University of Washington Food Pantry (referred to as "food pantry" in the rest of the article) has been providing free food and supplies to faculties and students for years. Visitors to the food pantry have been increasing since 2021, and even quadrupled from winter 2022 to winter 2023. I observed that the visitors to the food pantry are predominantly people of color since my start of volunteering at the food pantry in April 2022. Other observations include most visitors studying science or engineering majors. I designed a google form survey where visitors fill out during each visit which includes information including race, gender identity, major of study, age, and hometown. I conduct analysis to compare the demographic and academic profiles of food pantry visitors as collected through a Google Form survey during each visit, against the corresponding parameters of the entire student population at the University of Washington. I anticipate that there will be a higher percentage of STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors visiting the food pantry, and a higher percentage of people of color visiting the food pantry compared to the entire student population at the University of Washington. Findings from this research aim to highlight the inequalities in higher education and provide evidence for underlying financial or social disparities in order to inform and raise awareness among university policies and support systems on resource distribution. The findings can also serve as the basis of long term future study on impact of food pantry use on academic performance, graduation rates, and post-graduation outcomes.

Media coverage of the National Hockey League (NHL) has brought public attention to many accounts of physical and sexual violence, hazing, and illicit drug use by players and coaches over the past 20 years. My research investigates the institutional mechanisms the NHL, its teams, and the players union use in response to cases of criminal behavior by their athletes. I ask how consequences for player criminality vary by type of crime, status of player, and player network. I compiled a dataset of all incidents covered in the news or social media between 2009 and the present, and then identified the response type through qualitative coding and comparison. Given prior theorizations of men’s collegiate athletics as crime-facilitative environments based on low punishment risk and high temptation to participate in criminal deviance, I expect to find that fine-related punishments are levied more frequently against high-status NHL players and high level player networks than are playing-time related penalties, protecting their ability to continue contributing to a franchise’s game performance. I also predict violent crimes will more frequently include playing-time related penalties, with League Commissioner approval more consistently mandated. I anticipate the team sub-organization to most frequently levy punishments for player criminality. This research introduces a more comprehensive examination of NHL player criminality, extending beyond existing approaches of case-based analysis. Importantly, this allows for future comparison to leagues such as the National Football League and its handling of player criminality over time. More broadly, I clarify the consistency with which deterrence measures are employed by the organization, contributing to the body of literature analyzing private organizations and their governing power over employees.

During the rise of the BLM movement of 2020, confederate monuments became a focal point of national debate, with heightened awareness of their historical context and implications for racial equality. My research seeks to leverage this moment of increased attention to explore how the presence of symbols of marginalization near voting stations may impact voting intentions and overall experience. In this study, Black and White Americans are presented with a simulated map along with a set of instructions that lead them to a nearby polling station. In the experimental group, participants received a map featuring Confederate monuments while participants in the control group received a neutral map with directions that avoided any mention of Confederate monuments. Once the participant correctly identifies the voting station on the map, they are asked a series of questions not only on the usefulness of the map but also on factors such as safety, comfort, the value of the vote, personal belonging, and likelihood of voting. Findings suggest Black participants exposed to Confederate monuments expressed a diminished value of their vote and reduced intention to vote, whereas White participants indicated no changes in voting intentions, perception of vote value, or a desire to change voting locations. As an extension to this study, I am currently conducting a replication study where participants are explicitly informed that the map represents a neighborhood in the South. After navigating the map, participants are asked not only about the impact of factors such as comfort, safety, value, personal belonging, and the likelihood of voting but also regarding their relative importance and influence on voting behaviors and intentions. Collectively, these studies have important implications for racial disparities in voting intentions and for advancing a more inclusive and equitable electoral process within the United States.

In recent years, the Evangelical church in the United States has begun to see a decline in attendance which mirrors earlier declines in more mainstream denominations. Some who leave Evangelical congregations go on to host podcasts, write books, and speak at conferences about their experiences inside Evangelicalism and their journeys out of it. As they do so, these ‘Exvangelicals’ create meaning around their experiences, form new identities and communities around their newfound disbelief, and create spaces for, and inform the journeys of, other Evangelicals who are questioning their participation in the American Evangelical church. The intensity and frequency of the creation of new identities and communities around a former religious affiliation seems to be unique to Evangelicalism. This paper examines how and why these individuals come to leave Evangelicalism and create identities, media, and physical and psychological spaces oriented around that choice and considers whether the unique culture of American Evangelicalism may contribute to the likelihood of forming these communities. I conduct a qualitative analysis of 30 publicly available interviews of individuals who have left American Evangelicalism and now participate in public discussions of their exits. I expect to find common narratives around the strictness of family-of-origin religious experiences, feelings of betrayal or disillusionment, and similarly held political and social values among interviewees, as well as cultural and personality traits which may predict which individuals choose to become outspoken in the movement. It provides a better understanding of the newly formed and growing group of self-identified ‘Exvangelicals,’ their experiences, and the process of group identity they have undertaken, as well as describing the ways they connect and interact, and how they replicate aspects of the church they have left behind.

The Disability Inclusive Development Initiative (DIDI) is a project that brings together students and faculty from various fields to promote the human rights of persons with disabilities. Our current project builds upon the findings of a 2020 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the International Disability Alliance (IDA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). We are conducting a comparative analysis of asylum procedures in Uganda and Colombia, specifically examining how these procedures consider the rights of persons with disabilities. Our goal is to ensure that refugees and asylum-seekers with disabilities have access to fair and accommodating processes. We are also looking into the challenges faced by persons with disabilities during the asylum process and how governments are addressing these challenges. To achieve these aims, we are conducting a comprehensive literature review, including primary legal research, using resources from the University of Washington libraries. Additionally, we are consulting with experts working in this field. Our team is dedicated to producing a report for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which will outline our findings, highlight effective practices, and offer recommendations for future actions.

Existing studies show the importance of migration in ensuring both the livelihood and safety of migrants around the world, and that factors such as ethnicity and caste have a significant impact on an individual’s ability to migrate. My study aims to further explore the association between caste/ethnicity and the order of starting, intermediate, and most recent destinations a migrant passes through. To do so, I perform a sequence analysis on places traveled to by participants of the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) dataset. CVFS focuses on the Chitwan Valley region in Nepal, a country that hosts a variety of ethnic groups and has a wide range of destinations that its inhabitants migrate towards, with a much higher rate of human migration than other countries of similar population size or GDP. Using the dataset, I also search for common factors between caste groups, such as the kinds of intermediate locations they may travel to before heading to a more permanent destination, and how long certain castes take to migrate either due to legal issues, their own caution or the resources available to them. I expect people of lower caste to face more difficulty in migrating due to how caste profoundly influences social life in the region. This transforms how we view the impact of caste or ethnicity on migration, not just isolated to the Chitwan region but across any region involving the migration of multiple ethnic groups. It is also relevant to note that sequence analysis has little pre-existing use in migration sociology, especially when focusing on migration across multiple continents. Therefore, this study presents a new method of studying migration along with a better understanding of what goes on between the assumed starting and most recent point of a migrant’s journey.