I am a doctoral student in the Sociology department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a research assistant for Dr. Kirk Dombrowski at the REACH lab. I specialize in survey research and methodology, criminology, and quantitative analysis. My dissertation focuses on improving the network scale-up method and the cognitive process participants use to think about their networks. These approaches are applied to analyze how social network size varies among Nebraskans, the efficacy of using a network scale-up approach to measure migration within the United States, the methods ability to measure other hard-to-reach populations. In addition to my dissertation, I am currently working with projects about rural drug use in Puerto Rico, a social network evaluation in Alaska, and postal disposition codes in address-based surveys in Nebraska.

 

Publications

    Welch-Lazoritz, Melissa, Patrick Habecker, Kirk Dombrowski, Angelica Rivera Villegas, Carmen Ana Davila. 2017. “Differential Outcomes for People Who Inject Drugs Associated with Lack of Access to Syringe Exchange in Rural Areas.” International Journal of Drug Policy 43:16-22.

    Dombrowski, Kirk, Patrick Habecker, G. Robin Gauthier, Bilal Khan, Joshua Moses. 2016. “Relocation Redux: Labrador Inuit Population Movements and Inequalities in the Land Claims Era.” Current Anthropology 57(6):785-805. DOI: 10.1086/689210

    Dombrowski, Kirk, Bilal Khan, Patrick Habecker, Holly Hagan, Sam Friedman, Mohamed Saad. 2016. “The Interaction of Risk Network Structures and Virus Natural History in the non-Spreading of HIV among People Who Inject Drugs in the Early Stages of the Epidemic.” AIDS and Behavior: 1-12. DOI:10.1007/s10461-016-1568-6

    Dombrowski, Kirk, Kelley Sittner, Devan Crawford, Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, Patrick Habecker, and Bilal Khan. 2016. “Network Approaches to Substance Use and HIV/Hepatitis C Risk among Homeless Youth and Adult Women in the United States: A Review.” Health 8(12):1143-1165.

    Armenta, Brian. E., Les B. Whitbeck, Patrick N. Habecker. 2016. “The Historical Loss Scale: Longitudinal Measurement Equivalence and Prospective Links to Anxiety among North American Indigenous Adolescents.” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 22(1):1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000049

    Habecker, Patrick, Kirk Dombrowski, Bilal Khan. 2015. “Improving the Network Scale-Up Estimator: Incorporating Sums of Ratios, Sampling Weights, and Recursive Back Estimation.” PLoS ONE 10(12): e0143406. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143406.

 

 

I am interested in teaching a variety of subjects within sociology including research methods, undergraduate statistics, crime and delinquency, sociological theory, and the sociology of crime. I have taught the Sociology of Crime course in both online and traditional classroom formats thus far as a graduate student. In the future I look forward to teaching new classes in traditional, online, and blended formats.

 

M.A.: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

B.A.: The Pennsylvania State University

A.A.: Harrisburg Area Community College

Email: soc-phabecker2@unl.edu
Curriculum Vitae