Keera Allendorf was thrilled with her 2022-23 Sociological Research Practicum experience, which featured data collection for the Indian American Family Study. The team collected 149 interviews with (Asian) Indian Americans on their views and experiences of family life. They also coded over 1,300 New York Times “Vows” articles, identifying 108 articles profiling newlywed Indian couples and a matching comparison sample.  Keera also became the Director of Graduate Studies this Fall and is enjoying getting to know our students even better. 

Jennifer Barber - I am currently gearing up for a new project that will re-interview 72 original in-depth interview respondents from her Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) project. The focus of the follow-up interviews will be “social health”—the extent to which someone has the quantity and quality of social ties they want—and how it differs depending on intimate relationship experiences during the transition to adulthood. Many outstanding sociology PhD students will be participating in the project and bringing their own areas of interest and expertise to the interviews, including topics related to sexuality, consent, grief, parenting, infertility, and educational/career success! On a personal note, this is my last year spending part of my time living in Michigan, where my younger daughter is finishing up high school.

Youngjoo Cha is the recipient of the 2024 Residential Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at Indiana University. The award will support research on the impact of COVID on the workplace.

Jane McLeod is currently in her final year as Executive Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences and looks forward to returning to the department full-time in 2024-25. When not attending meetings, sending emails, and writing Memoranda of Understanding, she is principal investigator (with Andy Halpern-Manners) of an NIH-funded study of autistic college students.

Anna Mueller - This past year, I had three exciting developments. First, my first book – Life under Pressure: the Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them (co-authored with my long-time colleague Seth Abrutyn) is available for pre-order at Oxford University Press with a publication date of April 2024. I can’t wait! The book is designed to help lay and scientific audiences understand suicide’s social roots and how ignoring them will both harm youth’s well-being and willingness to seek help. One of my goals with the writing was to help diverse readers actually understand how we as adults (as parents, as teachers, etc.) communicate harmful social messages to youth that generate pressure (to be perfect, to be mentally well, etc.) through stories often told from kids’ perspectives. We conclude with accessible and actionable strategies for anyone who wants to take a more active role in suicide prevention. I’ve already scheduled three talks to share the book with communities (including the community at the heart of the research – “Poplar Grove”). Second, I largely finished up fieldwork for my new project - the Social Worlds & Youth Well-being Study – funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. The project aims to determine better ways to prevent suicide in schools that are not an excessive burden to school staff and that youth are actually willing to use. This year alone, the research team completed 206 days of fieldwork across 5 schools in Western Colorado, along with 140 interviews with school staff, families, and youth. We also fielded two surveys about mental health and suicide prevention; one with school staff (where we achieved an 86% response rate with teachers!) and one with families (fielded in Spanish and English). We’re excited to move more heavily into the data analysis phase of the project. The past 2 years of traveling regularly to Western Colorado were wonderful, but I’m ready to just hang out in Bloomington more. The project was well represented at ASA this year – team members presented 6 different papers. The PI team (me, Seth Abrutyn, and Sarah Diefendorf) also took advantage of most of us being together in one place (at ASA) to host a project celebratory dinner (pictured from left to right: Sarah Diefendorf [IU Visiting Scholar], RA Lauren Beard [UChicago], Hillary Steinberg [Census], Seth Abrutyn [UBC], Robert Gallagher [IU], Jienian Zhang [IU], Katie Beardall [IU], Anna Mueller, Olivia DeCrane [IU], and Yingjian Liang [IU]). I was also honored at ASA to receive the Section on Children & Youth’s Mid-Career Award. It was particularly special since my colleague Hyeyoung Kwon and IU’s former doctoral student Mai Thai also received awards for their contributions to knowledge from the Section! Also at ASA, I got to meet up with my former IU undergraduate student and winner of the 2023 Ulysses Grant Weatherly Award for Best Undergraduate Paper, Wisdom Ibikunle. I got to watch Wisdom present her award-winning paper in a round table session. She did wonderfully! Finally, third, the Irsay Institute formally launched this past Spring (I serve as the Senior Research Program Leader for the area on Preventing Death & Despair at Irsay). The Institute is not only going to facilitate important transdisciplinary socio-medical research and graduate student training, but it’s also going to be a huge help to efforts to translate science into action to benefit Hoosiers (something that matters a lot to me as a public sociologist). Bernice Pescosolido, Theodore Beauchaine (Notre Dame), and I have already launched a state-wide Innovation Think Tank on Suicide with the support of the Division of Mental Health and Addiction from the Family and Social Services Administration for the State of Indiana. We are hosting our first meeting at IU this Fall.

Brea Perry has recently accepted the position of Associate Vice President and Vice Provost for Research. In addition, she has several active research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health. Two projects examine the role of social networks in social cognition, neurodegeneration, and global cognitive decline and resilience. Another project identifies epigenetic (DNA methylation) pathways underlying the effects of social connectedness on aging-related morbidity and mortality.

Brian Powell was this year’s recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Mentor Award and FACET’S (Faculty Academic on Excellence in Teaching) 2023 Carol Hostetter Lifetime Distinguished Teaching Career Award. In the past year, his research collaborations have included IU alumni and current graduate students Soocheol Cho, Simon Cheng, Long Doan, Kristin Kelley, Jennifer (Jiwon) Lee, and Natasha Quadlin.