Graduate Affiliates

Ani Abrahamyan

Ph.D. Student, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures

Email:

aniabrah@iu.edu

Ani’s work centers on representations of imperial minorities in nineteenth-century Russian literature. Treating fictional ethnography as a narrative technique, she explores the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of granting a voice to gendered, religious, and ethnic Others. Her current research examines the narrative miscommunications and exclusions that result from the use of dialects and foreign languages in Russian fiction.

Alexis Briggins

Ph.D. Student, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology

Email:

abriggin@iu.edu

Alexis is a McNair fellow and Holmes Scholar in the Counseling Psychology Ph.D. Program at Indiana University Bloomington, with a minor in Human Sexuality. She earned her B.S. in Psychology with a mental health concentration and a cultural competency certificate from Central Michigan University in 2022. Her research interests include race, relationships, sexuality, and mental health in the Black community. Alexis’ research focuses on the impact of racism, sexism, and stigma on the Black community's perceptions of mental and sexual health.

Dasha Carver

Ph.D. Student, Department of Counseling Psychology

Email:

dashcarv@iu.edu

Dasha is a Ph.D. student in Counseling Psychology. She earned her M.A. in Couples and Family Therapy from Saint Louis University School of Medicine in 2021 and her B.A. in Psychology with minors in Creative Writing and British Literature from the University of Missouri St. Louis. Her research interests include social justice advocacy through sexuality, sexual health, racial identity, and relationship outcomes among couples, non-monogamous, and interracial partnerships. Dasha also uses intersectionality, critical race, attachment, and feminist theory as guiding frameworks for her research interests.

Ting-Han Chang

Ph.D. Student, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Email:

tc25@indiana.edu

Ting-Han's research interests focus on equity-based research in higher education, including race and racism in higher education, organizational change and institutional equity, and college student leadership for social justice. Her dissertation utilizes the critical qualitative methodology to examine the ways undergraduate student leaders of color conceptualize racial justice leadership.

Hippocrates Ching-nam Cheng

Ph.D. Student, Jacobs School of Music

Email:

cheng16@iu.edu

Hippocrates Cheng is a composition DM student and a music theory Ph.D. student, with focused studies in ethnomusicology and jazz. Cheng is dedicated to exploring the intersections of music with race, ethnicity, and cultural exchange. He has a particular interest in the dynamic interplay between traditional and contemporary East Asian music forms and their role in shaping global racial and ethnic identities. He conducts his cross-cultural music compositions, lecture recitals, and fieldwork with both humility and openness at IU which provides insights into music's potential as a conduit for intercultural understanding.

Ryan J. Davis

Ph.D. Student, Higher Education (School of Education)

Email:

ryjdavis@indiana.edu

Ryan's research interests focus on understanding pedagogies that influence learning and success in STEM disciplines, particularly among underrepresented students of color. He coauthored the monograph Racial and Ethnic Minorities Students’ Success in STEM Education (Jossey-Bass) and he has coauthored 10 peer reviewed journal articles about the role of race in the experiences and outcomes of college students.

Jasmine L. Davis-Randolph

Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology

Email:

jld8@iu.edu

Jasmine is a McNair Scholar and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship recipient. Her research interests are racial and ethnic identity, mental health, and social psychology. Jasmine’s research focuses on the impact of discrimination, trauma, and stigma on the well-being of marginalized communities. Additionally, she is interested in how race and ethnicity shape social interactions and its impact on the production and dissemination of policies. In previous research, she explored the impact of Black ethnic identity on self-esteem across time for both native-born Blacks and Black immigrants from the Caribbean.  

Lisa Doi

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of American Studies

Email:

edoi@iu.edu

Lisa Doi’s research focuses on memory and memorialization of Japanese American World War II incarceration. Her dissertation project is an ethnographic engagement with Japanese American pilgrimages to World War II incarceration sites. Lisa’s work is highly engaged, bridging her academic work with co-chairing Tsuru for Solidarity, a collective of progressive Japanese Americans engaged in abolitionist and racial healing work. Together, these interests allow Lisa to both theorize and practice a Japanese American politic that is rooted in history but that is also aspiring towards a more capacious future. Lisa is also a curatorial assistant at the Japanese American National Museum, the President of the Japanese American Citizens League Chicago, and a 2021-2023 Sacred Journey Fellow with Interfaith America.

Teeka Gray

Ph.D. Student, Department of Anthropology

Email:

grayle@indiana.edu

Teeka’s research focuses on African Americans in Japan and the ways they navigate transnational subjecthood, old and new minority statuses, and racisms derived from the United States and Japan. Her current research connects to her broader interests in AfroAsian interactions and history. Her dissertation research uses ethnographic methods and social network analysis, as well as drawing upon multimedia resources. Teeka has been the recipient of an NSF-East Asian and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship. 

Monica Heilman

Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology

Email:

mlheilma@iu.edu

Monica’s research interests include multiracial identity, whiteness, and qualitative methods. She is also an artist who incorporates arts-based research into her scholarship. Monica’s dissertation examines how multiracial individuals identify, how self-identification varies by context, and how (multi)racial identities are shaped under whiteness as not only a racial category but a system of power.

Pamela Hong

Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology

Email:

pamhong@iu.edu

Pam is a Graduate Scholars Fellow at IU. She researches topics on race/immigration, social psychology, and social movements/networks. Her current research utilizes racialization theory to explore how Asian and Latino immigrants are criminalized in the media. She also has work on how intergroup contact can influence participation and support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Her other research involves online racism and how digital spaces are used to perpetuate these ideologies, attitudes, and racist behavior.

Da Eun Jung

Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology

Email:

dj85@iu.edu

Da Eun’s broad research interests include race and ethnicity and legal institutions and mechanisms. She is particularly interested in understanding Asian and Asian Americans’ experiences with the criminal justice system.

Jonathan Kang

Ph.D. Student, Department of Counseling Psychology

Email:

jonkang@iu.edu

Jonathan is a doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology program. He is interested in conducting basic and applied psychology research related to both implicit and explicit disturbances in identity formation, morality development, and sociomoral reasoning of those who are excessively privileged by the cultural hegemony of oppressive societies.

Mallika Khanna

Ph.D. Student, The Media School

Email:

mallkhan@iu.edu

Mallika Khanna is a PhD student at The Media School studying intergenerational trauma as a racializing discourse in the United States. Stitching together objects across a wide range of digitized sites including social media sites, blogs, apps and streaming platforms, her dissertation considers how racialized bodies are taking on new meanings through emerging understandings of trauma as epigenetically inherited. Her work thus straddles many disciplines and fields, including medical humanities, technology studies, media studies and critical race and ethnic studies. She is currently the research assistant for the Center for Documentary Research and Practice at Indiana University..

Mihee Kim-Kort

Ph.D. Student, Religious Studies

Email:

rkimkort@iu.edu

Mihee is a 4th year doctoral student in Religious Studies. Her primary area of research is Religion in the Americas, and she is interested in Asian American literature, Black feminist theory, transpacific studies, and US national identity. She plans to broadly interrogate notions of the "human" and its connection to American Protestant discourses of purity. More specifically, she anticipates her future project will explore how US military interventions in East and Southeast Asian countries shaped US American national identity. By exploring various archives and Asian American literature she hopes to illuminate how the religious is entangled in the construction of notions like citizenship. She can be found at twitter.com/miheekimkort posting pictures of her kids, dog and cats, and the ocean.

Andrea Maranon Laguna

Ph.D. Student, Department of Anthropology

Email:

amaranon@iu.edu

Andrea's work is centered on issues of ethnicity and indigeneity, focusing on how these aspects intersect with social dynamics like ethnohistory, cultural tourism, contemporary craft practices, and museum work. Her current research project explores the effects of introducing new technologies on tangible and intangible cultural heritage in a region. In her research, she explores how Maya speakers assert agency over the presentation of their culture and heritage within the framework of neoliberalism.

Jeff Moscaritolo

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of American Studies

Email:

jmoscari@iu.edu

Jeff Moscaritolo's research centers around the embodied mechanics of performance, dance, collaboration, and resistance. His dissertation studies the competitive West Coast Swing dance community in the United States, situating the moment-to-moment fluidity of improvised collaboration within larger social and historical formations, especially as they relate to enslavement, emancipation, appropriation, and capital. He is a recipient of a COAS Dissertation Research Fellowship for 2024-25, and is also a Kovener Teaching Fellow. He volunteers as a reader for the Indiana Review and as a clerk at an off-campus bookstore. His holds an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University, and his fiction and other writings have been published in Los Angeles Review, Indiana Review (prior to his affiliation with IU), Carve, Paper Darts, Lincoln Journal Star, and The Herald-Times Bloomington.

Alleluia Musabyimana

Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology

Email:

amusabyi@iu.edu

Alleluia's research interests include topics on race and ethnicity, work and organizations, and social psychology. Her studies are driven by how social institutions create and maintain inequities. Currently her work examines the perceptions and attitudes about diversity programs, with a particular focus on the experiences of Black workers.

Tania Nasrollahi

Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology

Email:

tnasroll@iu.edu

Tania Nasrollahi is a sociology Ph.D. student at Indiana University-Bloomington, where she studies how social forces impact individuals when they adopt identity categories. Broadly, her research interests include cultural sociology, sociological theory, and ethnographic methods. More specifically, she researches the impacts of categorization systems on identity formation, negotiation, and contestation. She previously graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, where her research was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon and Robert Lemelson Foundations.

Stephanie Nguyen

Ph.D. Student, Higher Education (School of Education, Department of Educational Leadership and Policies)

Email:

stenguye@indiana.edu

Stephanie is interested in the intersection between organizational theory, sociology of education, history of education, as well as race and ethnicity. She is currently working on her dissertation that examines the organizational history of how Asian American Studies programs are created and established at Midwest research institutions.

Jacqueline Y. Paiz

Ph.D. Student, Department of Counseling Psychology

Email:

jypaiz@iu.edu

Jackie is a Ph.D. student in Counseling Psychology. She earned her M.S.Ed. in Learning and Developmental Sciences (Counseling Psychology Track) en route to her PhD in 2023 and her B.A. in Psychology and Spanish with a minor in Latin American Latinx Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. Her research interests include attitudes toward seeking psychotherapy, social determinants of mental health, and intergenerational trauma among people of color through a health equity lens. Jackie uses intersectionality, critical race, and feminist theory as guiding frameworks for her research interests and her clinical work.

Garima Plawat

Ph.D. Student

Email:

gplawat@iu.edu

Garima Plawat is pursuing her doctoral studies at Indiana University Bloomington’s Folklore and Ethnomusicology department. She works at the intersection of folklore, ethnography, and religion studies. Her professional background is in content creation, editorial, community outreach for Indian indigenous communities (with a focus on Karbi community), and education. She has been a member of Centre for Karbi Studies in India, working closely with them in archival, documentation, preservation of folklore and customs of the community. She has also been working with several literary projects with people of the Karbi community to bring the disappearing traditions of indigenous communities to the spotlight. Her research focuses on the gendered negotiations of the Karbi people within the spaces of festivals, especially their mortuary festival Chomangkan, and their effect on the community’s identity formation.

Christen Priddie

Ph.D. Student, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Email:

cpriddie@iu.edu

Christen’s research interests include how diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts appear in undergraduate and graduate student Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) contexts for Black students. She also specifically examines the intersectional experiences of Black women undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in higher education. Her dissertation aims to examine culturally relevant collaborative learning experiences of Black students.

Peper Rivers (Langhout)

Ph.D. Student, Department of American Studies

Email:

pelang@iu.edu

Peper Langhout is a graduate student in American Studies interested in critical prison studies, particularly how deviance and criminality is interpreted through institutional life, subcultural expression, and professional discourse. She was a 2019 Fulbright Scholar to India. Her current research is on US narcotics control in the mid-20th century, addiction and substance ab/use research and medicine, the functions of racial capitalism in incarceration and medical confinement, and ethical considerations surrounding medical experimentation in penal environments, which she presented at the spring 2024 CRRES Research Symposium. She recently accepted 2024 CRRES graduate research funding for pre-dissertation archival work. Peper has also served as volunteer faculty for the Indiana Women’s Prison (IWP) education programs since 2017, including most recently with Notre Dame’s Women’s College Partnership, which offers full time undergraduate coursework for students incarcerated at IWP.

Yael R. Rosenstock Gonzalez

Ph.D. Student, Health Behavior (School of Public Health)

Email:

yrosens@iu.edu

Yael’s focuses on diversity and inclusivity in work centered around consent, desire, pleasure, embodiment, and partnering styles. Her current research focuses on Latinas of different perceived racial identities and their experiences of fetishization and sexual desire. She seeks to influence interventions that prevent sexual violence and promote healthy sexuality as well as adding to knowledge around pleasure, body & group acceptance, and positive sexual experiences in marginalized populations. Yael's preferred epistemology is participatory action research and she prioritizes projects that center knowledge translation of research results back to communities.

Sam Smucker

Ph.D. Student, The Media School

Email:

sajsmuck@iu.edu

Sam’s research concerns African American film history and its international connections. His dissertation research is an investigation of director and author Melvin Van Peebles’s creative works during the years he lived in Paris, 1960-1968. Sam is interested in artistic practices and aesthetics viewed through their historical and political contexts. He previously worked as a union organizer and in film distribution.

Elizabeth Spaeth

Ph.D. Student, Department of History

Email:

espaeth@iu.edu

Lizzy is a Ph.D. student in United States History researching international students, migration, and social history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Originally from Philadelphia, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and Anthropology at The George Washington University. She taught abroad for several years in the Federated States of Micronesia, Mexico, and the Philippines. In 2017, she received her M.A. from the University of Chicago’s Program in the Social Sciences with a thesis centered on the visual representation of race and violence in the Philippine-American War. She then taught special education in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood for two years while studying for a Master of Arts in Teaching Special Education. She is in her third year of IU’s Ph.D. program in U.S. History. She has assisted in teaching courses related to U.S. and the world and introduction to U.S. history at IU. She is currently an editorial assistant at the Journal of American History.

Nilzimar Vieira

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Email:

nhauskre@indiana.edu

Nilzimar’s research interests involve African diaspora in literature, cinema, and politics in Brazil, Portugal, and Germany. She is interested in the discussion on race and citizenship through literature and cinema in African diaspora societies. Nilzimar’s research focuses on the development of Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Portuguese literature and cinema. Her primary corpus includes 20th and 21st-century novels and more specifically short-films in Brazil and Portugal. Nilzimar’s dissertation investigates public policies and digital platforms in the development of cinematic productions by women of afro descendent in Brazil and Portugal. Nilzimar has co-taught a course and a study abroad program on race and ethnicity in Rio de Janeiro, and has received numerous teaching awards, research and travel grants. 

Tiffanie Vo

Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology

Email:

tivo@iu.edu

Tiffanie Vo is currently a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. She earned her MA in Sociology in 2022 at the University of Oklahoma. Her broad research interests include race and ethnicity, Asian American studies, inequality, social movements, and mixed methods. Her current research examines how race and ethnicity continue to shape economic disparities in the US labor market and how the intersection of race, gender, and family impacts these processes using large-scale data.

Sasha Weiss

Ph.D. Student, Department of American Studies

Email:

weiss5@iu.edu

Sasha (he/they) researches embodiment as a site of colonial violence, resistance to that violence, and decolonizing possibility for ways of living otherwise, especially in contemporary medical activism and Indigenous futurist literatures. In particular, they are focusing on cancer as a social object, how cancer is imbricated within structures of colonial violence, how some cancer discourses reproduce those same violences, turning the body into a frontier for battle, and how Indigenous cancer survivors, caregivers and researchers are healing these disparities and renarrating cancer discourses through culturally grounded narrative, medicinal and creative care work. Sasha is also a poet and artist, with chapbooks published by or forthcoming from Blanket Sea, Bottlecap, Querencia, and Alien Buddha and Microcosm Presses.

Travis Wright

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History

Email:

wrighttr@iu.edu

Travis Wright is a Ph.D. student studying modern U.S. history. His areas of research include 20th century African American history, social movements, community activism, and student protest. His work centers issues of race and ethnicity, culture, citizenship, and social and political organizing – particularly during the Progressive Era and post-WWII period. Travis is originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degree in History from Bowling Green State University. His M.A. thesis, “The Chicago Area Friends of SNCC, the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, and the Chicago Struggle for Freedom During the 1960s,” examined the role of SNCC and student activism in the Chicago Freedom Movement. His most recent publication “Social Media and Continuity in the Black Freedom Struggle,” analyzes the relationship between visual culture and Black protest. Travis has instructed courses in both modern U.S. and modern world history. He is currently an editorial assistant for the Journal of American History.