On the Job Market (Grad Students and Alumni)

Graduate Students on the Market

Yoonyoung Choi

Young is currently in her fifth year as a doctoral candidate and holds an affiliation with the Institute for Population Research. She is deeply committed to exploring the intricacies of population and life-course dynamics. Her research primarily focuses on health disparities and the social determinants of mortality, with a special emphasis on the interplay among family dynamics, gender roles, and immigration. Currently, Young is leading several research projects aimed at unraveling the complexities behind the recent declines in health across the United States. Another significant area of her research examines how the health of immigrants is influenced by marital factors, including spousal nativity and changes in health behaviors. Through her rigorous quantitative analysis and empirical research, she seeks to elucidate the complex relationships between social factors and health outcomes throughout different stages of life.

Anna Church

Email: church.213@osu.edu

Website: Anna Church

Anna is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Ohio State and a graduate affiliate of the Institute for Population Research. She has two complementary research agendas centered on the intersection of medicine, gender, and reproduction and fertility and childbearing desires over the life course. Her dissertation examines experiences with gestational diabetes from the perspectives of patients, partners, and providers. Her work has been published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, Reproductive Health, and Journal of Primary Care and Community Health. Anna has worked with several cross-disciplinary research teams and has developed a great deal of experience and skill in qualitative data collection and analysis.

Tori Coan (they/she)

Email: coan.17@osu.edu

CV: Tori Coan CV

Bio: I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Ohio State University. My research interests include the sociology of care work; race, class, and gender inequality; disability; and political economy. I am seeking applied research and policy-oriented positions in non-profit, research/think tank, and government organizations.

My quantitative research skills include proficiency in R and STATA and experience with statistical modeling techniques such as longitudinal data analyses and multi-level modeling. My research and data skills are complimented by my applied research and legislative experience. Prior to beginning my PhD, I worked as a Legislative Director in the Maryland General Assembly; working to pass progressive tax legislation, paid family and medical leave insurance, and childcare subsidies. In 2023, I interned for the Center for Economic and Policy Research; co-authoring multiple policy reports related to universal basic income, paid family and medical leave, and the need for improved federal data collection on paid and unpaid caregiving.

Dissertation Title: Debts of Care - Unpaid Caregiving and Unsecured Debt among U.S. Adults 55+

Advisor: Rachel Dwyer

Jacob Kepes

Email: kepes.8@osu.edu

Kepes CV (PDF)
Research and Teaching Interests: I am a PhD candidate in Sociology seeking to use my research expertise, proficiency with statistical software (R, Stata, and Python), and experience with qualitative methods (interviews and ethnography) in a non-academic role. My research areas include spatial analysis, housing, urban sociology, public health, race, and crime.

Dissertation Title: Flipping a Floodplain: A Case Study of Gentrification in Columbus, Ohio

Advisors: Townsand Price-Spratlen and Christopher Browning

Alex Kempler

Email: kempler.4@osu.edu

Website: Alex Kempler

Alex Kempler (she/they) is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at The Ohio State University. She is broadly interested in urban and community sociology, social movements, and housing sociology. Her research examines how community members, such as housing insecure, unhoused individuals, and activists, mobilize for housing rights. Her dissertation will explore the resurgence of encampments on the West Coast, focusing specifically on the “Stop the Sweeps Movement” in Los Angeles and Seattle. Other work looks at housing rights and policy more broadly, examining topics like the evolution of eviction policy during the COVID-19 pandemic and housing policy changes related to the Violence Against Women Act.

Sam Mitchell

Email: mitchell.1857@osu.edu

Sam Mitchell CV

Sam Mitchell (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and a Graduate Instructional Consultant at the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning. Her research interests broadly include education, social stratification, mobility, and race, class, and gender. Her dissertation, tentatively titled "Non-accredited Credentials in a Credential Society: Non-accredited Colleges and Degree Mills in Educational Stratification" focuses on non-accredited colleges and degree mills, the value of these nontraditional degrees, and the reasons why adults circumvent traditional higher education. Sam has experience with quantitative (Stata, R) and qualitative methods (NVivo, Qualtrics).

In 2023, Sam was awarded the Graduate Associate Teaching Award, the highest teaching award available for graduate student instructors at Ohio State and has significant experience with course design and independent instruction. As an instructional consultant for the Drake Institute, Sam: consults on instructional issues with graduate teaching associates; collects and analyzes data on instructional feedback and prepares summative reports for instructors; develops and facilitates workshops on pedagogical approaches and teaching strategies for various university audiences; and conducts background research, writes, and curates teaching and learning resources for institute events and online resources.