PhD Students on the Market

Email: jdavis@ou.edu
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Summary:
Joshua Davis’s research examines the interplay of race, nationalism and religion, and more specifically their effects on crime, racism and attitudes towards racism, and authoritarian punitiveness in the United States. He has published works on white Christian nationalism in Social Problems, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. The goal of this research agenda is to identify facets of American religiosity that are conciliatory or conducive to continued racial inequalities within the US, as well as those which contribute to the problems of mass incarceration and racial bias in policing. Moving forward, Joshua intends to focus on religious influences in criminal offending and recidivism. As with his prior research, he hopes to disentangle seemingly contradictory influences of religious life, and that his research will contribute to a less homogeneous understanding of “religion” within criminology, particularly at the intersection of race, social context, and religious life.

Research Interests: Crime and Delinquency, Punishment, Race and Ethnicity, Religion, Political Sociology

Dissertation Title:
Religion and Crime Reconsidered: The roles of Race and Institutional Withdrawal.(Spring 2021 expected)

Dissertation Committee: Samuel Perry (Chair), Michael Crowson, Trina Hope, and Cyrus Schleifer.

Email: peyman.hekmatpour@ou.edu
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Personal Website

Summary:
Peyman Hekmatpour's  research focuses on Cross-National Sociology, Quantitative Analyses, Environmental Sociology, and Sociology of Religion. His research has been published in top academic journals such as Social Problems, British Journal of Sociology, the International Journal of Sociology, and the Journal of Asian Research. Peyman was selected the Department of Sociology Outstanding Doctoral Student of the Year in 2019. Peyman has a wide variety of experience in longitudinal and cross-sectional data management, dataset construction, and running and interpreting the results of econometric models, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM). He co-founded the Dialogue of Contemporary Sociology (DOCS) workshop in the department of sociology at OU which is developed to encourage graduate and undergraduate students to discuss the most recent findings in the field  to develop both substantive and methodological foundation that can help them with their own research. Peyman was awarded the Nancy L. Mergler Dissertation Completion Fellowship at the University of Oklahoma to help complete his  dissertation titled "Global vs. Local: Panel Analyses of Economic, Political, Environmental, and Gender Inequalities in Late Capitalism."

Research Interests: Cross-National Sociology, Quantitative Analyses, Environmental Sociology, and Sociology of Religion

Dissertation Title:
Global vs. Local: Panel Analyses of Economic, Political, Environmental, and Gender Inequalities in Late Capitalism.(Spring 2021 expected)

Dissertation Committee: Tom Burns (Chair), Rob Clark,  Allen Hertzke, and Cyrus Schleifer.

Email: lamiller@ou.edu
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
P.E.W.P. Project Website

Summary:
Leslie Miller’s research predominantly focuses on provider-patient communication and the impact of provider communication on stigmatized patient populations. She has completed two phases of an original data collection project, titled, "Peoples’ Experiences With Pouches (P.E.W.P.) Study," which is an examination of ostomy patients’ experiences at the hospital when they receive their appliance. The goal of her research program is to not only understand how provider-patient communication may contribute to patient health outcomes, such as feelings of stigmatization, but also to find ways to mitigate health disparities of special patient groups, such as ostomy patients. See her study website for more details on Phase One and Two of her P.E.W.P. Study: pewpstudy.oucreate.com

Research Interests: Medical Sociology, Environmental Health Sociology,  Public Health, Research Methods

Dissertation Title:
Peoples’ Experiences With Pouches (P.E.W.P.) Study: Providers’ Communication and The Stigmatization of People with an Ostomy. (Spring 2021 expected)

Dissertation Committee: B. Mitchell Peck (Chair), Ann Beutel, Stephanie Burge, Amy Kroska, and Miriam Gross

E-Mail: RickWolford@ou.edu
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Summary:
Rick (Gilbert) Wolford’s research investigates phenomena regarding environmental attitudes, behaviors, and understandings. He was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation while at the university of Oklahoma. This funded his nationally representative dataset of Americans, titled, “The Environmental Dispositions Survey”, which he developed and organized. The goal of Rick’s research is to better understand how Americans prioritize their dispositions of the environment and how those dispositions interact with their behavior (or lack of behavior) toward the environment.  More specifically, he has been exploring how someone’s trust in the government impacts their environmental dispositions. His future plans include expanding his research to an international level, continue to educate students on environmental issues from a sociological perspective, and serve the academic community by continuing social environmental data collection.

Research Interests: Environmental Sociology, Class Stratification, Gender Nonconformity.

Dissertation Title:
Environmental Allyship: It Comes at the Cost of Trusting the Government (Spring 2021 expected)

Dissertation Committee: Thomas Burns (chair), Loretta Bass, John Carl, Jeff Kelly.