Sociology Department faculty often collaborate with undergraduate students on research through independent studies, directed research, internships, lab participation, grant-funded research, and the Undergraduate Research Grant competition.
Read on to learn about the exciting research being done by faculty who are interested in working with undergraduates on research this academic year.
Beatriz Aldana Marquez
Research Interests: Beatriz Aldana Marques is conducting research on the impact of deportation threats in rural New York and am seeking research assistants for Directed Research course. Her areas of expertise include Latino Sociology, Immigration Detention, Critical Race Theory, and Sociology of Law. This project will involve research administration, conducting interviews, and transcription. Students will receive training in qualitative research methods, working with sensitive populations, and understanding deportation policies. I particularly encourage applications from students with lived experience in rural New England towns, farm communities, or those who have worked with or are part of Latino communities, or have familiarity with deportation.
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: beatriz.aldana_marquez@uconn.edu
Laura Bunyan
Research Interests: Gender, work, family, food, qualitative research
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: laura.bunyan@uconn.edu
Phoebe Godfrey
Research Interests: Phoebe Godfrey researches the social causes of climate change/environmental destruction and how to change our culture through transformative and progressive education. Related to this, she works with students as student mentors in her E courses. She also writes on education / her teaching practice with interested students. Phoebe Godfrey is always happy to work with students interested in any of these ideas or to work with students who have their own creative and more unusual research interests.
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: phoebe.godfrey@uconn.edu
Matthew Hughey
Research Interests: Various ongoing research projects on "race" and its intersection with religion, science, organizations, and media.
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: matthew.hughey@uconn.edu
Elizabeth Jacobs
Research Interests: Immigration, labor, gender, policy
Availability: Fall 2025
contact: elizabeth.2.jacobs@uconn.edu
Christin Munsch
Research Interests: Christin Munsch is open to working with undergraduate students who would like to garner research experience in the form of working as a research assistant for either herself or one of her graduate students, Kylar Schaad and Ye Wang. These students would sign up for 2-4 independent study credits and the amount of RA work would correspond with their number of credits (2 credits = ~5 hours work/week plus 1 hour to check in and respond to emails, 3 = ~8 hours work/week plus 1 hour to check in and respond to emails, 4 = ~11 hours work/week plus 1 hour to check in and respond to emails). Current research projects revolve around the intersection of gender, work, and family - as a well as a new project about children and status. Ye Wang is working on an experimental study looking at discrimination against international students. Kylar Schaad is working on an interview study about gender identity and expression and medical care.
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: christin.munsch@uconn.edu
Jeremy Pais
Research Interests: Political economy of sustainable urban development
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: jeremy.pais@uconn.edu
Kim Price-Glynn
Research Interests: The organization and infrastructure around paid and unpaid carework by practitioners, family and community members
Availability: Fall 2025
contact: kim.price-glynn@uconn.edu
Bandana Purkayastha
Research Interests: Migration, gender/intersectionality driven research on water (rights and inequalities)
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: bandana.purkayastha@uconn.edu
Ingrid Semaan
Research Interests: social determinants of health, gender/race/class/sexuality-based violence, racial capitalism, fat studies
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: ingrid.semaan@uconn.edu
Simon Yamawaki Shachter
Research Interests: Nonprofit organizations, politics, immigration, history, race, cities
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: simonys@uconn.edu
Fumilayo Showers
Research Interests: "Postmortem of a Pandemic: A Temporal Frame of Work, Life, and Death in COVID-19"
This ongoing study examines the structural/systemic, institutional, and micro level factors that shaped the experiences of frontline and non-frontline health care workers during the various waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the ways in which the pandemic
Availability: Fall 2025
contact: fumilayo.showers@uconn.edu
Ryan Talbert
Research Interests: Health, Criminology, and Racism
Availability: Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
contact: ryan.talbert@uconn.edu