Graduate Students

Bridget Okwuchi Alichie (PhD Candidate)

Supervisor: Dr. Temitope Oriola

Research Interests: Criminology, Gender & Sexuality, Religion, Human Rights and Social Justice, and New Media Studies.

My dissertation research, titled ‘#MeToo Movement Goes to Church: The Movement Against Sexual Violence in Nigerian Pentecostal Megachurches,’ investigates the influence of the global #MeToo movement on the #ChurchToo movement within Nigeria. I empirically explore the factors that influenced the emergence of the movement, the underlying challenges faced by clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse (CPSA) survivors, activists, and supporting organizations involved in the #ChurchToo movement, as well as its broader implications for women-led activism in Nigeria and beyond.

Md. Nazmul Arefin

Supervisor: Dr. Temitope Oriola

Research Interests: Visual and critical criminology, terrorism and radicalization studies, identity politics, social justice, human rights, and Frantz Fanon.

I firmly believe that it is important to understand how a subtle and fascinating subject like radicalization leading to terrorism is framed in films. For a long time now, movies have portrayed stories of radicalization and terrorist profiles in a particularly slanted oriental viewpoint. In the midst of these existing discourses, by taking “Criminology” to the “cinema”, my research explores to add new approaches towards theoretical development. This thesis aims to provide useful discursive tools, and bring important results by producing new perspectives in understanding radicalization in a post 9/11 world.

Celine Beaulieu

Research Interests: Surveillance, Colonialism, Policing

By utilizing contemporary and archival data, my research has focused on the structuring of historical and contemporary relations between Indigenous peoples and colonial settlers within Canada.

Lauren Dormer

My research interest lies within sociology of health and illness, with specific interests in investigating mental health and mental illness.  My work has a focus within an (ice) hockey context; therefore, my research looks to intersect concepts such as sociocultural aspects of sport. gender, health behaviours, and Canadian identity.    

Bilguundari Enkhutugs

Research interests: digital criminology, online justice, cyber-victimization; community supervision, probation, and punishment

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Rezvaneh Erfani Hossein Pour

Supervisor: Dr. Ken Caine

Area of research: Environmental Sociology, Development, Power, Post-colonial Theory
Tentative Topic: Environmental Movements in the Middle East

Emily Gerbrandt

Research Interests: Violence Against Women, Sexual Violence, Law and Society, Inequality, Critical Criminology, Qualitate Inquiry, Intersectionality

My current research investigates socio-legal responses to sexual violence in the wake of the #metoo movement. I am particularly interested in questions surrounding anti-feminist backlash in digital spheres, as well as techniques and strategies of digital feminisms to both promote and undermine intersectional knowledge paradigms.

Lorielle Giffin

Supervisor: Dr. Sandra Bucerius

Research Interests: Criminology, 'crimmigration', human rights, interpersonal violence, perceptions of state legitimacy, state-perpetrated violence.

Juan Guevara

Supervisor: Rob Shields

Research interests: marginalization, relations Humans and Non-Humans, critical disability and urban spaces.

My doctoral project seeks to understand the socio-material culture of urban informality through the mobilities, rhythms and time-space of informal spatial practices.

Nicholas Hardy

Research interests concern urban visual culture in the age of neo-liberalism and poetic experience as negentropy. His M.A. thesis dealt with the legacy of Walter Benjamin's thought to Sociology, with a focus on cinema, photography, fascism, consumerism and the decay of aura.

Nicole Hill

Supervisor: Dr. Amy Kaler

Research Interests: Sociology of health, cultural studies, gender & feminist studies, qualitative research methods, public sociology

Ping Lam Ip

Supervisor: Dr. Bryan Hogeveen

I received my M.Phil. and B.S.Sc. in sociology from Hong Kong Baptist University. My research interests include youth, delinquency, social construction, social control, and critical social theories. Specifically, I seek to examine how social scientists, governments, the mass media, and the social service sector construct the narrative of “Internet addiction” and justify the discipline and punishment of young people's Internet use. My research work has been published in Critical Criminology, The British Journal of Social Work, Asian Education and Development Studies, and Sexuality & Culture.

Reyhaneh Javadi

Research Interests: Law and Society, social movements, sociology of gender, political sociology.

Elif Yagmur Karagol Demir

Supervisor: Dr. Zohreh Bayatrizi

 Research Interests: Sociology of Death, Sociology of Prisons, Work, Labour Market, and Labour Market Inequalities.

 I received my BA and MS in sociology at the Middle East Technical University. In my MS thesis, I analyzed the reciprocal relationship between the political prison culture and prison architecture in Turkey. At present, I am conducting research for my dissertation which centres on Turkish-born immigrants’ experiences related to death. My research encompasses various aspects, including the culturally appropriate location and ways of burial, as well as the immigrant-led end-of-life services, particularly funeral funds and funeral companies in the host country, Belgium.

Takara Ketchell

My research relates to exploring the influences and implications of certain types of institutions on identity formation and enactment. Specifically, I am interested in the ways that history and cultural institutions such as festivals shape the way people understand their identity and how this is enacted/preformed.

Olesya Kochkina

Supervisors: Dr. Sara Dorow and Dr. Lise Gotell (WGS)

I am returning to academia after working for 15 years in the international development sector. This is evident through my strong emphasis on praxis-oriented research and prioritizing community-based, participatory approaches to knowledge production. I approach my work through a feminist and social justice lens. Broadly, my research interests relate to intersectional analysis of social policies affecting how people with most marginalized identities experience GBV, including GBV services (or the lack of such), housing, employment, healthcare, and childcare.

Ashley Kohl

Supervisor: Dr.Sandra Bucerius

Ashley Kohl is a Joseph-Armand Bombardier scholar currently working on her specialization exam on environmental sociology. Ashley is a senior researcher and the head quantitative research analyst for the University of Alberta Prison Project. Her MA thesis examined how protective custody classification affects how incarcerated men relate to each other and negotiate their own sense of identity within the larger inmate hierarchy. Her other research interests include gangs, queer theory, and globalization.

Joao Victor Krieger

Research interests: I am an international Ph.D. student in the department of sociology. I have a BA degree in Law from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and a MA degree in Sociology from the University of Alberta. I was born in Brazil and moved to Edmonton in 2017. My research topics include critical criminology, sociology of law, decolonial theory, governmentality studies, Latin American history, and critical social theory. My Ph.D. research explores the rise of biopolitics in the Brazilian criminal legal system as a method of governing through crime.

Rebekah McNeilly

Supervisors: Dr. Sandra Bucerius & Dr. Luca Berardi

Research Interests: Experiences of incarceration in Canadian prisons, post-prison re-entry and re-entry programs. Youth in foster care and foster care-juvenile justice links, youth victimization and youth homelessness.

Lauren Menzie

Supervisor: Dr. George Pavlich

Research Interests: Socio-legal theory; queer theory; gender and sexuality; marginalized sexualities; evolution of criminal law; governance of sexuality; online communities; virtual engagements with law.

Barbara Milmine

Supervisor: Dr. Sara Dorow

Barbara Milmine is a Vanier Scholar whose research interests include urban Aboriginal populations and policy, the racialization of space, the intersection of race, gender and identity, and contemporary applications of traditional indigenous knowledge.

Brittney Schwehr

Brittney is a PhD student in the department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. She received her MA in Criminology and Social Justice from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). Brittney has participated in qualitative research on policing and surveillance. Her other research interests include hate crimes and reintegration.

Ivan Shmatko

Supervisor: Dr. Sandra Bucerius

Ivan is a qualitative sociologist, particularly interested in urban ethnography and ethnography of policing. His research interests include provisional authority, informal governance and the ways they both influence formal social control.

Emily Stewart

Emily is a PhD student in the department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. She received her MA in Sociology from Queen’s University where she critically explored how varying levels of supervision and conditions of release on bail are experienced by people accused of crimes. Her research interests include understanding the experiences of individuals leaving custody, the Canadian bail system, community corrections, and social control.

Charles Stubblefield

Doctor of Philosophy - Sociology

Baiyu Su

Research Interests: Women’s and Gender Studies; Migration; Mobility and Inequality; Qualitative Research Methods; Social History

My current research investigates how women utilize their social and cultural capital when they migrate and explores what factors shape women’s migration decision-making practices. Before I moved to Edmonton, I received PhD, MA, and BA degrees in History from China. My first doctoral dissertation investigated five approaches Beijing municipalities adopted to regulate philanthropy from 1908 to 1949. I also have ten years of experience in oral history projects.

Anduamlak Takele

Doctor of Philosophy - Sociology

Leigh-Ann Waldropt-Bonair

Supervisor: Dr. Nicole Denier

Research Interests: International Migration with particular emphasis on climate change, labour migration, sustainable development, global inequalities, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, undocumented migrants, and migrant entrepreneurship. I am also interested in the areas Substance Use Disorders, Food Insecurity, and Corporate Social Responsibility.

My doctoral research will investigate the situation of south-north climate change-induced migration, through an analysis of temporal data.

Angela Wilson

Supervisor: Dr Stephen Kent

Title (tentative): Anti-Science as Pseudoreligiosity - Explanations for the Rejection of Scientific Consensus

My interests are in the fields of Sociology of Science and Religion to help understand how anti-science and pseudoscience beliefs take hold in an advanced technological society. Especially relevant in the age of online social networking where information passes among peers without the benefit of reliable information sources. I also specialize in examining the roles of women in science and engineering careers.

Luke Wonneck

Supervisor: Dr. Ken Caine and Dr. Mary Beckie 

Research Interests:

Sociology of agriculture, settler colonialism and decolonization, Indigenous food sovereignty, rural and environmental history, social practice theory.

My doctoral research will explore histories of Indigenous people harvesting (e.g. hunting, picking medicines and berries, trapping) on privately owned lands in central Alberta, Treaty 6 territory. I hope to gain a sense of how Indigenous harvesting access to these lands has persisted, evolved, disappeared, and/or (re)emerged, from when these lands were first privatized through to the present day. 

Yan Xue

Supervisor: Sara Dorow

Research Interests: Queer migration and diaspora studies, Chinese migration studies, Intersectionality theory, Narrative inquiry methodology, Transnational death and grief

My PhD research focuses on the diasporic experiences of Chinese transgender migrants in Canada. Deploying the concept of queer diaspora and intersectionality theory, I investigate how their experiences of ‘transition/ing’ and ‘kin-making’ are shaped by intersecting identities and subjected to the regulatory effects of trans-national migration regimes.

Manzah-Kyentoh Yankey

Supervisor: Dr. Holly Campeau

Research Interests: Race, Policing, Punishment, Criminalization, Inequality.

My doctoral research aims to explore how the culture of whiteness in policing affects the ongoing police violence of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour in Canada.