Caroline Brooks is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University (IU) and a graduate fellow in the Irsay Institute for Sociomedical Sciences Research. Her interests span medical sociology, social psychology, social networks, and social inequality. Much of her research explores how the experience and perception of health and illness are shaped by social statuses such as race, ethnicity, gender, etc., as well as the structure and content of one’s social relationships. Her dissertation uses mixed methods to examine the role of social networks and patient community integration in the process by which migraine – a common albeit misunderstood chronic, invisible illness – impacts role identities and psychological wellbeing.
Caroline and her work have been supported by the American Sociological Association (ASA) and National Science Foundation’s Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, the Frontiers in Headache Research Scholarship Award by the American Headache Society; the Howard B. Kaplan Award in Medical Sociology by the ASA Section on Medical Sociology; the IU College of Arts and Sciences, the IU Graduate and Professional Student Government; and the IU department of sociology.
Her work has been published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Social Psychology Quarterly, Headache, and the Journal of Marriage and Family, among others.
Education History
M.A., Sociology, Indiana University, 2019
B.S., Molecular & Cell Biology and Sociology, University of Connecticut, 2018