Graduate Students

Md. Nazmul Arefin

Supervisor: Dr. Temitope Oriola

Research Areas: Criminology, Race and Decolonization, Theory and Culture

Md. Nazmul Arefin is a PhD candidate and Killam laureate. He is currently working as a Research Coordinator on the National Dorothy Killam Fellowship project titled Beyond Victimization: BIPOC Officials in the Canadian Criminal Justice System, one of only eight awarded in Canada in 2023. Arefin’s doctoral research investigates the lived experiences of Muslims in Canada, addressing the rising climate of hate-motivated crimes and right-wing extremism. His work seeks to provide vital granular data and grassroots policy recommendations for the nationwide effort to combat anti-Muslim racism.  Find him on LinkedIn.

Samuel Braden

Supervisor: Dr. Michelle Maroto

Research Areas: Class and Inequality, Population and Life Course

I am a second year PhD student in the department. My primary research interests lie in the field of demography, in specific, the study of fertility. My secondary interests revolve around the study of social class and inequality, as well as social theory.

I typically apply quantitative methods in my research, though I have training and experience using qualitative methods.

Cathrine Becker

Supervisor:  Dr. Karen Hughes

Research Areas: Class and Inequality, Gender and Sexuality, Work and Labour Markets

I work with both Dr. Karen Hughes and Dr. Michelle Maroto. My research focuses on education, family and work, and the role of power and identity in influencing educational and career outcomes. I often use qualitative methods, primarily interviews and discourse content analysis, and quantitative software like STATA and R. My dissertation will look at the school-work transitions for minority STEM students.

Celine Beaulieu

Supervisor:  Dr. Sandra Bucerius

Research Areas: Policing, homelessness, prisons

Celine obtained her BA (Honours) in Sociology from the University of Saskatchewan and her MA in Sociology from the University of Alberta. Her doctoral research aims to focus on how rural police officers respond to and navigate issues, including but not limited to homelessness, illicit drug use, overdoses, encampments and gang activity. She has also been involved in research with incarcerated people through the University of Alberta Re-entry Study.

Samadrita Chowdhuri

Supervisor: Dr. Sara Dorow

My primary research interests are focused on health, gender and embodiment. I am also interested in research based on visual and arts-based methodology.

Andrea DeKeseredy

Supervisor:  Dr. Michelle Maroto

Research Areas: Class and Inequality, Gender and Sexuality, Work and Labour Markets

Andrea DeKeseredy is a Vanier Scholar and PhD student in sociology at the University of Alberta. She holds master’s degrees in sociology and social work, and her research focuses on gender and labour. Her dissertation examines how the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Plan shapes women’s employment. Her research has been published in The Sociological Quarterly and Journal of Child and Family Studies. Follow her on X at @X: AndieWinnipeg or BlueSky: @AndieWinnipeg

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

Supervisor: Dr. Marta-Marika Urbanik

Research Areas: Criminology

Dari Enkhtugs is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Alberta. Her broader research interests include online transgression, social media, human trafficking, gangs, and homelessness.

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Rezvaneh Erfani Hossein Pour

Supervisor: Dr. Ken Caine

Research Areas: Environmental Sociology, Development, Power, Post-colonial Theory
Tentative Topic: Environmental Movements in the Middle East

Emily Gerbrandt

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

Juan Guevara

Supervisor: Rob Shields

Research Areas: 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.

Genan Hamad

Supervisor: Dr. Michelle Maroto

Research Areas: Class and Inequality, Health and Wellbeing, Population and Life Course, Work and Labour Markets

Genan is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology, and her research is funded by the Alberta Innovates scholarship. Her interests include statistical analysis, supervised ML, bias in AI-supported hiring, Intersectionality, digital Inequality, systems thinking, Indigenous wellbeing, sustainability, public policies, and social determinants of health. Genan presented her research in multiple conferences such as Congress 2025, and Congress 2024. Her doctoral research examines the social determinants of intersectional inequality in AI literacy, and Internet use.

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John Haney

Supervisor: Dr. Kevin Haggerty

Research Areas: Criminology, Law and Society

John Haney is a PhD student specializing in the sociology of policing. He holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice. His research examines police culture, the legitimacy of policing institutions, the economics of policing, and the effectiveness of internal and civilian oversight mechanisms in addressing systemic harms to marginalized populations. His work focuses on how institutional accountability shapes justice and public trust.

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.

Ping Lam Ip

Supervisor: Dr. Bryan Hogeveen

Research Areas: Gender and Sexuality, Health and Wellbeing, Theory and Culture

Ping Lam Ip is a PhD student in sociology and a Killam Laureate at the University of Alberta. His research interests include the well-being of children, youth, and families, delinquency, social construction, social control, and critical social theories. He has published in reputable academic journals, including Journal of Family Studies, Sexuality & Culture, Critical Criminology, The British Journal of Social Work, and Asian Education and Development Studies.  Find him on  X: @pinglamjoeip Bluesky: @pinglamjoeip.bsky.social or LinkedIn.

Reyhaneh Javadi

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

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.

Jovi Krieger

Supervisor:  Dr. George Pavich

Research Areas: Law and Society

Jovi Krieger (she/they) is a PhD Candidate in the department of Sociology, currently working on their research and dissertation on judicial archives and the genealogy of criminalization of popular habits in Brazil. Jovi has a Bachelor's degree in Law by the University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and MA by the University of Alberta (UofA). Their research topics include sociology of law, decolonial theory, governmentality studies, and critical social theory.

Hannah Louis

Supervisors: Dr. Paulina Johnson

Research Areas: Race and Decolonization

Tansî, Hannah nitsihkâson. I’m Nêhiyaw from Montana First Nation in Maskwacîs AB. I’m a PhD student with Dr. Paulina Johnson in Sociology and Dr. Paul Myers in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. I study climate change/Arctic oceanography and Indigenous ways of knowing. More specifically, I’m exploring Indigenous methodologies and science and the tensions associated in the so-called braiding of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems.

Rebekah McNeilly

Supervisors: Dr. Sandra Bucerius & Dr. Luca Berardi

Research Areas: 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 Areas: 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.

Ismail Nasirudeen

Supervisor: Dr. Temitope Oriola

Research Areas: Criminology, Law and Society, Race and Decolonization

My research is currently evolving around questions of justice, equity, and social transformation. It explores three interrelated areas: (1) Criminology and Criminal Justice, including policing, crime problems, and systemic oppression; (2) Race, Ethnicity, and Religion, with attention to Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, and other intersecting identities; and (3) Social Movements and Activism, where I examine how marginalized communities organize, resist oppression, and foster peaceful coexistence. Find Ismail on LinkedIn @ismail-nasirudeen

Leanne Stevens

Supervisor: Dr. Sandra Bucerius and Dr. Philip Badawy

Research Areas: Criminology, Health and Wellbeing, Law and Society

Leanne is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. She obtained her BA in Sociology from MacEwan University and her MA in Sociology from the University of Alberta. Leanne's master's thesis analyzed correctional staff and incarcerated women's perspectives on the Prison Needle Exchange Program, a harm reduction program implemented in select Canadian federal prisons. Leanne's research interests broadly include correctional officer (CO) and prison subculture, CO mental health, and anti-terrorism law and policy.

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.

Baiyu Su

Research Areas: 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

Supervisor: Dr. Bryan Hogeveen

Research Areas: Criminology, Law and Society, Theory and Culture

I am Anduamlak Molla Takele, pursuing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. My research focuses on immigrant youth crime, criminal law and culture, law and society, and care leaving.

My doctoral dissertation will explore how Canadian courts construct and deconstruct culture through their adjudicative power, particularly in distinguishing criminal from non-criminal behavior. Respected publishers, including Oxford University Press and the Emerging Adulthood Journal, have published my work.

Leigh-Ann Waldropt-Bonair

Supervisor: Dr. Michelle Maroto

Research Areas: 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 of substance use disorders, food insecurity, and corporate social responsibility.

My doctoral research will investigate the changing dynamics of south-north migration. I focus specifically on the evolving characteristics of immigrants and climate change-induced migration, through an analysis of multiple waves of temporal data.

H.A. Wilson

Supervisor: Dr. Sourayan Moukerjea

Research Areas: Theory and Culture

My research explores how podcasts shape contemporary culture and contribute to the rise of twenty-first-century neofascism. Using intersectional, decolonial, and feminist perspectives, I analyze podcasts as accessible, intimate, and community-oriented media. I explore how far-right and manosphere podcasts normalize authoritarian, xenophobic, and misogynistic discourses.

Luke Wonneck

Supervisor: Dr. Ken Caine and Dr. Mary Beckie 

Research Areas: 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 Areas: 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. Bryan Hogeveen

Research Areas: Criminology, Law and Society, Race and Decolonization

I'm a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. My research interests include race, sociology of law, and the criminal legal system. My dissertation is on racial inequality in the Canadian criminal courts.