SSI Past Participants

Diogo Corrêa is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ). He was a Visiting Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) between 2012 and 2013. He is research assistant for Professor Frédéric Vandenberghe and also holds a research position at Group of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Sociofilo, IESP-UERJ) and at Centre d'Études des Mouvements Sociaux (CEMS-EHESS).

Oguz Alyanak was born and raised in Bursa, Turkey, and attended middle and high school as a boarding student in Istanbul. He received his B.A. at Clark University in 2006, where he double majored in international relations and international development. He obtained his M.A. degrees in social sciences at the University of Chicago in 2011, and in political sciences at Bogazici University in 2010.

Josien Arts is from the University of Amsterdam. She has a Master’s degree in Sociology and worked as a junior lecturer in sociology at the University of Amsterdam last year. This year, she started her Ph.D. research in which she looks at morally based categories of worth to analyze the development of welfare policy in the Netherlands. She is interested in the way street-level bureaucrats who work in social welfare offices interpret welfare policies and which moral repertoires they use to evaluate their clients.

Studying the relation to death in our societies, I examine the broader question of ontologies – the ontologies of “living”, “dying”, and “dead” – and how actors deal with them in practice.

In the summer of 2016, I graduated from the Research Masters of Social Sciences program at the University of Amsterdam. My research interests are in the field of urban studies and political sociology and I am particularly interested in gentrification in relation to cultural change and gender. My masters research focused on the role of social representations, distinction practices and social media in a changing local shopping street in Amsterdam.

I am a PhD student in Sociology at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and University of Sao Paulo (Brazil). The object of my thesis is to study the building and the evaluation of the forms of production and exchange by the different actors of a cotton production chain between France and Brazil.

My doctoral research, as a part of the Chemical Youth research team, aims to understand young people’s aspirations and practices towards ‘super health’ in the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam, where organic, low-sugar, low-carb diets and the fit lifestyle have become the rage.

Claire earned a B.A. in English Literature and a M.Ed. from the University of California at Riverside. She began graduate work in English and American Literature at Washington University in St. Louis in 2009. Her dissertation, “Typewriting: Literature, Gender, and Modernist Sociology in America, 1890-1930,” considers why an influential group of early- twentieth century American sociologists turned to fiction and life writing to develop theories of gender.

Lauren Crossland-Marr received two BAs, one in Anthropology and one in Italian from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2007 and an MA in Anthropology from The Catholic University of America in 2014. As a current PhD student in the Anthropology Department of Washington University in St. Louis, she is interested in working with converts to Islam and Muslim youth in Milan, Italy.  In particular her research will investigate how convert and youth associations navigate extremely anti-Muslim policies, rhetoric, and practices that are ubiquitous in the Lombardy region.

Mischa Dekker graduated twice cum laude (with honors) in a Research Master of Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam and a Master in Philosophy at Utrecht University this summer. His master theses for both studies focus on "Occupy" movements, based on fieldwork conducted in New York and in the Netherlands. He is starting his Ph.D. project in which he will build on the studies for his masters.

I am a PhD candidate in Political Sociology in France (ENS/EHESS) and my stay in WashU during the fall semester of 2014 confirmed my interest in politics from a scientific lens. The exchange program was a very prolific and exciting moment in my academic life, since I discovered a new body of scholarship, I broadened my research questions and deepened my working hypotheses, and I benefited from incomparable academic resources in a friendly environment.

Marie is a second-year PhD student in sociology in EHESS en Paris. Previously, she graduated from ENS in social sciences. For her dissertation research, she is investigating perception of labor class among students of French Grandes Ecoles during their 'stage ouvrier' (blue-collar placement).

I'm a PHD candidate in social sciences at the EHESS in Paris. Previously, I graduated with MA degrees in social sciences, political sciences and literature. My dissertation research deals with the rise of cognitive and behavioural therapy (CBT) in France, especially through a professional lens such as psychiatrists and psychologists.

Natalia was born in Colombia and raised in Queens, NY. In 2010 she received a dual B.A. from New York University in Anthropology and French.  She is currently a sociocultural anthropology Ph.D. student at Washington University in St. Louis where she studies with Dr. Bret Gustafson. Her research is focused on anti-mining movements in the Peruvian Andes. Specifically, she is interested in broadening academic understandings of women’s activism in these movements. She plans to work alongside female activists and engage with the associations they have created in Cajamarca, Peru.

Aaron Hames is a PhD student in sociocultural anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Previously, he received undergraduate degrees in biology and mathematics as well as an MA in East Asian Studies. For his dissertation research, he will investigate how a medical federation in Japan seeks to provide medical care and support for the elderly.

I am currently writing my thesis about the emergence of Face Transplant (FT) surgery in France and the United Kingdom, at the crossing of the history of organ transplant, reconstructive surgery, disability movements and personhood. Following the processes of evaluation of Face Transplant cases, I wish to answer several questions including: What does the emergence of FT tells about the professional areas it comes from? What does it says about the norms of embodiment and standards of appearance? What does it says about (and act on) the relation to the dead bodies?

I am a PhD student in Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. My current research focuses on Islamic proselytizing in Barcelona, Spain. Specifically, I address how the Islamic movement Tablighi Jama’at organizes itinerant preaching and circulates booklets with religious content throughout the streets of the city. I am interested in the ways in which spatial itinerancy generates new communicative situations among multilingual Muslim publics beyond discourse within madrasas and mosques

Héloïse Pillayre comes from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She is getting a Ph.D. in sociology, working on the compensation of asbestos related illnesses in France, both from the point of view of institutions and victims. She tries to understand to what extent this scandal has changed the perception of work related illness in France. Thus it is interesting for her to study anthropology here; she enjoys discovering new ways of working, and can figure out new perspectives on her topic in comparing the situation in France with the one in the USA.

I am a PhD student in Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. My current research addresses the rise of antimicrobial resistant infections in the United States. I study the hospital-based teams of infectious disease physician groups who round daily on patients in large American medical institutions.

Yolande Daphne Schöller is from the University of Amsterdam. She received her bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences and did a minor in Communication Science and one in Global Health. Afterwards she applied for the Research Master Social Sciences, in which she specialized in the medical anthropology track 'Health, Care and the Body'.

Carolyn Steeves Powers is a Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology at Washington University in St Louis.  She is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Her previous university education includes an undergraduate degree in anthropology from the University of Minnesota, two years of intensive Chinese language training at National Taiwan University, and a Master’s degree in mental health counseling from Oregon State University.

For my PhD in medical anthropology at University of Amsterdam I study the effects of a “culture change” program for staff in long-term elderly care organizations in the Netherlands. Reflecting the new ideology of the self-reliant citizen who lives at home and takes care of himself as long as possible, elderly care organizations are adopting a new understanding of providing care: promoting self-reliance and self-management of clients.

Raphaël Wolff started his PhD studies at the Brussels School of International Studies after completing the exchange program in 2015. His current research focuses on the possibility of using the notion of legitimacy as a tool for radical critique of contemporary security dynamics and politics. It builds on previous research done for obtaining his Research MSc in Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, which focused on processes of legitimation and contestation in EU security politics, specifically those concerning the EU Policy Cycle on Serious and Organized Crime.