Department of Sociology

Jensen Sass is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Yale University and a Junior Fellow of the Center for Comparative Research and the Center for Cultural Sociology. His research focuses on markets, technology, and processes of institutional change.

His dissertation examines how biotechnology firms have negotiated markets for transgenic seed. Until recently these markets were ‘emerging’ because the social, legal and regulatory institutions on which they depend were still in the process of formation. These uncertain conditions elicited different responses from different firms, some of which shaped the market formation process as a whole. Jensen’s dissertation explains the origins and defining features of these discrete corporate trajectories while drawing more general insights about firm strategy in markets for new technologies.

Jensen’s second research area concerns the historical development of deliberative institutions, whether their purposes are scientific, legal, religious or political. With a number of other researchers he is currently developing theoretical and methodological tools for use in comparative studies of these institutions.