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Friday, April 19th 11:00am-12:30pm CST
Kaufman Hall - Room 221B
OU Sociology's ADQUANT Presents:
Grasmick/Riddle 2023 Summer Research Presentations
Graduate Student Awardees:
Heather Lepper-Pappan, PhD Candidate
Lauren Fishel, PhD Student
Taylor Gamble, MA Student
A.C. Ferraro, PhD Candidate
Tacey Shurtliff, PhD Candidate
Congratulations to Nate McKnight who successfully defended his M.A. thesis, "Freedom and Restraint: A Self-Control Perspective on Political Ideology." His committee included Dr. Trina Hope (Chair), Dr. Julie Gerlinger and Dr. Thomas Burns. Nate has accepted a full time position at the University of Oklahoma, within it's academic advising unit.
Congratulations to OU Sociology's Dr. Sam Perry who was named the Viersen Family Foundation Presidential Professor. The Presidential Professorships were established to recognize those faculty members who excel in all of their professional activities and who relate those activities to the students they teach and mentor. The Professorship is awarded for a four-year term and includes bonus of $40,000. In addition, Sam will retain the Presidential Professor title permanently. Dr. Perry recieved this award due to his work on Religion, Politics, and Public Sociology.
OU Research team, headed by Sociology's Dr. Erin Maher, was awarded $801,745 from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services in partnership with the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness. Drs. Maher , along with co-PIs David McLeod (Social Work), and Diane Horm (Early Childhood Education Institute), were awarded a two-year contract to evaluate the strategies within a federal grant of 12 million dollars to the state of Oklahoma—the Preschool Development Renewal Grant. This builds on the contributions of Drs. Maher and Horm who previously worked with the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness on the Preschool Development Planning Grant. The team will conduct a multi-component evaluation of the implementation of grant activities to improve access to early childhood education in Oklahoma.
Congratulations to OU Sociology PhD Candidate Jessie Laljer, who was awarded the Bullard Dissertation Completion Fellowship for their dissertation titled: “There is more to it than Sexual Orientation: Evidence that Romantic Interest Outweighs Sexuality for Asexual-Spectrum Individuals and an Argument on the Position of Asexuality in the Broader LGBTQ+ Spectrum.” Their work focuses on novel areas of LGBTQIA+ research through interviews with individuals under the asexual umbrella and who identify with differing levels of romantic interest. Laljer has received mentorship from Sociology Professor's Dr. Meredith Worthen, Dr. Trina Hope, and Dr. Ann Beutel for this research.
OU Sociology PhD Student, Emily Bonner’s research on food security proved influential in the passage of Bill 1955, which eliminated state sales tax on groceries in Oklahoma. Emily’s research used novel US Census Bureau data to track food security during the pandemic. Analyzing 36 months of data, she found that citizens living in states with grocery taxes faced higher probabilities of food insecurity compared to those in states without such taxes. This highlights the regressive nature of grocery taxes, which disproportionately affects those in the lowest income brackets. This project became Emily’s MA Thesis research and she has presented these findings widely at the local and national levels.
