Are you interested in our graduate program, but are unsure of what we are all about? If so, this page may help you, as it describes the research interests of past and current students, the educational backgrounds of current students, and what former students are now doing. As you will see, our students come with a variety of backgrounds, from anthropology, biology and psychology to literature, music and political science!

Click here for a list of previous dissertations.

Current Students

Jacqueline Allen
    Grinnell College, B.A. in Psychology

Karen Hunt Ahmed
Cultural Psychology, reproduction of culture, cultural practices, migration, Islamic banking
   Washington University, BA and M.B.A.

Jennifer Bell
   Earlham College, BA, Human Development and Social Relations

Sam Bergmann
GLBT development and families, the construction of self and identity, developmental psychopathology
   University of Texas at Austin, BA in Humanities and Psychology

Elise Berman
Anthropology of childhood, linguistic anthropology, psychological anthropology, socialization, conversation and discourse, Maya, Oceania
   Dartmouth College, B.A. in Anthropology
home.uchicago.edu/~eberman

Matthew Bird
   Yale University, BA in History

Lara Braff
Psychological and medical anthropology; science studies; biological and social reproduction; kinship theory; Mexico
University of California, Berkeley, B.A. in Anthropology and Spanish Language and Literature

Juliet Bromer
Practices of caring and parenting in low-income, African-American communities and informal and formal helping networks that occur around the care of young children and the meaning of child care work to providers and parents
   Columbia University, BA in English
   Bank Street College of Education, MS in Early Childhood Education

Jason Bruck
Comparative animal behavior; spatial learning and
memory/communication; marine mammals; Long Island University
   Southampton College, B.S. Psychology/Biology
http://mateolab.uchicago.edu/lab_bruck.htm

Susan Bullivant
Biological psychology and psychotherapy research
   Smith College, BA in Psychology

Joseph Calabrese
Culture and mental health, Native American cultures and healing traditions, severe mental illness and psychiatric stigma
   DePaul University School of Music, BA in Music
   University of Illinois, M.A. in Anthropology

Julia Cassaniti
Theravada Buddhism; Thailand; cultural psychology; psychological anthropology
Smith College, B.A. in Cognitive and Social Psychology

Christopher D. Collins
Adolescence and early adulthood; the development of personal agency and problem solving competencies
   Miami University, B.A. in Mathematics and Statistics

Amy E. Cooper
Medical anthropology, social change, Venezuela, Cuba.
   Georgetown University, B.S. in Foreign Service
   University of Chicago, M.A. in Social Sciences

Bianca Dahl
   University of California at San Diego, BA in Communication and French Literature

Allison DiBianca
Culture and child development; ideologies of childhood, parents’ cultural theories of play
   Middlebury College, B.A. in Philosophy, B.A. in Psychology

Antonie Dvorakova
Indigenous psychologies; self-regard among indigenous peoples of the U.S., roles and identities of Indigenous and ethnic minorities scholars; conceptualizations of success and honor in different cultures; culturally responsive psychological assessment, research, and theorizing
   Masaryk University (Czech Republic), M.A. in Clinical Psychology
   University of Kansas, M.A. in Indigenous Nations Studies

Johanne Eliacin
Psychological anthropology; mental health and culture; Caribbean; coping and resilience
   Brooklyn College, City Universities of New York, B.A. in Psychology
   University of Chicago, M.A. in the Social Sciences

Richard Epstein
   Bates College, BA in Psychology

Guy Christopher Fricano
Charisma and leadership; psychological anthropology of Catholicism; long-term adaptation to illness; health psychology.
   De Paul University, B.A. in Psychology
guycfricano@hotmail.com

Brent Finger
Psychoanalytic theory; Infant/child-parent attachment; Developmental
psychopathology; Substance abuse; Narrative Psychology
    Conell College, BA in Psychology and Philosophy.

Shana Fruehan
Medical anthropology, gender & the body, local/multicultural feminisms, Japan
   University of California San Diego, BA in Anthropology

Nicole Gallicchio
Reproduction; medical anthropology; women's health; doulas; US
   Amherst College, B.A. in Anthropology

Lainie (Ilaina) Goldwert
Psychological & medical anthropology, clinical ethnography; conceptions of the body in health and healing practices; yoga in the US
   Vassar College, B.A. in Cultural Anthropology
   The New School, M.F.A. in Poetry

Jim Goss
Psychopathology; psycholinguistics; psychiatric anthropology
   Georgetown University, B.S. in Foreign Service
   University of Chicago, M.A. in Social Science

Shelli Jean Greenslade
   Univeristy of Puget Sound, BA in Psychology
   Univeristy of Puget Sound, AA in Business Administration

Jacob R. Hickman
Cultural-psychological adaptations in refugee and immigrant communities, Hmong diaspora, ethnic identity, moral beliefs, personhood, hybridity and syncretism
   Brigham Young University, B.S. in Psychology and (B.A.) Sociocultural Anthropology
home.uchicago.edu/~jhickman/

Christy Hoffman
Behavioral and hormonal aspects of aging in rhesus monkeys; comparative Behavioral Biology
   College of William and Mary, B.S. in Biological Psychology and B.A. in Anthropology

Christina Honde
Homeschooling
   University of California, Berkeley, B.A. in Oriental Languages

Pinky Hota
Globalization and its implications for social reproduction; youth as agents of social change; mental health and cultural constructions of distress, illness, and healing; South Asia
   University of Delhi, India, B.A. in Psychology

Jason W. Ingersoll
Globalization; social change; psychiatric anthropology; China
   George Washington University, B.A. in Psychology, Chinese Language and Literatures

Annette Iskra
   Cleveland State University, B.A. in Social Work
   Cleveland State University, M.A. in Experimental Psychology
   Case Western Reserve University, Masters in Social Science Administration

Michael B. Kaufman
The effect of family experience and personality in late adolescence on outcomes in career, family, and general well-being in late midlife.
   Amherst College, B.A. in Political Science and History
   Harvard University, M.B.A.
   Northwestern University, M.A. in Counseling Psychology

Hallie Kushner
Ethics and clinical psychology; qualitative suicide assessment; confluence of mental health and hospital care.
   Stanford University, B.A . and M.A. in English 

Neely Anne Laurenzo
Exploring the experience of schizophrenia from an anthropological perspective with a focus on interpersonal relations - both verbal and nonverbal - and an exploration of how this affects illness outcome
   University of Virginia, B.A. in English Literature and Anthropology

Yoon Lee
Developmental psychopathology; depression; emotion-regulation; parenting; culture
   University of Maryland, B.S. in Biology
   Harvard University, Ed.M. in Human Development

Marco Leoni
Ethology; intergroup encounters in wild capuchin monkeys
   University of Wisconsin - Madison, B.S. in Zoology

Jocelyn Marrow
India, family, emotion, distress, mental illness
   University of Chicago, B.A. in Anthropology

Neely Anne Laurenzo Myers
Psychiatric/Medical Anthropology; social change; cultural components of recovery from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; recovery models in the mental health system; alternative systems of mental health care
   University of Virginia, B.A. in Anthropology and English Literature

Elizabeth Nickrenz
Autism spectrum disorders; diagnosis, narrative and identity; psychiatric anthropology
   Swarthmore College, BA in English and Psychology

Christine Nutter
Psychological anthropology; child psychiatry; anthropology of childhood and child development; North Africa; globalization
   Michigan State University, B.A. in International Relations and Psychology

Lara C. Perez-Felkner
Social context of education, youth development, urban communities, migration, race and ethnicity
   Wesleyan University, B.A. in Psychology
   University of Chicago, M.A. in Social Sciences
http://home.uchicago.edu/~larap

Nadia Persun
Close interpersonal relationships, intimacy and sexuality. Mental health: family systems and personal resilience.
    Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia): B.S., Economics
    University of Bridgeport (Bridgeport, CT): B.A., Psychology & Journalism (double major)

Sarah Van Deusen Phillips
    Colorado College, B.A. in Anthropology

Lisa Marie Pickens
   University of Chicago, B.A. in Anthropology

Teófilo L. Reyes
Comparative biopsychology of affiliative and cooperative behavior
   University of Michigan, BA, Economics and Russian

Barnaby B. Riedel
Cultural psychology; moral development; psychology/anthropology of religion; Islam
   University of Vermont, B.A. in Psychology and Sociology

Lilah Shapiro
   Oberlin College & Conservatory of Music, B.A. in English, B.M. in Voice Performance

Benjamin Smith
Language and selfhood in middle childhood; reflexivity in language; evidentiality, modality, and reported speech; Andean languages and cultures; American psychotherapies; therapeutic discourse
   Wake Forest University, B.A. in Anthropology

Gabriel Smith
Gender development; cross-cultural human development; social change and the life course
   Antioch College, B.A. in Self, Society and Culture

Lauren Do-Hee Song
Adolescent development; emotional development, risk and resilience
   Yale University, B.A. in Philosophy
   Harvard Law School, J.D.

Stephanie Buttacavoli Sosa
Cultural psychology; emotion regulation and well-being; culture and emotion theory; psychopathology; clinical ethnography; Yucatan; clinical track
City University of New York/ John Jay, B.A. in Forensic Psychology
University of Chicago, M.A. in Social Sciences

Amy June Sousa
Psychiatric anthropology, pharmaceuticals, clinical ethnography, India
   New York University, B.A. Anthropology
   University of Chicago, M.A. Anthropology

Gregory Thompson
Developmental psychology; linguistic anthropology; development of "voice" in adolescence; language and identity in developmental perspective; the development of a "recognizable" self
   University of Chicago, B.A. in Psychology

Manasi Tirodkar
Health and medicine, South Asia, traditions of medicine, alternative medicine, conceptions of health and the body, social inequalities in health, globalization of indigenous medical systems, medical pluralism
   Bard College, B.A. in Psychology with a concentration in Multi-cultural studies
   University of Chicago, M.A. in Human Development and Cultural Psychology

Maria Tsakalis
   University of Chicago, B.A. in Biology and Psychology

Kimberly Walters
Psychological anthropology; religion; motivation in asceticism, conversion, and spirit possession; culture theory; India
   University of Alabama, M.A.
   Brigham Young University, B.A.

Jason Yee
Developmental psychobiology; behavioral neuroendocrinology; animal behavior; social role and temperament; social isolation; cancer
   Pennsylvania State University, B.S. in Biobehavioral Health
   Universite Louis Pasteur, Maitrise in Neuroscience 

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Some Past PhD students

For a list of dissertation titles by year, please click here.

Michael Axelman
The relational experiences of African-American adolescents and the role of significant adults: An examination of teenage lives during the transition to high school
    Stanford University, School of Education

Sue Bae
Cross- cultural psychology, cultural diversity, and development of psychotherapists
    Illinois School of Professional Psychology

Will Bennis
Cultural and cognitive influences on subjective assessments of what is rational or objective, focusing on gamblers' beliefs about winning and how/why these beliefs differ across the two cultures and from normative models of optimal decision making.

Ronan Surtida Bernas
Choosing and maintaining a position on a socio-moral Issue: An argumentative reasoning approach
    Eastern Illinois University, Department of Psychology

Mark Blumberg
Interactions between sex and thermoregulation in the male rat
    University of Iowa, Department of Psychology

Lihanna Borhan
Self-image of Malaysian adolescents
   University of Malaya, Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling

Nicole Brodsky
Art imitates life imitates art: Evolving themes in the lives and works of creative artists
   Independent film producer for educational television

In-Soo Choe
Motivation, subjective experience, family and academic achievement in Korean high school students
   Sungkyunkwan University, Department of Psychology

Cindy Dell Clark
Children, culture and the imagination
    Penn State University, Human Development and Family Studies

Suzanne Cox
Infant attachment, developmental psychology and women's studies
    Beloit College, Department of Psychology

Elizabeth Davies
   Swarthmore College, BA in Sociology and Anthropology

David Scott DeBoer
Psychological responses of HIV-positive gay men in the post era of HIV and AIDS
    Core Center, Cook County Hospital for adolescents with AIDS

Eric S. De Vos
Professor of Psychology, Saginaw Valley State University

Alan Fiske
How culture, psychology, and natural selection operate together to shape human sociality
    UCLA, Department of Anthropology

Heidi Fung
Self construction through narrative practices
    Academia Sinica, Taipei, Institute of Ethnology

Holly Furdyna
Ethnographic study of African-descended urban youth; culture and autonomy during the transition to adulthood
    UCLA's Center for Culture and Health, Research Fellow

Susan Gans
LH and lordosis: Sources of individual differences
    West Chester University, Department of Psychology

Lawrence Gianinno
Children's understandings of everyday economic practices
    Vice-President of Information for the WT Grant Foundation

Christine L. Glover
Effects of social support on women's partner preferences in romantic relationships, integrating evolutionary psychology and attachment theory with more traditional social psychological and sociological models of romantic relationship formation and maintenance

Andrew Guest
Cultural psychology of doing good, particularly in relation to sport, the development enterprise, and education

Phil Hammack
Identity development during adolescence and emerging adulthood; cultural psychology of adolescence; sexual orientation, sexual identity, and life-course development; culture and identity formation in the context of ethnopolitical conflict, war, and terrorism; youth and coexistence education in Israel and the Palestinian territories
   Current: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Joel Hektner
Exploring optimal personality development: A longitudinal study of adolescents
   North Dakota State University, Department of Child Development and Family Science

Gretchen Hermes
Psychosocial contexts and health; religion and healing; psychoanalysis

Lene Arnett Jensen
Different habits, different hearts: Orthodoxy and progressivism in the United States and India
    Catholic University, Department of Psychology

Eunsun Joo
The psychotherapeutic relationship in Korea: Cross-national and internal cultural comparison
    Duksung Women's University in Seoul, Korea, Department of Psychology

Craig Joseph
The Virtues as a Cultural Domain: a Study of Arabic-Speaking Muslims

Ernst Karel
Kerala Sound Electricals: Amplified sound and cultural meaning in South India
Harvard University, Department of Anthropology, Media Anthropology Lab Manager

Leann Helka Kinnunen
Evidence Concerning the Etiology of Sexual Orientation in Human Males: Differential Effects of Fluoxetine on Cerbral Glucose Metabolism of Exclusively Homosexual and Exclusively Heterosexual Men
   Columbia University, Department of Psychiatry, Postdoctoral Fellow

Michele Koven
French-Portuguese bilinguals' enactments of self In two languages
   University of Illinois, Department of Speech Communication

John Lucy
Cross-cultural and developmental perspectives of language
    University of Chicago, Committee on Human Development

Julie Mennella
Social control of infanticidal behavior in rats
    Monell Chemical Senses Center

Usha Menon
Receiving and giving: Distributivity as the source of women's well being
    Drexel University, Department of Social Relations

Joan Miller
Cultural influences on social cognition and social development.
   New School University, Department of Psychology

Judith Marsha Mintz
Social construction of self-esteem: narrative discourse practices among parents and preschool children
   College of the Holy Cross, Department of Psychology

Patrick Nickoletti
The impact of social status on preschoolers' display of direct and ritualized responses to peer conflict
   University of Colorado's Kempe Children's Center, Postdoctoral Fellow

Charles Nuckolls
Psychology anthropology; a study of divination and concepts of suffering in a fishing village in India
   University of Alabama, Department of Anthropology

Jill Reichman
The Relationship of Acculturation and Folk Medical Beliefs in Recently Emigrated Mexican Nationals
    Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest/Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation , Department of Psychiatry

Jerome Richardson
Substance abuse research with an emphasis on ethnic minority populations
    University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Psychiatry

Jim Roney
Evolutionary psychology, human mating
   University of Michigan, B.A. in Russian and East European Studies
   University of Chicago, Ph.D in Human Development
   University of Chicago, Institute for Mind and Biology, Postdoctoral Fellow  

Keith Sawyer
Conversational analysis and improvisation
   Washington University, Department of Education

Brian Schiff
Telling survival and the Holocaust
   Saint Martin's College, Department of Psychology

David Paul Smith
Patterns of religion experience among psychotherapists and their relation to therapeutic orientation
    Clinical practice in Chicago

Kerri Smith
Paternal kinship and social interactions among female yellow baboons
    Molecular Biology Group at the Coriell Institute for Medical Research

Kathy Stern
Pheromonal effects on human menstrual cycle
    Clinical Trials Research at Abbott labs

Margarita Tarragona
In search of family therapists: Who are they and what do they do?
   Universidad de las Americas

Stanton Wortham
Participant examples and classroom Interaction
    University of Pennsylvania, Department of Education


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