Department of Sociology

Research interests: Culture; Race and Ethnicity; Organizations, Occupations, and Work; Community and Urban Sociology; Social Psychology/Microsociology; Ethnography; Qualitative Methods. Carolyn’s dissertation utilizes historical, interview, and ethnographic methods to examine how institutional changes and meanings of work transform over time within the Urban Fire Service. In particular, her project examines cultural meanings of firefighting work and group processes – emphasizing the reproduction of (occupational) culture through everyday interaction and boundary work. Her research is framed by a broader contextual understanding of organizations under duress within the urban (sociopolitical) context. Carolyn has conducted research on cultural images of Asian Americans in popular media; she has also published work which ethnographically examines the significance of the local library in an impoverished urban neighborhood. Carolyn is a Doctoral Candidate and Junior Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology and the Center for Comparative Research at Yale.

Education: B.A. Sociology, summa cum laude (Hunter College, City University of New York); Phi Beta Kappa; M.A. Sociology, Yale University; M.Phil. Sociology, Yale University.