2025 Michigan Sociology Alumni Career Conference

Zheng Mu

Assistant Professor of Sociology (National University of Singapore)

• Zheng Mu is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She is also affiliated with the Centre for Family and Population Research (CFPR) at NUS as a faculty associate. Mu's research interests include marriage and family, fertility, ethnicity, migration, subjective well-being, child development, quantitative methods, and mixed methods. Her research examines trends, social determinants, and consequences of marriage and family behaviors, with a special focus on how marriage and family serve as inequality-generating mechanisms. Mu's ongoing research projects study how migration, ethnicity, interactions between gender and intergenerational inequality, and interactions between ideational and socioeconomic contexts shape individuals’ time use patterns, family experiences, and well-being in China and Singapore.

Everett Peachey

Director; Quality of Life Monitoring, Evaluation and Research Support Unit (Aga Khan Development Network)

• Since 2022, Everett has been the Director of the Quality of Life Unit, a strategic initiative of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). The AKDN is a network of nine development agencies working in concert to improve the quality of life for the most marginalised communities in selected regions of the world, notably in Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. The Quality of Life Unit provides research, evidence, and recommendations for executive leadership for the purposes of strategy and program development and to better understand AKDN’s programmatic impact and contribution to change in core geographies. The Unit also provides technical research support and capacity building to the monitoring and evaluation teams across the Network. In addition to the PhD in Public Policy and Sociology from Michigan, Everett also holds an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School (Tufts University) and a B.A. in International Relations (The College of Wooster). He has lived and worked in five foreign countries, including Switzerland, where he is based.

Anju Mary Paul

Professor of Social Research and Public Policy (New York University Abu Dhabi)

• Anju Mary Paul holds a Bachelor's in Business Administration (First Class Honors) from the National University of Singapore, a Master's in Journalism from New York University, and a PhD in Sociology and Public Policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is an international migration scholar with research interests that include emergent migration patterns, particularly to, from, and within Asia and the Middle East. She is the award-winning author of Multinational Maids: Stepwise Migration in a Global Labor Market (Cambridge University Press 2017) and Asian Scientists on the Move: Changing Science in a Changing Asia (Cambridge University Press 2021). She is also the editor of Local Encounters in a Global City (Ethos Books 2017). Prior to joining NYU Abu Dhabi, Paul served as an inaugural faculty member at Yale-NUS College in Singapore for 10 years.

Maria Farkas

Senior Lecturer, Academic Lead, Culture and Inclusion (Imperial Business School)

• Maria Farkas is Academic Lead Culture and Inclusion at Imperial Business School. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Business Administration and Sociology and a B.A. in English and Economics from Wellesley College. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Maria was a Research Associate at the Harvard Business School where she wrote several case studies and teaching notes about leadership and inclusion. Maria specializes in teaching leadership skills with a focus on diversity and inclusion. She founded and teaches the award winning course Working in Diverse Organizations which equips students with practical skills to thrive in work environments diverse in regard to skills, expertise, problem solving approaches, ethnicity, religion, and many other social identities. Maria consults on inclusion for a variety of organizations, creates associated teaching materials, and runs an annual workshop for women academics at the annual Academy of Management Conference

Dr. Lisa Young Larance

Assistant Professor of Social Work (Bryn Mawr College)

• Lisa Young Larance, PhD, LCSW, LMSW, is a researcher-practitioner with wide-ranging clinical, community, and prison-based social work practice experience. Her direct service work includes providing individual trauma-informed therapy, co-facilitating antiviolence intervention groups, and program design and implementation. Dr. Young Larance’s macro-social work practice is rooted in meeting community needs while serving violence-involved families. She is known globally as an anti-violence intervention pioneer who created one of the first formal community-based interventions for diverse women with domestic and sexual violence survivorship histories brought to systems attention for their use of non-fatal force. Dr. Young Larance’s consulting work includes the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence (U.S.A.), Harmony House’s Nurturing Hearts Violence Prevention Program (Hong Kong, China), the +SHIFT Program (Victoria, Australia), and the United States Air Force’s Family Advocacy Program (Global). Her scholarship integrates feminist social work and sociological frameworks, focusing primarily on understanding systems-involved women’s legal, child protection, and antiviolence intervention experiences. Dr. Young Larance investigates how women’s institutional contact can both replicate intimate harm and facilitate positive change. She is widely published. Her book, Broken: Women’s Stories of Intimate and Institutional Harm, is available from the University of California Press.

Dana Kornberg

Assistant Professor of Sociology (University of California, Santa Barbara)

• Dana Kornberg is an urban ethnographer and qualitative sociologist working on issues of environmental and economic justice in India and the United States. Her research investigates environmental and economic institutional processes through waste collection and recycling systems, water utilities, and local businesses to reveal processes through which global capital, colonial and state power, and forms of racial and caste oppression are consolidated and resisted across urban contexts. She maintains a deep commitment to practicing sociology as a means of social transformation, and her goal as an instructor is to empower students with analyses that allow them to act in the face of multiple forms of injustice. Her current book project The Garbage Economy: Caste Capitalism and the Persistence of Informal Recycling in Delhi is under contract with Oxford University Press.

Dr. Christina J. Cross

Assistant Professor of Sociology (Harvard University)

• Christina J. Cross is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. Her research examines the family’s role in shaping individuals’ life chances and how its impact differs by their structural position in society. In particular, she explores how family structure, change, and dynamics influence people’s educational and economic outcomes—with special attention to if, how, and why these relationships differ by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Cross’ work has appeared in outlets such as Social Problems, Demography, and the Journal of Marriage and Family. Her forthcoming book, with Harvard University Press, reveals the hidden inequalities that exist between African American and white children who grow up in the socially promoted two-parent family and what we can do to better support equality of opportunity for the next generation.

Dan Hirschman

Associate Professor of Sociology (Cornell University)

• Dan Hirschman is Associate Professor of Sociology at Cornell University. He received his B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His research areas include economic sociology, science studies, race & racism, and (increasingly) climate change. His past work looked at the interplay of financial innovation and regulation, debates over race and merit in undergraduate admissions, and the production and circulation of economic statistics like the gender wage gap. His newest project examines the role of economic expertise in debates over climate mitigation policy.

David Flores

Research Social Scientist (US Forest Service Research & Development)

• David Flores is a Research Social Scientist with the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Human Dimensions Program in Fort Collins, Colorado.  He received his doctorate degree in sociology from the University of Michigan and began his career with the Forest Service as a Presidential Management Fellow. His research interests are based on a social-cultural approach to the study of decision making, land use, and natural resources. More specifically, his research includes 1) understanding cultural attitudes and beliefs within complex organizations and institutions; 2) investigating access to outdoor recreation, with particular emphasis on historically underrepresented communities; and 3) documenting environmental management and decision making in urban and rural areas.

Dr. Meagan Elliott

President & CEO (Belle Isle Conservancy)

• Dr. Meagan Elliott is the President and CEO of the Belle Isle Conservancy, the non-profit arm of a 982-acre island park situated in the Detroit River between the United States and Canada. The Conservancy's mission is to protect, preserve, restore and enhance the natural environment, historic structures, and unique character of Belle Isle as a public park for the enjoyment of all – now and forever. She has spent the last decade leading green space planning initiatives for the City of Detroit, first as the City's first Chief Parks Planner and, since 2021, as Deputy CFO over Development and Grants where she oversaw $2.3 billion in grant funds including all American Rescue Plan Act dollars. Elliott led the Joe Louis Greenway Framework Plan, was the public partner lead in the $350 million campaign for a Unified Greenway for the Joe Louis Greenway and the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, and serves as co-chair to the Joe Louis Greenway Partnership which activates this 30-mile green space.  She has her doctorate in sociology and masters in urban planning from the University of Michigan.

Briana Starks

Researcher (Mathematica)

• Brianna Starks is a human services researcher with the primary aim of supporting and centering the experiences of low-income families. Since working at Mathematica, Starks has had the opportunity to work across a wide range of client and substantive areas, including: DOL, foundations, OPRE (including DEI and DFS), DOJ, and state government projects. She is an experienced qualitative researcher, and she's served as qualitative data collection task lead on several projects, including leading large-scale multi-site efforts. Starks led several expert engagement activities and designed and facilitated learning community meetings, TWG meetings, and convenings. She is also an avid baker, a wife, a volleyball mom to 3 teenage girls, and she can finally once again read for fun.

Mikell Hyman

Consumer Insights Manager (Ford Motor Company)

• Mikell Hyman is a Consumer Insights Manager at Ford Motor Company. For the last four years she has led wide-ranging qualitative and quantitative projects supporting the design of electric vehicles, cabin occupant services, and physical accessories. Currently she is leading an initiative to update the consumer research methodology applied to new vehicle programs. Prior to working at Ford, Mikell earned her PhD in Cultural and Economic Sociology in 2018 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. She has authored or co-authored articles in journals, such as Social Science & Medicine; Theory & Society; and Law & Society Review.