Graduate Students on the Market
Introduction
Get to know our talented PhD students on the job market! UIC Sociology prepares graduate students for jobs in a variety of settings, including a range of higher education positions as well as research positions in government, for-profit industry, and non-profit and advocacy organizations.
Currently on the market:
Tryce Prince
Previous Degrees
B.S. Sociology, Abilene Christian University
M.A. Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Specialty Areas:
Racialized Subjectivity, Social Group Formation, Intergroup Relations, Mesolevel Spatial Contexts, and Du Boisian Sociology
Research Interests:
I am an ethnographer and social theorist that examines how racial and religious logics shape the social world. Using sociological methods I analyze racialized subjectivity, social group formation, intergroup relations, and mesolevel spatial contexts. My current project unveils Black imaginations and Black futures, developing the first conceptual framework for W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of “second-sight” through an ethnographic study of Black life.
Dissertation Abstract
In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W.E.B. Du Bois declared that Black folks are “gifted with second-sight.” Considering the centrality of Black religion in Du Bois’s thesis, my dissertation is empirically grounded in contemporary Black religious life. To speak of Black second-sight, I argue, is to speak of an otherworldly sensibility ultimately rooted in Black religion. Throughout his lifetime, Du Bois theorized about what Black engagement with White spaces meant for Black people, their consciousness, and ultimately their souls. However, one space that is understudied in contemporary scholarship that engages Du Bois, but is ripe for an analysis of second-sight, is the White church. With this gap in mind, I have conducted an ethnographic study of Black life in White religious spaces to investigate the phenomenon of second-sight. I draw on a two-year multi-site ethnography, two dozen in-depth interviews, and theoretical analyses of 27 previously published books and scholarly articles that explicitly draw on Du Bois’s notion of second-sight. My findings unveil the paradox of Black life in White spaces— revealing the affective, social, epistemological, and spiritual dimensions of racialized subjectivity.
Sha'Kurra Evans
Sha’ Kurra L. Evans is an Iowa native, educator, and doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago, specializing in Black feminist epistemology, phenomenology, and intersectional identity construction. Her scholarship examines how Black women navigate and negotiate systemic oppression, bodily autonomy, and self-definition through their everyday practices. Her dissertation, ‘Hair Stories: A Black Feminist Study of Identity and Womanhood’, centers Black women’s everyday perspectives and lived experiences as they navigate identity construction through the lens of their hair. By fusing Black Feminist Thought (BFT) with phenomenology, this project investigates how hair serves as a site of political resistance, cultural expression, and bodily socialization. Her project utilizes qualitative narrative analysis and semi-structured interviews. It centers the voices of Black women to capture the essence of everyday grooming practices, societal microaggressions, and internal transformations. Ultimately, this research disrupts Eurocentric standards of beauty and expands sociological frameworks of embodiment, intersectionality, and self-actualization.
Sally Schmisek
Previous Degrees
BA in French and Global and International Studies, Loyola University Chicago
MA in Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Specialty Areas:
Political sociology, urban sociology, sociology of race, historical-comparative methods, field theory, public sociology, pedagogy
Research Interests:
I am broadly interested in the politics of urban development under capitalism. My dissertation research investigates transformations in urban governance through a case study of public housing transformation in Chicago. For my MA, I researched the role of tenant unions in the Chicago Freedom Movement. I have previously studied gentrification and underground music scenes in Italy and China using ethnographic methods. In addition to my academic research, I am committed to public sociology, participatory research, and critical pedagogy.
Dissertation Title:
Political Projects: Public Housing Transformation and Urban Governance
Angela Jacqueline Silva
Previous Degrees:
M.A. Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
M.A. Sociology, University of Texas at El Paso
B.A. Criminal Justice and Sociology, University of Texas at El Paso
Specialty Areas:
Race and ethnicity, racialization, racialized organizations.
Research interests:
My current research focuses on looking at how norms, behaviors, and cultures of organizations are racialized and gendered in how they shape the experiences of women of color in higher education.
Mariya Khan
Previous Degrees:
B.A. in Religion and Sociology, Hamline University
M.A. in Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Areas of Specialization: Race and Ethnicity, Sociology of Medicine, Sociology of Health
Mariya Khan is a doctoral candidate currently collecting data for her dissertation: “Puzzling Persistence: State-Operated Psychiatric Institutions and the Criminalization of Mental Illness in the Post-Deinstitutionalization Era.” Her dissertation uses a combination of archival sources, institutional data, ethnography, and first-person interviews with stakeholders and health professionals to examine the ways state-operated psychiatric hospitals and state-mandated psychiatric treatment have changed in the “post-deinstitutionalization” era. In particular, she aims to explain the ways in which post-deinstitutionalization criminalization of mental illness, and the discourse around criminalization, has contributed to changes within and to the continued persistence of state hospitals into the late 20th and early 21st centuries, despite the “community care” paradigm established in this same period.
Mariya has also served as a research assistant and project coordinator for the Skin Tone Identity and Inequalities Project (STiiP) research group, contributing to the development of novel field survey techniques in the study of colorism inequality. In this role she coordinated a pilot study whose findings have been published in the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology, and afterwards collaborated on a grant application for National Science Foundation funding which, when received, she continued to support as lead coordinator of research activities. She continues to collaborate on multi-author journal submissions with the team.
Mariya has also taught several courses either as lead instructor of record or as a teaching assistant/lab instructor. These include undergraduate courses ( Intro to Methods, Intro to Statistics, Intro to Sociology, Social Problems, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity) as well as graduate level courses (Intro and Intermediate Statistics). She has also served as a graduate student representative on multiple departmental committees
Nancy Toure
Specialty Areas: Race & Ethnicity, Racialization, Gender, Organizations, Critical Race Theory
My research contributes to scholarship on race, gender, work, and organizations by examining how structural mechanisms within institutions perpetuate racial inequality, even in contexts that appear equitable in terms of mission or demographics. Across my projects, I employ advanced quantitative methods, including confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel structural equation modeling, latent profile analysis, and multinomial logistic regression. My broader research agenda integrates theories of racialized organizations and institutional inequality with empirical analyses of large-scale administrative and survey data to reveal how inequality is reproduced and maintained within the U.S. federal workforce.
Emily Via
Previous degrees:
B.A. Sociology and Gender Studies, New College of Florida
M.A. Sociology, University of Illinois Chicago
Specialty Areas:
Gender; Embodiment; Queer Studies; Trans Studies; Public Policy; Health and Medicine
Research interests:
Emily Via (they/them) is a doctoral student in Sociology with a graduate concentration in Gender and Women’s Studies. Their current research focuses on trans-antagonistic public policy and attitudes, and their effects on those who seek and provide gender-affirming healthcare. Emily received their Bachelor’s degree from New College of Florida in Sociology and Gender Studies, and their Master’s in Sociology from UIC. Their recent collaborative book chapter in Families as They Really Are interrogates non-binary people’s family relationships, and their master’s paper investigates how non-binary people relate to the label and category of “transgender.” They are currently working on a paper based on their dissertation research on anti-trans rhetoric used by policy makers in Florida.
Alexia L. Palomino-Cortez
Ni'Shele Jackson
Previous Degrees:
B.A. Wellesley College
Specialty Areas:
Race & Ethnicity, Gender & Sexuality, Social Movements
Research Interests:
My research entails interrogating how race, gender, class hierarchies get culturally and materially reproduced through notions of health and weight. As a mixed methods scholar, I employ both qualitative and quantitative methods such as interviewing, ethnography, and surveys in order to answer these questions. The overarching goal of my research is to give insight into ways we can create more just, communal, and empowering visions of embodied health and health programs.