Introducing our New 2021-2022 Chapter Leaders & Fellows

Gallo is a social worker and researcher focusing on historical and international trends in crime and welfare policy, with particular attention to Scandinavia and the United States. Her current research focuses on three areas: 1) the relationship between crime and welfare policy; 2) the history and roots of the victim movement; 3) the scholarship of teaching and learning, with a particular focus on how we can make education more inclusive.

Block did his undergraduate training at Howard, received his Ph.D. from Ohio State, and specializes in the areas of racial, ethnic, and gender group politics, voting behavior, and public opinion. Overarching themes in Block's writings include group differences in civic involvement, the formation and mutability of social identity, campaigns and elections, and other topics. Block is co-author of Losing Power: Americans and Racial Polarization in Tennessee Politics, a forthcoming book in the University of Georgia Press.

Aranda’s research and teaching areas of expertise are on the immigration of Latinos in the United States and Florida, as well as Puerto Rican migration. Her research addresses issues such as how Latino young adults identify; how undocumented youth and young adults negotiate their presence in this country and manage the trials of being undocumented (including DACA’s affect); and the emotional challenges that Latinos often face regarding racism and inequality. 

Cyr's research focuses on public higher education funding as well as on issues of redistribution in tax policy, state politics, and grassroots communication strategies. Overarching themes in Cyr's writing include critiques of the neoliberal approach to education and threats to American middle-class education, phantom savings as budgetary stop-gaps in public policy. She serves as Executive Director of the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments and received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern Maine.

Brents' research focuses on the sexual economy, consumption and the sex industry, sex work law and regulation, and the labor of sex work. Overarching themes in Brents' writings address sexuality, gender and politics in market culture. Brents has been active nationally and internationally in sex work research, the sex worker rights movement, the ACLU and various peace and justice movements.

DeJarnatt's research focuses on the impact of market-based reforms on public education. Overarching themes in DeJarnatt's writing include how privatization of public education undercuts democracy, reduces transparency, and limits oversight by the public and public institutions. DeJarnatt provides testimony to state and local institutions on  the impact of charter expansion and renewal and works with civic groups, including parent and teacher organizations, who try to support public education.

Shattuck's research is divided into two divergent areas. His dissertation is in the anthropology of food, focusing on the production of cultural knowledge about food and the way that information is then used to further political, economic, or social ends. In addition to his doctoral research, he is a research assistant for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation working on health disparities for vulnerable or underserved groups with a particular interest in sexual and gender minority populations.

Dr. Sanchez-Youngman is a community based participatory researcher with expertise in Latino mental health disparities intervention research and health equity policy. She has over 20 years of experience developing community health interventions aimed at reducing social and health disparities among economically marginalized groups and racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Dr. Sanchez-Youngman seeks to bridge the gap between social science theories and methods with multi-level health intervention research.

Aptekar conducts research on immigration, race and ethnicity, and urban communities. She teaches classes on sociology, race and ethnic relations, sociological research methods, and social theory. Aptekar is knowledgeable about citizenship acquisition by immigrants in the United States and beyond, as well as how the naturalization process and the meaning of citizenship have changed over time. Her most recent work examines how people get along in diverse and changing urban neighborhoods.

Andrews’s research focuses on globalization, migration, gender, and politics. In her recent work on Mexico-US migrant communities, Andrews uses ethnography to examine how city-level practices of immigration control work to silence undocumented communities, while shunting their activism back to the Mexican side. She also writes about gender, and about development and globalization in Latin America, with a particular interest in the power dynamics that permeate social movements and political institutions.

Prieto's research falls into 3 areas: 1) immigration and social movements in the United States, 2) policing and police violence (Border Patrol and local police), 3) LGBTQ youth and their pathways into and out of the juvenile justice system. These substantive foci lie at the intersection of race, nation, sexuality and legal violence. Prieto is interested in social inequality as it is experienced by vulnerable populations and how those groups develop strategies to manage and resist their marginalization.

Gentry is a scholar of teaching and learning who focuses on improving student engagement in the classroom through simulations, policy problem/solution proposals, and research projects. She is also a youth voting scholar and does extensive research in political identify development. Dr. Gentry has recently published her book, Why Youth Vote: Identity, Inspirational Leaders, and Independence. Her current work on the scholarship of teaching and learning includes best practices in internships, curriculum review in higher education, and identity development in the Political Science classroom.

Blankenship's research focuses on the role of identity and stereotypes ion the political engagement, belonging, and well-being of marginalized groups, specifically focusing on groups with concealable identities. His scholarship has asked such questions as: "How do our social identities affect what social/political institutions we trust?," "How do people's feelings about their identities affect their political engagement?," and "How can we broaden the scope of what we think of as political activism and engagement?"