at the NYU Winter Baccalaureate Ceremony held on December 8, 2008.

Leslie-Ann Bolden has been awarded the Cecile Shore Fellowship for the 2009-10 academic year.  This fellowship provides $25,000 to support a Sociology Department graduate student working on a subject related to the sociology of aging.

Emily Rauscher and Leslie-Ann Bolden have been awarded Herbert Menzel Fellowships.  Each Menzel Fellowship provides $750 for a Sociology Department graduate student to use towards quantitative methodological training.

Guillermina Jasso has been appointed to a three-year term on the Survey Committee of DIW Berlin.  The Survey Committee has responsibility for ensuring the scientific excellence of the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP).

Nandi Dill has won third prize in the competition for the first Rachel Tanur Memorial Prize in Visual Sociology for her photo and commentary entitled "Woman on street" and her commentary on Rachel's photo entitled "Cuba boy w Bike n game."

Richard Sennett has been made an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Guillermina Jasso has been named a Silver Professor.

Melissa Velez and Doreet Preiss have been awarded fellowships sponsored by NYU's Institute for Education Sciences-funded Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training (IES-PIRT) program.  IES-PIRT is an interdisciplinary fellowship program designed to train students of diverse backgrounds to become outstanding researchers in the educational sciences.  Two-year fellowships are awarded to advanced doctoral students and four-year fellowships to entry-level and first-year doctoral students.

Monika Krause has accepted a tenure track position as Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury.

Jennifer Heerwig, Brian McCabe, and Devyani Prabhat have each been awarded a Herbert Menzel Memorial Fellowship to be applied toward quantitative methodological training.

The sociology department is pleased to announce the creation of a new dissertation fellowship, the Cecile Shore Fellowship in the Sociology of Aging, which will be awarded on an annual basis (or whenever a qualified, topical candidate is presented) to a graduate student pursuing dissertation research/write up on a topic relevant to the study of aging.  It provides for one full year of support, including benefits, with no teaching or RA obligations.  As part of the establishment of this fellowship, there will also be an annual lecture devoted to the topic of the sociology of aging (as part of the Puck series).  This graduate student support was made possible  by the generosity of one of our alumnae, Cecile Shore.

Alumna Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Rhode Island College.

Sarah Damaske's paper, "For the Family: The Language of Family Need and Women's Workforce Participation," has received an honorable mention for the Cheryl Allen Miller Award (given by Sociologists for Women in Society). This award recognizes a sociology graduate student or a recent doctorate whose research constitutes an outstanding contribution to the field of women and work.

Devyani Prabhat has received an NYU Global Fellowship for 2008-09.  The award will fund Devyani's dissertation research, which she will conduct at NYU's London location.  The global fellowship is awarded every year to anyone who wants to conduct research at any of NYU's global locations.  More information is available at http://www.nyu.edu/global/fellowships/

Michael McCarthy's paper "'Why should the business agents be bigger than the organization?" has been awarded an Honorable Mention by the ASA Labor and Labor Movements Section.  He will receive a plaque at the prize ceremony during the section meeting at the upcoming ASA conference in Boston.

Nada Matta has been awarded an Engberg Fellowship.  This fellowship is designed to provide "honorific and instrumental support" to first-year doctoral students and is to be used for research, travel, attendance at a professional conference, or to purchase books.

The Henkel Foudation has awarded Richard Sennett the Gerta Henkel prize.  Richard will receive this great honor on November 10 in Dusseldorf.

Richard Sennett has been awarded The European Craft Prize for 2008.  The award is voted by craft unions and craft workshops in the EU.  Richard will receive the prize in Cologne from the German Minister of Labour in November.

Allison McKim has been selected as the winner of the 2008 Dennis Wrong Award for her paper entitled, "Getting Gut-Level: Punishment, Gender and Therapeutic Governance."

The GSAS Honors and Awards Committee has selected Allison McKim as the winner of a 2008 Mainzer Summer Fellowship.  The Mainzer Summer Fellowship is given annually to outstanding advanced doctoral students.  The award supports study in the areas of love and sexuality, gender studies, or the psychology of love and sexuality.

Jen Heerwig, Brian McCabe, and Devyani Prabhat have each been awarded a Herbert Menzel Memorial Fellowship.

Jenna Appelbaum has been selected as the first Georgette Bennett Fellow in Applied Sociology.  Jenna will continue her dissertation research on post-genocidal "gender justice" in Rwanda.  She will spend her tenure as a Bennett Fellow at a Rwandan nongovernmental organization, which focuses on women's and children's rights.

Professor Guillermina Jasso was the dinner speaker at the annual dinner of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, held this year in New York City on March 29, 2008.  Her talk was titled, "Discerning Ethnicity and Its Operation in the New Immigrant Survey."

Jen Heerwig and Brian McCabe received the Seymour Sudman Student Paper Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for their paper entitled "Social desirability bias in estimated support for a Black presidential candidate." As part of the Sudman Award, they will be invited to present their paper at the annual conference of the AAPOR conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, May 15-18.

The Sociology Department is pleased to announce two new faculty hires, Gabriel Abend and Colin Jerolmack.

Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg's award-winning book, is now a play. Two theater companies, Pegasus Players and Live Bait, have combined to stage a theatrical adaptation that runs from February 25 to April 6 in Chicago. Click here to read more about the production.

Guillermina Jasso was appointed to the Census Advisory Committee of the American Statistical Association.  This committee joins with the Census Advisory Committees of three other organizations -- the American Economic Association, the American Marketing Association, and the Population Association of America -- to form the Census Advisory Committee of Professional Associations (CACPA), which operates as an advisory body to the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Eastern Sociological Society has awarded Mitchell Stevens's recent book, Creating a Class:  College Admissions and the Education of Elites, the Mirra Komarovsky Book Award for 2008.

The Eastern Sociological Society has named Ashley Mears the co-recipient of the Rose Laub Coser Dissertation Award.

Monika Krause and Ashley Mears  were each selected to receive  2008-2009 Dean's Dissertation Fellowships.

Aaron Major has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

In December, NPR's "This American Life" featured new research from Eric Klinenberg's current book project, "Alone in America." Click here to hear Klinenberg's story on what happens when someone dies alone in Los Angeles, and doctoral student Allison McKim's interview with a woman who enjoys living alone in New York City but feels social pressure to find a partner.

According to this year's academic rankings in The Chronicle for Higher Education, NYU's Sociology Department is ranked second on a list of sociology departments based on research criteria.  The index is based on publication of books, journal articles, citations, grants, honors to faculty.

Guillermina Jasso has been selected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  This is the group that publishes the journal Science.  Along with election to the National Academy of Science, AAAS stands as one of the most prestigious honors for academic scientists--with only a few social scientists being picked each year.

Guillermina Jasso delivered a keynote address at the Annual Conference of the Research Data Centres Network of Canada, meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 12-13 October 2007.  The  theme of this year's conference was "Life Course Transitions of Children and Youth," and the title of her talk was "If I Were a Child: Immigration and Its Transitions from a Child's Eye."

On Wednesday, October 10, 2007, David Schleifer presented findings from his dissertation on a panel about trans fats of the American Institute of Wine and Food, which is an organization for food industry professionals, called "Where did all the trans fats come from?  Where have all the trans fats gone?"  The panel itself was called "What Will Happen To My Doughnut? How To Cope With The Trans Fat Ban," and included staff from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

On Tuesday, October 2, Craig Calhoun gave the Birley Lecture - named after the founder of the City University of London. It was entitled "Humanitarianism: Progress, Charity, and Emergencies."

Jean Yeung and Caroline Persell have been awarded an NSF grant.  The project is entitled "Intergenerational Racial Stratification and Children's Cognitive Achievement."  In addition, Jean was awarded an NSF grant for a project entitled "Continuity and Change in American Economic and Social Life:  The PSID 2007 -2011" and a grant from NICHD for the project "Transitions from Preschool to High School:  Family, School, and Neighborhood."

Yen-Mei Miao, a recent Ph.D., has taken a position as assistant professor in the department of sociology at National Cheng Chi University (NCCU), one of the top universities in Taiwan.

Sarah Kaufman received an NSF dissertation grant that enables her to travel in order to observe death penalty trials throughout the US.  Sarah's dissertation is an ethnographic study of death penalty sentencing, focusing on how the presentation of the defendant's character is differently orchestrated by defense and prosecution as they argue for life or death.

Alumnus Aaron Kupchik's book Judging Juveniles, based on his dissertation, received the Michael Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology.

Meghan Falvey published a cover article in n+1 magazine's issue 5, "Woman, The New Social Problem." It also appeared on their website: http://www.nplusonemag.com/newsocialproblem.html

Four GSAS Spring Awards went to sociology graduate students:

Jenna Appelbaum - 2007 Andrew Sauter Fellowship
Alton Phillips - 2007-2008 Robert Holmes Travel/Research Award for African Scholarship
Suzanne Risley - 2006-2007 Dean's Outstanding Dissertation Award
Owen Whooley - 2007 GSAS Summer Predoctoral Fellowship

Dorith Geva has accepted a position as a Harper Schmidt Collegiate Professor within the University of Chicago Society of Fellows.

Jean Yeung has been elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Children and Youth section of the ASA.

David Schleifer published a short article about trans fats on the web site of N+1.

The Theory Section of the ASA has elected Monika Krause Student Representative on Council.

Vivek Chibber’s award-wining book, Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India (Princeton: 2003), is the subject of a review symposium in the latest newsletter of the ASA’s Comparative Historical Section.   The book is reviewed by Lis Clemens, Jeffrey Paige, and Leo Panitch, with a response by Chibber.

Danielle Bessett was awarded the 2007 ESS Rose Laub Coser award for outstanding dissertation proposal in the area of family or gender and society. 

Craig Calhoun recently gave the Ernest Gellner Memorial Lecture at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The title was “Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism”.

Eric Klinenberg has been awarded a fellowship at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for the 2007-8 academic year.

The Board of Directors of the South/North Development Initiative(SNDI) has elected Juan Corradi president of the organization for 2007-08. South North Development Initiative (SNDI/South North) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City. South North works together with Sur Norte Inversión y Desarrollo, an Argentinean sister organization created in 1999. It mainly focuses on strengthening Social and Productive Inclusion Programs by promoting new instruments for socio-economic development. 

Mikaila Arthur has accepted a position as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hamilton College.

Jui-Chung Allen Li has accepted an associate research scientist position at RAND.

Miranda Martinez has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College.

Junmin Wang has accepted a post-doctoral fellowship on China's Political Economy at Indiana University for the 2007-08 academic year

Rebecca Glauber has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at University of New Hampshire.

Kate Strully has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at SUNY Albany.

Miriam Ryvicker has accepted a position as Research Associate at the Center for Home Care Policy and Research, Visiting Nurse Service of New York.

Claudio Benzecry has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at University of Connecticut.

Neal Caren has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.

Sarah Damaske has been awarded a 2007 Woodrow Wilson Women's Studies Dissertation Fellowship.  She is one of seven fellows to receive this award, which supports Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences whose work addresses topics of relevance to women and gender in interdisciplinary and original ways.

Kathleen Gerson has been elected President of the Eastern Sociological Society for the 2008/2009 academic year.

Richard Arum has won a Fulbright New Century Scholars Award to conduct a comparative study of the American and Israeli higher education systems during the 2007-2008 academic year.

NYU's sociology department has been ranked number three in research productivity in a new index reported on by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Ashley Mears has been named a 2006 Mainzer Fellow to the Center for Gender Studies at Cambridge University.
 
David Schleifer was a recipient of the Fall 2006 GSAS Dean's Dissertation Fellowship for his dissertation Getting Better For You: Dietary Fats Uncertainty and Innovation.

Mikaila Arthur, Kathryn Pfeiffer and David Schleifer were recipients of NSF Dissertation Awards for 2006.

Miriam Ryvicker was the recipient of the National Institute of Health Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Dissertation Grant Award for 2006.

Richard Sennett has been awarded the Hegel Prize (given every three years by the German city of Stuttgart).  Details about this prestigious honor can be found at: http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/detail/1344

Troy Duster was named a Silver Professor.

Dalton Conley has been elected to the American Sociological Association Council.