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Curriculum Vita

Degree and Year in Program

5th Year Ph.D. Student

Advisors

Regina Werum, Philip Schwadel

Areas of Specialization

Social Movements, Political Sociology, Gun Violence/Policy, Inequality

Comprehensive Exam Area

Inequalities

About Me

I came to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2015 after receiving my Bachelor’s Degree at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. During my time at Nebraska, I have served as a research assistant on a DOD-funded research project analyzing social unrest in the Sub-Indian (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan) and Middle Eastern context. As part of this research, I have worked in collaboration with professors and graduate students in computer science and environmental studies at UNL and partnering universities. Additionally, I have been the Instructor of Record for three core courses at UNL – Introduction to Sociology (SOCI 101), Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (SOCI 217), and Introduction to Social Research I (SOCI 205).

Predominantly, my research focuses on the intersection between social movements, social policy, and (un)intended consequences. My dissertation examines how social movement organizations (SMOs) employ economic resources – in my case, campaign contributions – to impact the adoption of movement-related policies. Specifically, I examine how the National Rifle Association (NRA) – operating as a case study – has used campaign contributions to shape the passage of Concealed Carry Weapons, Stand Your Ground, Child Access Prevention, and Universal Background Check laws. Examining the consequences of these policies, I examine how these state-level firearm policies have impacted county-level gun violence (e.g., homicides, suicides) in the United States.

Extending this line of inquiry, I have multiple collaborative projects that examine the correlates of crime, particularly homicides and hate crimes in the United States. Some of this research includes examining how Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) laws affect county-level homicide rates and how this is shaped by racialized processes. Conceptualizing gun rights policies as larger cultural products, a coauthor and I examine how states with CCW and Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws shape hate crime patterns, particularly how these policies acutely impact racial/ethnic-based hate crimes in the United States.

Additionally, I have collaborated with other graduate students on inequality related projects. Some of this research focuses on coming out patterns for LGB individuals, while other focuses on the racialized and gendered processes of marital quality on health-related outcomes. Other continues with my macro-level approach to crime and deviance and examines how religious dynamics within counties operate as a form of social control/organization to reduce the crime patterns, particularly hate crimes. These research endeavors overlap with my original sociological interests in inequality.

Since my time at Nebraska, I have received a number of different awards related to research and writing. In Summer 2016, I was the recipient of the summer Ogle Research Fellowship to help jump-start data collection and efforts towards completing my Master’s Thesis. I was a joint winner of the 2017 department of sociology Research Award and the 2019 Nicholas Babchuk Graduate Student Research Award. And I was a co-recipient of the 2017-18 Woodberry Prize from the departments of history and English on a paper titled “Back to Africa: Liberia, Perceptions of Race, and Diplomacy”, focusing on nuanced explanations regarding African American perspectives and diplomacy performance regarding Liberia during the 19th Century.

Outside of academics, I serve as the current (2019-20) president and past (2018-19) executive vice president of the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA), which is the graduate student body at the university. Moreover, my free time often consists of running along many of the trails in Lincoln, reading and listening to NPR, and lounging around with my cat.

Courses Taught

SOCI 217 (Instructor)

SOCI 205 (Instructor)

SOCI 101 (Recitation)  

Select Publications

Joshi, Deepti, Sudeep Basnet, Hariharn Arunachalam, Leen-Kiat Soh, Ashok Samal, Shawn Ratcliff, and Regina Werum. 2017. “SURGE-Social Unrest Reconnaissance GazEteer (Demo Paper). In Proceedings of the 25th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (SIGSPATIAL ’17). ACM, New York, NY.