Past BA Theses

2022

Andrew Bacotti, "The Fair Wage Revisited"

Vicky Berman, "The Drive for Social Acceptance: How University Students Make Sense of Political Conversations"

Paige Brann, "Seeing Like a Real Estate: Shifting Perceptions of Place in the San Antonio-Austin Corridor" Honorable Mention

Alina Brennan, "Mental Health Healing: How Adolescents and Young Adults Navigate Their Mental Healthcare Needs"

Natalie Chapin, "'They Always Want More': The Untold Stories of the Gendered Campaign Trail"

Dinah Clottey, "The (R)evolution of Black Fashion: Black Dress at Predominantly White Institutions"

Nate Culbert, "Experts in the Room: Role Conflict and Ambiguity in School Social Work Around Chicago"

Julia Du, "Retail Workers and Nurses as 'Pandemic Heroes': Occupational Fulfillment and Work-Identity Paradigms"

Sophia Egrari, "Stopping the Steal: Belief in Election Fraud Conspiracy, 2012-2020"

Ife Fariyike, "Battle of the Boybands: An Exploration of Identity and Community in BTS and 1D Online Fandom Spaces"

Alexandra Fiorentino-Swinton, "Participation vs. Exploitation: The Pop Cultural Border War"

Cheryl Hao, "The Effect of Incarceration on Identity-Making: How Nine Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Came to an Activist Identity"

Quentin Harris, "Prejudiced Broadcasting: How Implicit Bias and Racial Stereotypes are Found in TV Commentary of NBA Games"

Allegra Hatem, "Defunding the (Alternatives to) Police: A Chicago Violence Prevention Program’s Barriers to State Funding" Top Award

Jon Hoerner, "Policing the Invisible: Crisis Intervention Training and Community Effects During Mental Health Crisis Responses in Chicago"

Christina Howard, "Care Under Carcerality: Strategies of Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones" Honorable Mention

Alicia Hurtado, "The ‘Wayfinders’ of Abortion Access: Analyzing the Interstitial Affective Care of Volunteer Case Managers at the Chicago Abortion Fund"

Mira Joseph, "My Dress and My Chess Barbie Bag: The Social Resiliency of Women in Chess"

Kwabene Kalumbula, "Identity and Competition: Political and Partisan Socialization in 15 Young Adults" Thesis Presentation Award

Charlie Kolodziej, "Taking Aim at Anti-LGBT Violence: Constructing Queer and Trans Vulnerability Through Firearm Ownership" Honorable Mention

Maya Krasovsky, "Digital Organizing and Mobilization by Russia’s Opposition: 2014 to 2017"

John Kunzo, "Stirring the Melting Pot: Biracial College Students’ Perspectives on Social Mobility in America"

Chase Leito, "Using the Master’s Tools to Dismantle the Master’s House: The Relationship between Lawyers, Organizers, and Social Movements Challenging the Carceral System"

Charlotte Lewis, "Summer’s No Longer as Fun as It Was in June: Social Networks, Knowledge, and Conflict from Wildfire Disaster"

Melody Li, "Shaping Students’ Becomings: The Liberal Arts versus the Preprofessional at the University of Chicago College, 1920-1930"

Anne Lim, "Dude, Where’s My Seat?: How Teenagers Understand Their Places in Highbrow Art Spaces"

Susy Liu, "COVID Confusion: Exploring Anomie through Pandemic Mask Policy"

Nika Lofton, "'Indoctrination Isn’t New, But How Far Back Does it Go?': A Content Analysis of Fox News’s Reporting on Politics at American Colleges and Universities from 2009-2019"

Amy Maldonado, "Understanding Data Privacy: How Americans Conceptualize Privacy and Agency in the Digital Age"

Hopie Melton, "Emotional Labors: Organizing Long-term Care Workers in Chicago During the COVID-19 Pandemic"

Mari Mirasol, "Deconstructing Stigma: Lessons from the ConTextos Rehabilitation Program at the Salvadoran Juvenile Detention Center of Tonacatepeque" Thesis Presentation Award

Mo Mitchell, "Environmental Education: Empowering a Generation of Ethical Actors"

Bianca Munguia, "Belonging as a Process of Survival: 1.5 and Second-Generation Latines in Dalton, Georgia"

Jalen Nichols, "Divergent Pathways: The Effects of Gentrification on Racial Composition and Other Neighborhood Characteristics in Chicago"

Jonah Norwitt, "Fulfilling the Needs of Reentry: The Provision of Social Support in Social Service Environments"

Hadessah O’Neal, "More than Just Going the Distance: Body Image and Perceived Access to Food"

Lauren Park, "Perceptions of Mental Health Among Asian American Students"

Alexandra Patzakis, "Examining the Impact of Photography in the Era of Social Media Through the Case Study of Alan Kurdi on Twitter"

Diego Quesada, "Bleeding Laws: Violence, Queerness, and the Law in Mexican Society"

Isabel Reyes, "Black in Spite of Our Dominicanidad: Navigating and Translating Afro-Dominican Ethnic Options in New York City"

Isabella Rivera Volquez, "When the Law is Not on Your Side: Queerness, Safety, and Resistance in the Dominican Republic"

Adrian Rucker, "Accumulation through Abandonment: Demolition and the Uneven Production of Vacant Lots in Chicago Neighborhoods"

Faith Sanchez, "R/Group_therapy: The Function of Health-related Internet Resources in the Medical Encounter"

Eseme Segbefia, "The Identities of Nigerian and Ghanaian American College Students"

Kevin Song, "'Live Video at the Scene': A Content Analysis of Citizen, A Public Safety App"

Sunitha Vallinayagam, "Health for Who?: Investigating LGBTQ+ Inclusivity on Chicago-Based Federally Qualified Community Health Centers Websites"

Zoe Williams, "All in God’s Hands: Exploring the Relationship between Young Adults and the Black Church"

John Wu, "Old Dogs, Old Tricks: Examining the Rationales and Effects of Elderly (Re)entrants into the Japanese Workforce"

Mia Wu, "Living Arrangements and Cognitive Health Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in the United States: What are Moderating Factors?"

2021

Cora Alperin, "Contraceptive Illiteracy: Informal Information Networks Among Young Adults Aged 18-29"

Beth Awano, "Too Close to Home: An Ecological Analysis of How College Students Respond When a Close Friend is Accused of Sexual Assault"

Alexis Ayala, "The Persistence of the Panopticon: An Exploration of Former Chicago Public School Students’ Perceptions of School Resource Officers and Feelings towards Policies on Retention"

Zoe Cullison-Shimada, "Womanhood in Her Terms: Defying Gender-based Conventions in the Japanese Workplace"

Nassim Davila, "The Domestic Politicality of Transgender News Media: A Rhetorical Analysis of Pre-normalization via Local Press"

Théo Evans, "Misogyny as Medication: The Red Pill, Self-Help, and Neoliberal Masculinity"

Peter Forberg, "'We Are the News Now': QAnon and the Replacement of Epistemic Authorities with Personalized Online Political Communities"

Gustavo Arruda Franco, "Healing the Nation: Portrayals of Democracy in Official Social Media Profiles of Igreja Universal during the Election of Bolsonaro in 2018"

Yitz Goldstein, "Paramedic Mensch: Negotiating Jewish Masculinities"

Lisette Gonzalez-Flores, "Navigating Assimilation and Racialization As Second-Generation Immigrants Living In Ethnic Enclaves"

Max Grayzel-Ward, "The Future is Fertile: Exploring How Young Trans People Think About Reproduction"

Olga Patricia Guerrero Gonzalez, "La Revolución Será Transfeminista o No Será: Collective Identity Formation in the Women’s Movement Against Gender Violence in México"

Aysha Hafiz, "Nostalgia Station: Construction of Post-Soviet Community Through Radio"

Alexandra Hohenlohe, "Uncontested in D.C., 'Unconstitutional' in the U.S.: Washington, D.C.-Based Media Coverage of D.C. Statehood Organizations"

Tianhao Hou, "The Politics of Complaints: Responsiveness and Repression in Chinese Municipal Government since 2013"

Zipporah Klain, "Hometown Networks vs. Wartime Friends: Differing Sources of Social Support and Their Ties to Health Outcomes inBlack and White Union Army Veterans"

Lilly Le, "Education for Liberation: Challenging the Hegemonic Structure of the University"

Ileana Lopez-Martinez, "Not Your Mother’s Sex Ed: Neoliberal Influence on Mother-Daughter Sexuality Education"

Adrian Mandeville, "Cuban Exile Identity: Determinants and Durability of Right-Wing Politics"

Seth Marlow, "The Revolution May Be Live-Tweeted: An examination of the strengths and weaknesses of horizontal movements through Lebanon’s October 17th Revolution"

Bere Martinez, "Legal Violence and the VOICES Act: How an Immigration Law with Benign Intentions Meant to Assist U Visa Applicants Can Cause Legal Violence"

Molly McCammon, "Their Friends Fill in the Gaps: How refugees use informal social ties to facilitate successful integration"

Alesia Michel, "Health and Safety for New York Inmates and Free Residents During COVID-19"

Autumn Mitchell, "The Effects of Uncertainty During the Covid-19 Crisis: Behavioral Flexibility and Organizational Decoupling"

Jose Morin, "Exploring the Closet: Reconceptualizing Machismo through Masculinity and Queer Disruption"

Deb Mukherjee, "Genesweep: How Scientists Guess"

Kristen Park: "Making Informed Decisions: An Examination Of The Role Of Information In The Decision-Making Processes of Undergraduate Students"

Hannah Paul, "What a Way to Make a Living: A Statistical and Theoretical Analysis of the Relationship Between Political Party Affiliation, Subjective Class Identification, and Confidence in Organized Labor"

Lisa Qu, "Not Just a Few Bad Guys: Privilege and Power as Mediators of Sexual Violence in Fraternities"

Shreya Minama Reddy, "Money on the Mind: An Exploration of Spending Habits in Indian and Chinese Immigrants to the United States"

Denise Ruiz, "Escape to Alcatraz: The Tourist Gaze of the Prison Industrial Complex"

Teddy Todaro, "Deciphering the Institutional Success of College Football Programs"

Jenn Umanzor, "Monitoring the Workplace: Does Telework Impact Employee Work-Time Discipline?"

Stephanie Valencia, "Latinx AF: In what situations and contexts do second generation Latinx draw on their Latinx identity?"

Samir Venkatesh, "Truly Criminal Justice: Revisiting Racial Bias in Drug Crime Sentencing"

Isabel Wolfson, "Quantifying and Qualifying the Religious Habitus: Substantiating Post-Secularism on a Liberal Arts College Campus"

Calvin Woodard, "Medicalization and the Spiritual: The Ecology of the Alcoholism Problem to 1970"

Jin Yoon, "Understanding What Attracts and Sustains Youth Organizing in Chicago"

Jadelynn Zhang, "'That’s Problematic': Racism, Appropriation, and Boundary Work on TikTok"

2020

Anna Aguiar Kosicki, "All Business is Show Business: Social Capital, Gendered Exploitation, Organizational Structure, and the Law in the #NotinOurHouse Movement and the Chicago Theater Standards"

Kiana Amini, "The Cost of Knowledge Production: Academics’ Strategies of Negotiating Ethical Tensions in Social Science Research and Fieldwork"

Adrianna Barnett, "'Real' Greek Life: Exploring Organizational Essence, Boundary Maintenance, and Organizational Commitment"

Hanna Batlan, "The Gentrifier's Dilemma: Gentrification and Progressive Hospitality in the Oakland Food Industry"

Emma Chosy, "Nobody Knows You, Baby, The Way I Do: Knowledge-Gathering as Fan Work in One Direction Fan Communities"

Henry Clarke, "The Performed Sports Fan: How Chicago Cubs Fans Make Sense of their Fandom through Audience and Site Mediation"

Kate Clement, "Ring Before Spring: A Quantitative Analysis of Millennial Marital Timing under the Lens of U.S. Cultural Regions"

Solomon Dworkin, "Contestation and Coherence in the Occupational Rhetoric of Facility Managers"

Brian Fenaughty, "State Written, City Implemented: How the Illinois TIF Act Changed and Chicago Changed with It"

Juliana Freschi, "Order Among Outcasts: Boundary-Making in Chicago’s Contemporary Tattoo Scene"

Bettina Hammer, "'More Than Just Words on a Page': How Belief Transforms into Truth Through Social Rebuke"

Katie Karp, "Cultural Consumption Practices at UChicago: Conspicuous Consumption"

Jared Kerman, "Waking Toward Recognition: Performance, Embodiment, and the Pursuit of Realness within the Chicago House and Ball Scene"

Ruth Landis, "Faith-Based Organizing: Theorizing the Role of Religion on the Progressive Left"

Hannah Lee, "The Intersubjectivity of Diversity in the Legal Field"

Anna Li, "East Eats West: A Discursive Analysis of Cultural Legitimation in Chinese Cookbooks Published in the Age of Global Cosmopolitanism"

Tyrone Lomax, "Recidivism & Re-entry: Connecting Social Workers' Business Environments and their Workability"

Lorraine Lu, "The Legitimization of Surveillence: China's Social Credit System"

David Matz, "'Girls Play Those Champions': Players Using Game Structure to Frame Gendered Interactions Online"

Seychelle Mikofsky, "'It Too Will Pass': Identity Management Strategies of Queer Students at Brigham Young University"

Veronica Myers, "(Re)Structuring the Social Space: A Study of Communitarian Identity and Organizational Transformation at Arcosanti"

Jein Park, "Redefining Gentrification in Chicago’s West Loop: How Commercialization Transformed a Desolate Meatpacking District into the City’s Trendiest Consumption Destination"

Jessica Robinson, "Probation and Imprisonment: Investigating Penal Regime Types"

Karla Ruiz, "La Isla Desencantada: Civil and Political Disenchantment Among Puerto Ricans after Hurricane"

Aleena Tariq, "Many Hands Make Heavy Work: Dilemmas of Coalition-Building in Chicago’s Environmental Justice Movement"

Nick Villar, "Crime and Commerce: A Study of Urban Vibrancy and Criminal Activity in Chicago"

Fikayo Walter-Johnson, "Spatializing Kinship: A Socio-Spatial Analysis of West African Immigrant Kinship Networks in Affordable Housing Cooperatives"

Kanisha Williams, "Many Libraries, One Chicago: Public Spaces as Substitutions to the Public Safety Net"

Evan Zhao, "(Re)Orienting Desire and Politics: Western Queer Subjectivity under Chinese Authoritarianism"

2019

Christina Cano, "'Peace, Love, and Unity': Comparing Strategies of Inclusive Boundary Work by Black and Asian College Hip Hop Participants"

Isabelle Charo, "Strength from The Bottom Up: Emotional Labor, Motivation, and Organizational Resilience among Service Providers for Immigrant Communities"

Arnav Chatterjee, "Persistence of Caste among Indian Immigrants in the United States"

Marissa Combs, "Moral Apprenticeship: Free School Ideology Embodied in Conflict Resolution Strategies" Award Winner

Adam R. David, "Divergence in Diaspora: Perceptions of Cultural Preservation and Assimilation among First and Second-Generation Assyrians In Chicago"

Abe Friedman, "Navigating Police Work in the Age of Body-Worn Cameras" Award Winner

Mitchell Gazda, "Navigating the Bind: How Rural Pastors Preach and Believe in a Secularizing World"

Benjamin Giber, "Confidant Networks and Unrecognized HIV Infection among Young Black Men Who Have Sex With Men"

Olivia Jia, "Boundary Maintenance and the Built Environment: How Contested Spaces in Chicago’s Chinatown Define Contemporary Chinese-American Community across Physical, Generational and Cultural Lines"

Rebecca Julie, "New Kids on the Yacht: Exploring the Role of Jewish Identity in Suburban Beach Club Affiliation"

Noah Karras, "Motivations Behind Philanthropy: Deconstructing the Creation of a Promising Beacon for an Underserved Community"

Rachel Y. Kim, "'The Numbers Tell The Story': Data Scientists and Predictive Policing Practices in Chicago"

David Klinger, "Who Rides the Bus? An Empirical Analysis of Census Transit Commuting Data"

Abigail Kuchnir, "Salient Spaces in a Chicago Neighborhood"

Juliet Lee, "The Role of Street Art And Social Media In 21st Century Urban Placemaking: A Case Study Of The Los Angeles Arts District"

May Malone, "Inadequate Insurance: The Shifting Academic Aspirations of Elite Liberal Arts Students"

Kristiana Olson, "Replacing Long Days With More Stressful Ones: The Trade-Offs Facing Women Lawyers in The Workforce"

Lucas Penido, "Making the Unprofitable Profitable: Affordable Housing Development through an Organizational Field"

Khoa Dang Phan, "Asians & Friends Chicago: The Politics of Interracial Desire in a Gay Friendship Group"

Riley Sester, "From Frozen to Fresh: How Famers’ Markets Socialize Middle-Class Food Behaviors"

Frank S. Sierra, "Ni De Aquí, Ni De Allá: Understanding Relational Identity through an Intersectional Framework"

Anil Sindhwani, "Undergraduates’ Racialized Perceptions of Crime and Safety at the University of Chicago"

Delia Sosa, "Recreating the Closet: The Process of Generating Mental Health Stigma for LGBTQ+-Identifying Undergraduate Students"

Emily Tcheng, "'Diabetes Is Not a Poor Person’s Ailment': How Individuals on the South Side of Chicago Negotiate the Diabetes Care Experience"

Rachel Weinbren, "From Student to Donor: How College Greek Life Socializes Members into Philanthropic Experiences through 'Fun Philanthropy'"

Yunhan Wen: "Chinese Urbanism as a Way Of Life — Becoming Urban In Shenzhen’s Informal Settlement"

Hamilton P. Wilson, "'Am I A Good Teacher?': Narratives of the Social Factors Impacting Teachers’ Self-Concept"

Hanqian Zhang, "Building the Reservoir of Risk: A Study of Chinese Dispatched Workers’ Employment Experience in Hubei Province"

2018

Melissa Bischoff, "Adding Mental Health into the Equation: Social Support, Mental Health and Health"

Hanna Breslau, "Media, Memory, and Protest in Postwar Japan: How Collective Memory of the 1960 Security Treaty Protests Shapes Japanese National Identity"

Abigail Brockman, "Building Power in the Movement for Black Lives: Recognizing the Impacts of Embedded Utopian Movements Today"

Sofia Butnaru, "'A New Caracas within Caracas': Reconfiguring Boundaries with La Gran Mision Vivienda Venezuela"

Diego Cardenas, "Rethinking the Digital Hood: Disadvantaged Youth, Social Media, and Networked Privacy Management" Top Award

Louis Clark, "Moral Panics on Medium: How Elsagate Confusion Fostered a Public Arena for Social Problem Competition"

Darien Dey, "Licks Does Bun’ and Cool"

Hanna T. Gregor, "The Prospective City & the Projected Resistant: Resistance to Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center through Mobilization of Future Oriented Identities"

Mojolaoluwa Idowu, "American Citizens: The Politics of Graffiti and Space in Chicago"    

Kathleen Kristensen, "The Hard Work of Playing Hard: Risk Neutralization by Recreational Drug Users"

Jessica Law, "Negotiating Racialized 'Illegality': Undocumented Asian Americans and New Belongings"

Jacob McCarthy, "Yelling to Listen and Other Paradoxes of American Pro Se Small Claims Court"

Gloria Morelos-Roth, "La Señora Y La Domestica: Understanding Interactions Between Latina Domestic Workers and White Mothers in the Labour Market"

Natalie Pasquinelli, "'I would say yes even though I wasn’t in to it…but that was just my fault': Unwanted Sex in the Age of Affirmative Consent" Honorable Mention

Camille Plunkett, "Research Chemical Subreddit: An Exploration of a Virtual Scene"   

Connor Plunkett, "Two Paths to Utopia: Organizational Strategies in 70’s Urban Communes and the Viability of Alternative Social Orders"

Emily Rao, "Just Like Grandma Used to Make and More: Markets of Authenticity in Ethnic Restaurants" Honorable Mention

Franklin Rodriguez, "The Potential of the Doctor-Patient Relationship: A Sociological Analysis of Health and Stress"

Ashley Soong, "From 'Frat Row' to Wall Street: An analysis of the ‘cultural matching’ hiring and rushing practices within the fraternity-to-pipeline"

Zoey Twyford, "Categorizing Care: The Victimization and Medicalization of Sexually Exploited Youth in Minnesota"

Shubha Vedula, "Constructing a Cultural Icon in the Age of Digital Media"

Ching Hang Joey Wong, "Parental Conditional Regard: A Culture-Specific Risk Factor for Chinese Students"

Allison Yu, "Just the Unlucky Scapegoats? How Fraternity Brothers Mange Stigma"