Advisors
Areas of Specialization
Computational Social Science; Quantitative Methods; Social Epidemiology
About Me
Josey VanOrsdale is a graduate research assistant with interests in both quantitative and computational methods. She uses both R and Python with quantitative and computation methods, such as social network analysis, topic modeling, and simulations to evaluate novel data with the aim of furthering our understanding of social behavior.
In 2017, Josey earned her Master’s of Arts degree from the University of Wyoming, where she wrote her thesis titled “Employment Factors and the Education-Health Gradient in the United States.” She is continuing this research by looking at how the Great Recession and varying types of work conditions may influence the predictive relationship between education and health. Another one of her projects looks at the use of alternative medicine, evaluating practices using a latent class model, to determine the different patterns of behavior. Her most recent project uses machine learning as a means of updating respondent-driven sampling to dynamically adjust parameters, to obtain optimal survey results.
Courses Taught
Instructor
- Introduction to Sociology. University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Lead Recitation Instructor
- Introduction to Sociology. University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Recitation Instructor
- Introduction to Sociology. University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Graduate Teaching Assistant
- Sociology of Gender. University of Wyoming
- Introduction to Sociology. University of Wyoming
- Sociology of Law. University of Wyoming
- Medical Sociology. University of Wyoming
- Collective Behavior and Social Movements. University of Wyoming
- Race and Ethnic Relations. University of Wyoming
- Social Inequality. University of Wyoming