April 2026
Publications
Emily Fitzgibbons Shafer (Sociology graduate student), Paula England, Madi Lou Abel (Sociology graduate student), and Tamara Ogle (Sociology graduate student). Conditionally Accepted. “Adolescent Sexual Behavior and Perceived Parental Responsibility: Patterns by Parent Gender, Child Gender, and Whether the Sexual Behavior is with a Same-Sex Partner.” In Parenting and Gender: Practices, Ideologies, and Inequalities Across Contexts, Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research. Edited by Dr. Gokhan Savas and Sampson Lee Blair. Leeds, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Lindsey Wilkinson (Sociology faculty), Melissa Thompson (Sociology faculty), and Jae Collett (Sociology graduate student). Forthcoming. “Transgender and Gender Diverse Identity, Mental Health Conditions, and Mental Health Care in U.S. Prisons.” Journal of Correctional Health Care, doi: 10.1177/10783458261447499.
Career Progression
Rachel Springer (Sociology graduate student) successfully defended her dissertation, “Disaster Justice: Queer and Disabled Mobilities and Infrastructures of Care in the Pacific Northwest,” with the support of her committee chair Amy Lubitow (PSU Environmental Science and Management faculty) and committee members Miriam Abelson (PSU Women, Gender, and Sexualities chair), Maura Kelly (Sociology faculty), and Dara Shifrer (Sociology faculty).
Dawn Rauch (Sociology undergraduate) was accepted into the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health MPH program.
Clover Javurek-Humig (Sociology graduate student) successfully defended their thesis, “A Qualitative Study into the Impact of Sweeps on Homeless-Serving Mutual Aid Groups in Portland, OR,” with the support of their committee chair Melissa Thompson (Sociology faculty), Aaron Roussell (Sociology faculty), and Matt Chorpenning (PSU School of Social Work faculty).
Gabby Mota, Madi Lou Abel, and Tamara Ogle (Sociology graduate students) gave excellent guest lectures in Maura Kelly's (Sociology faculty) Intro to Sociology course.
Jae Collett (Sociology graduate student) successfully defended their thesis, "Intersectional Pathways to Prison and Sentence Disparities: Exploring the Role of Race, Gender Identity, and Sexuality in Women's Sentencing Outcomes" with the support of their committee chair, Melissa Thompson, and committee members Shirley A. Jackson and Emily Shafer (all Sociology faculty).
Madi Lou Abel (Sociology graduate student) was hired for a summer internship with The Educational Innovation and Improvement (EII) team and the Foster Respectful and Equitable Education (FREE) team at OHSU!
Service and Leadership
Hyeyoung Woo (Sociology faculty) organized an invited talk, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to Social Network Analysis,” by Dr. Eun Kyong Shin, an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Korea University and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University (2025-2026) for the graduate students in the Department of Sociology at PSU.
Hyeyoung Woo (Sociology faculty) organized an informal discussion between our sociology students and Dr. James Raymo from Princeton to explore their studies and life in academia. Hyeyoung reports: “Despite the short notice, the turn out was good and the conversation was very informative. I think Jim had a great time too.”
Eiryn Renouard (Sociology graduate student) organized a roundtable discussion for Sociology graduate and undergraduate students focused on lessons learned from starting an industry career before going back to grad school, with speakers including Eiryn Renouard (Sociology graduate student), Celeste Janssen (Sociology graduate student), and Barbara Imle (Sociology PhD from PSU in 2023), with Aaron Rousell (Sociology faculty) facilitating.
Winter Ohara-Frantz (Sociology undergraduate) volunteered to create and edit a flyer with very little notice for a departmental invited chat with an external faculty member.
Maura Kelly (Sociology faculty) was elected to serve as the 2026-2027 Nominations Committee for the Pacific Sociological Association.
John Bershaw (professor and outgoing Geology chair) and Iris S. De Lis (Sociology graduate student) launched The AI Commons at PSU, an informal gathering space for faculty, staff, and administrators at PSU who want to critically explore AI together as a public‑good issue, not a tech fad. We meet every two weeks and folks can learn more and get on our list here.
Iris S. De Lis (Sociology graduate student) has been invited to continue on as the co-lead of the national Student-Centered Grading Community of Practice as part of the SCIENCE Collaborative, including helping to plan the in-person meeting at the University of Iowa in July.
Iris S. De Lis (Sociology graduate student) launched phase one of the AI for Faculty website. Currently, it is a roundup of emerging news and articles around AI, with areas of focus for: 1) Classrooms, Campuses & Policy: How AI is showing up in schools, and in the lives of students, faculty, and staff. 2) Tools, Tech & Capabilities: What the machines can do, and what their makers say is coming. 3) Cautions & Critiques: Where the technology meets its consequences.
Iris S. De Lis (Sociology graduate student) has been invited to join the new SCIENCE Collaborative AI Working Group. This working group is taking stock of AI efforts across the SCIENCE Collaborative (14 institutions so far across the U.S.). In particular, what institutions, programs, departments, and individuals are doing to better understand the effects of AI and emerging technologies on student learning. Conversations and discussions with each other and experts will be presented to the entire community.
The Department of Sociology is co-sponsoring the 50th anniversary of PSU’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department on Thursday, May 14, at 5 pm at Hoffman Hall.
Awards
Jae Collett (Sociology graduate student) submitted their study, “Anti-Trans Rhetoric and Transgender Prison Inmates: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis,” for consideration for the Alpha Kappa Delta, the International Sociology Honor Society, Graduate Student Paper Competition.
Madi Lou Abel (Sociology graduate student) applied for the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness Summer Fellowship.
Public Scholarship
Melissa Thompson (Sociology faculty) was interviewed for a Street Roots article: Oregon’s Guilty Except for Insanity defense and Oregon’s Psychiatric Security Review Board.
Maura Kelly (Sociology faculty) gave a presentation titled "Evaluation of RISE Up for PCC" to staff from Portland Community College's (PCC) Office of Planning and Construction and Fortis Construction describing the PSU evaluation of a year-long respectful workplace initiative. The final report that this presentation draws from was co-authored with Rachel Springer (Sociology graduate student).
Maura Kelly (Sociology faculty) was quoted in the Oregon Humanities article: "Women's Work: Women are making space for themselves in the trades despite federal efforts to reverse their progress".
Iris S. De Lis (Sociology graduate student) is co-leading a 90-minute workshop at the inaugural Higher Ed Hive: Pacific Northwest Summit, put on by the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies (SWCHRS) at the University of Oklahoma, in partnership with Portland Community College. This session is the first one on the schedule, entitled “Building Institutional Communities of Practice for Equitable Grading Reform.”
Madi Lou Abel (Sociology graduate student) was interviewed for an article in the Vanguard “A Failure of a Woman and a Burden of a New Man—Ignoring one side of a coin while you beat the other; a perspective on transgenderism”