Research Interests for CSEJ Affiliates

Erika Abad, Department of English

My research interests are in discursive strategies disenfranchised groups employ in constructing 'collective memory' and how such processes are a reflection of inclusionary processes. My dissertation will focus on Puerto Rican cultural discourses across geographic, linguistic and class divides as mediated by scripts of gender and sexuality. My other research interests include the political economic negotiations employed by student activists/advocates at moments of economic and political crises on college campuses.

Dana Lee Baker, Department of Political Science

My core research interests are in disability and health policy. My work is often comparative. Most of my publications focus on policies addressing neurological difference and neurodiversity.

Avantika Bawa, Department of Fine Arts

I make drawings and installations that respond to the architecture, history and geogrpahy of the site they occupy. The works explore balances or imbalances between wholeness and fragmentation, gravity and suspension, or containment and dispersal. These pieces reflect the regional, cultural and geographic influences of the time and space in which I am working. I define a new territory that allows for subtlety, anti-monumentality and unexpected levels of candor.

Clayton Mosher, Department of Sociology

Marcelo Diversi, Department of Human Development

I am interested in a number of research areas including (a) decolonizing scholarship, (b) identity development in educational contexts among disenfranchised youth and families, (c) ethnography of street youth, and (d) issues of interpretation and representation in the social sciences.

Adam Carpinelli, Graduate Student, Department of History

I am most interested in understanding, teaching and challenging issues connected to imperialism, anthropocentrism, capitalism and racism. These primary attributes of neoliberal globalization have inspired global apartheid in the 21st century. My scholarship and activism scrutinizes aspects of historical and contemporary inequalities within a human rights framework.

M. Jahi Chappell, College of Sciences

My research focuses on food security/food sovereignty as a nexus for examining sustainability, conservation, and environmental and social justice in urban and rural environments. This involves research on food policies ranging from local to international scales, as well as work on landscape conservation ecology, agroecology, urban ecology, and their associated social movements.

Dawn Doutrich, College of Nursing

My research interests have focused upon cultural competence/cultural safety in health care, nursing workforce diversity, and cross cultural ethics. Recent research includes: cultural safety in New Zealand and the U.S.; international nurse educators: what the experts say; and creating a diverse nursing workforce through workforce partnerships.

Susan Finley, College of Education

Steve Fountain, Department of History

My teaching and research in environmental history involves three main fields: human-animal relations (e.g., wild horse management in the the American West), Native American rights and issues (e.g., so-called "landless" and unrecognized tribes), and the interactions of people and arid landscapes (e.g., the Great Basin as a dumping ground, economic and social impacts of invasive species).

Jerry Goodstein, Department of Management and Operations

Candice Goucher, Department of History

My research interests are in the areas of world history and the African Diaspora, with an emphasis on the history of environmental and technological change (especially the intersection of gender, technology, and the environment). I am currently working on a monograph on the history of ironworking in the Atlantic world. I am also working on a project that places the Columbia River Basin in a global context.

Desiree Hellegers, Department of English

My areas of research interest include social movements, civil liberties in the post-911 era, environmental history, environmental justice issues (particularly as seen through the lens of contemporary literature) and cultural and political organizing among homeless and formerly homeless people.

Renee Hoeksel, College of Nursing

My research interests include workforce diversity issues, including access to university education for registered nurses working in rural and medically underserved areas. I also am interested in examining barriers and facilitators of success for students interested in improving patient care by attaining their BSN.

Dan Jaffee, Department of Sociology

My research examines the effects of economic globalization and neoliberal policies on social and environmental conditions for rural communities in the global South, particularly Latin America. I focus on fair trade as an alternative model of international economic exchange, examining the benefits and limitations of participation in fair trade markets for peasant commodity producers. I have conducted extensive field work in rural Mexico on certified organic and fair trade coffee production, and on indigenous community forestry management as a conservation/development strategy. Additional interests include social movements around sustainable agriculture and resource use in both North and South; the effect of global trade rules on environmental protection and regulation; and issues of access to and commodification of commons resources, particularly water.

Armando Laguardia, College of Education

My research areas include teacher diversity, minority school achievement, minorities in higher education, and politics and change in education. Broadly, I am interested in public policy and its impact on low income and minority students in public schools. I have specific interests in college participation and success of minority and Latino students, teacher preparation and teacher diversity in the United States, and improving schooling for underperforming populations.

Thabiti Lewis, Department of English/African Diaspora Studies/American Studies

My research interests are in the areas of American American literature and African Diaspora culture such as the Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights, and Black Arts Movements.  I also focus on issues involving popular culture and critical race theory.  I am currently working on two monographs.  The first explores the politics and aesthetic of the fiction of the writer Toni Cade Bambara; the second project is a study of how heroism, masculinity, and race are performed within the space of American sports museums. 

Laurie Mercier, Department of History

My research interests are in U.S. Post-1945 social history – with an emphasis on gender, labor, and ethnic relations and resource-based communities in the American West – and the intersections of social movements with American politics, economy, and foreign policy.

Pavithra Narayanan, Department of English

Economic and social policies, civil liberties, gender, and globalization are central issues examined in my work. Interdisciplinary not only in content, but also in form, my research uses the medium of film alongside the written word to explore articulations of the term "postcolonial," variously addressing scholarly audiences, as well as human rights advocates, NGOs, and governmental agencies.

Hanzhou Pang, Ph.D. Candidate in Rhetoric and Composition

After long years of English Studies involving Literary Translation, Creative Writing, American Literature, Rhetoric and Composition, I have been writing about political issues of intercultural communications. This is a natural development out of my love of languages and their interconnections to the political ideals and problems of multilingual articulation.

Sue Peabody, Department of History

I work on the law of slavery, freedom and citizenship in the French empire in the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, in comparison to the British, American, Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic colonial projects. Social Justice movements have used and continue to use legal courts to press for rights and justice around the world.

Tahira Probst, Department of Psychology

My research looks at (1) occupational health and safety, and the well-being of employees; (2) the effects of organizational restructuring and downsizing on employee health, safety, and well-being; and (2) workplace diversity, harassment, and discrimination.

Carol Siegel, Department of English and American Studies

I study the representation of sexuality and gender in literature, film, and contemporary music cultures. My strongest interest at this time is in youth cultures.

Elizabeth Soliday, Department of Psychology

My general subject area is maternal-child health and pediatric health. I have researched family factors involved in children’s chronic illness. More recently, I have been working on how obstetric care affects mothers’ psychological experiences during pregnancy, childbirth, and in the postpartum period.

Mark Stephan, Department of Political Science

My interests lie in the interface between citizen participation, bureaucratic politics, and environmental policy. I am interested in the ways government structures and manages citizen involvement in policy implementation on environmental issues.

Brian Tissot, College of Science

My research investigates issues at the interface between marine conservation science, fishery management, and science policy. The major focus of our work is on: 1) conserving marine diversity and promoting equitable and sustainable fisheries; 2) the importance of community-based management approaches to resource management and conflict; 3) developing a fair, humane, and sustainable global ornamental trade.

Link to my website: http://research.vancouver.wsu.edu/benthic-ecology-laboratory

Tom Tripp, Department of Management

I am interested in the psychology of workplace conflict. What kinds of conflicts occur, and especially how does the perception of workplace injustices start or amplify such conflicts? What other organizational factors and practices escalate or resolve such conflicts? Especially, which negotiation skills best resolve conflicts?