Derek Richardson is a sociology PhD candidate at Indiana University Bloomington with research and teaching interests in health and medicine, organizations, and development. His dissertation research is a comparative ethnography of three nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide healthcare services in Cambodia. Drawing upon nearly 1,000 hours of ethnographic observations and over 150 interviews, it asks, “How do transnational healthcare professionals, and the organizations in which they work, manage the application of medical expertise in new settings?” He expects to defend his dissertation in Spring 2026.
Much of Derek’s research focuses on the activities and interorganizational relationships of NGOs. He views NGOs as key sites where disparate actors – including professionals, volunteers, and donors – collectively create and deploy expert knowledge to solve local-level problems. He adopts qualitative methodologies to explore three broad issues pertaining to NGO-led healthcare delivery: (1) how professional expertise gets constructed in and transported between organizations; (2) how expert knowledge manifests in interactions amongst organizational inhabitants; and (3) the formal and informal organizational structures that enable agentic behavior for healthcare delivery.
Derek’s research has been published in Sociology of Development and supported by several prestigious fellowships, including a Fulbright US Student Program Fellowship, Center for Khmer Studies US Scholar Research Fellowship, and College of Arts & Sciences Dissertation Research Fellowship. He will be a Graduate Fellow at Indiana University Bloomington’s Irsay Institute this year and was previously a Visiting Fellow at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Beyond research, Derek is also passionate about teaching. He has teaching and mentoring experience within and beyond Indiana University Bloomington, including teaching Introduction to Sociology as an instructor of record, serving on undergraduate students’ honors thesis committees, and mentoring students undertaking ethnographic research projects.
Education History
M.A. Sociology, Indiana University, 2021; B.A. Sociology with distinction, University of Virginia, 2018; B.A. Biology, University of Virginia, 2018
The College of Arts