Our People - Graduate students

Dissertation/Research area

Patrick's dissertation research examines frontline social interactions between border services officers (BSOs) and members of various travelling publics. (Funded by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship)

Dissertation/ Research area

Youth crime, Social networks, Female delinquency

Dissertation/ Research area

Interpretive Sociology, Heritage, Museums, Culture, Art

Dissertation/Research area

Patrick's dissertation research examines frontline social interactions between border services officers (BSOs) and members of various travelling publics. (Funded by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship)

Dissertation/Research area

Manjit's research focuses on how the South Asian gang phenomenon in Western Canada has been problematized and governed by authorities and how various stakeholders (government and non-government actors) problematize risk..

Dissertation Topic

Currently Rowland’s doctoral research draws upon the techniques of autoethnography and border thinking/border gnosis to examine the formation of First Nations & Native American identity within the biopolitical, affective, juridical and philosophical imaginings of the United States & Canada through his own lived experiences as a diasporic, urban and liminaly enrolled Indigenous person. Rowland’s work situates this identity formation within the structures of settler colonialism, in particular the logic of elimination, and examines how the official means by which it takes place effects a “biogenic extension of frontier homicide.” He also examines how self-determined and decolonial notions of identity within contemporary Indigenous community both mesh with and exist beyond official categorization, as well as the processes of new Indigenous identity formation, in particular within the urban setting.

Research area

Critical Indigenous Studies; Settler Colonial Studies; Coloniality & Modernity; Decoloniality & Decolonial Theory; Phenomenology; Genealogical Critique; Indigenous Identity; Politics of Refusal; Grounded Normativity; Biopower & Biopolitics; Ideology & Hegemony; Affect Studies & Affect Theory; Critique of Political Ontology; Historical Materialism.

Dissertation Topic

Kanika's doctoral research will explore the factors that contribute to the formation of youth perceptions of social injustice and how these perceptions of injustice impact criminal behavior and other life outcomes.

Research area

Juvenile Delinquency, Policing, Social Inequality, Criminal Justice Process 

Brian's dissertation research looks at the intersection between surveillance and new media. Specifically, he is interested in how software has come to structure identity politics and activism both online and off.  

Dissertation/ Research area

Policing, Policing Strategies, HR management, organizational theory, research methods.

Dissertation/ Research area

Policing, police discretion and decision-making, policing strategies, homicide studies, socio-legal responses to crime, research methods. Funded by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship.

My research on social policy involves a critical focus on Harm Reduction and the Social Determinants of Health in Ontario. I am in the MA Thesis Coop option.

Abeer has a BA from University of Toronto and is currently an MA Student in the Social and Legal Studies coursework program. Her area of interest is in policymaking, Law and Society, and postcolonial, feminist, and Marxist discourse.

Jamal's doctoral research examines topics of business contingency planning and emergency preparedness. 

Research area 

Contingency Planning, Policy, Health, Health and Safety, Law and Society, Governance, and Research Methods.

My dissertation examines how the various players within an Indigenous Peoples' court influence the court process and make decisions in relation to the court’s cases. Specifically, I look at how, and whether, court officials consider the multiple ways in which structural oppressions related to gender and Indigeneity render women uniquely vulnerable to criminalization.

My research interests more broadly are justice system alternatives and restorative justice. 

I am currently in my second term of the MA Sociology program, intending on completing a Major Research Paper within the realm of Political Sociology and Social Policy. I will be focusing primarily on sexual violence and the law in my research.

Ivy’s research mainly focuses on migration policies, immigrants & refugees, wellbeing of older immigrants, governance, mobility politics, and social justice. Specifically, her dissertation critically examines the parents/grandparents sponsorship (PGP) immigration program from a governmentality perspective, as well as explores lived experience of PGP immigrants and analyzes how the interplay of immigration policy with other social, economic, cultural, and political factors shapes and affects the life trajectory, wellbeing and ageing of older Chinese immigrant parents in Canada.

I am currently in my first year as a Ph.D candidate and my research is interested in terrorism, nationalism and social systems theory. Particularly, I am interested in Canadian counter-terrorism policy and how it uses the nation to organize a response to terrorism in its various forms. Theoretically, I am influenced by the work of Niklas Luhmann and Talcott Parsons, though this is a recent development. My past research was heavily influenced by Paul Rabinow’s interpretation of Michel Foucault for the purposes of anthropology and ethnography. Both my BA (Social Anthropology) and MA (Social Anthropology) were completed at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. My hometown is Sackville, New Brunswick, a small-town near the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border that is on traditional Mi’kmaq land and is called home by generations of settlers, Acadian, Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Métis folk.

My research area– Examining the forms and effects of human trafficking in Ethiopia, while comparing the country’s longstanding history of ethnic federalism and its possible connection to human trafficking. 

Area’s of Interest – Analyzing how racial, ethnic, and national identities are created and enacted, human trafficking, international migration, race relations, refugee status and immigration. 

Jessica Gill is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies. Her research interests lie broadly at the intersection of gender-based violence (GBV), critical feminist thought, and technology studies. Her dissertation focuses on examining the barriers that victim-survivors of GBV encounter when attempting to access support services within the context of Ontario and, more specifically, seeks to explore counter-hegemonic approaches to tackling GBV. Jessica holds an M.A. in Health Policy and Equity Studies and a B.Ed. from York University, and a B.Sc. (Hon.) from the University of Toronto specializing in Mental Health Studies and Women and Gender Studies.

Research interests: gender-based violence; intimate partner violence; intersectionality; critical race theory; postcolonial thought; feminist legal theory; social and public policy; qualitative and mixed-method research; technology; neoliberalism; social inequality; sociology of education; knowledge mobilizatio

Research: the development and uptake of Bayesian statistical methods in Social Scientific and Social Network Analytic contexts.  

Jacob Legault-Leclair est actuellement étudiant au doctorat en sociologie à l’Université de Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Il se spécialise en méthode quantitative, en sociologie de l’immigration et la sociologie des religions. Sa thèse de maîtrise, effectuée en sociologie à l’Université d’Ottawa, portait sur les déterminants culturels de la migration entre l’Ontario et le Québec. Il a aussi travaillé les caractéristiques sociodémographiques des Québécois relativement à la Loi 21. Dans le cadre de ses études doctorales, il s'intéresse au rapport entre la migration et la sécularisation et aux liens qu'ont ces transformations démographiques sur la gestion politique du religieux au Canada et en France.

Jacob Legault-Leclair is currently a PhD student in sociology at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He specializes in quantitative methods, sociology of immigration and sociology of religion. His master's thesis, carried out in sociology at the University of Ottawa, focused on the cultural factors shaping migration between Ontario and Québec. He also worked on the socio-demographic characteristics of Québecois in relation to Bill 21. His doctoral work focuses on the relationship between migration and secularization and how these demographic transformations affect the political regulation of religion in Canada and France.

Areas of Study:  Terrorism, Radicalization, National Security, Deviance 

My dissertation focuses on how and why academic research into terrorism is used by intelligence professionals in Canada and the factors or barriers that may be affecting the use of this research. Further, it looks at how we can improve the mobilization of knowledge and research as it relates to countering terrorism and violent extremism.

Tyler’s dissertation research is focused on methods of studying misinformation, with an emphasis on its production, patterns of dissemination, and social impact. This research includes large-scale data analysis using computational social science methods from the fields of social network analysis, machine learning, and natural language processing. Most of this analysis is performed in Python and is focused on data from Reddit and Twitter.

Jenniffer's doctoral research offers a feminist genealogy of the institutional practices and responses to women victim-offenders charged with domestic assault in the first Domestic Violence Courts in various jurisdictions across Ontario. This historical account will trace how the criminal justice system came to be seen by many as a logical component of the violence against women movement and its consequences on women criminalized for domestic violence.

Research Area: violence against women, social inequality, law and society, social movements, mixed methods

Ashley's research focuses on peer influence and offending. Her current dissertation research explores the motivations behind peer pressure and the strategies that accompany them.  

I am a PhD candidate in Sociology and Legal Studies. My areas of study include criminology, political sociology, and social stratification and inequality. My current dissertation seeks to examine the 'defund the police' movement and what this would look like in Canada. I have completed comprehensive exams in social inequality with a specialization in Indigenous issues and qualitative research methods. 

Stacey’s dissertation research focuses on online governance and self-regulation, community management and content moderation. Specifically, she is interested in exploring how online platforms' content moderation policies are developed and whose knowledge is valued in this process. 

For his PhD research, Nima is studying terrorism and political violence, and more specifically the motivations for religious terrorism.  His dissertation examines the role of religiously inspired fears as a motivation for jihadist terrorism.

Ali Mostolizadeh is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Waterloo. Ali is interested in applying creative arts and visual methodologies to his research. As a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker, Ali has been involved in making the films representing findings of his academic works through reinforcing stories of non-dominant communities. Ali's research interests include: Mobilities, Migration, Tourism and Identity, Social  justice, Displacement, Visual methodologies, Documentary methodologies.Ali's PhD project, under supervision of Dr. Suzan Ilcan- unpacks Australia's off-shore detention regime for asylum seekers and develops insight into the alternative knowledge system and the counter-narratives that have been shaped by individual and collective resistance of detained refugees on Manus Island. Specifically, Ali's study sheds light on the resistance, advocacy and survival of Behrouz Boochani who is globally known as the 'voice of Manus Island'. He has become a phenomenon and a public face of resistance to Australian off-shore detention. To identify the networks of resistance on Manus, a number of artists/activists/journalists/academics/ writers/former detainees who have collaborated with Boochani since 2013 were interviewed. Ali's dissertation includes a visual chapter which is a documentary film about resistance, advocacy and survival of Behrouz Boochani.

I am a PhD student in the department of Sociology & Legal Studies, substantively focused on educational sociology. My research investigates the institutionalization of experiential education in Ontario universities. Using organizational theory and qualitative methods I am analyzing the impact this process has on the professional logics of organizational actors, and the broader implications of shifting institutional logics in the field of higher education. Complimentary research interests include social theory, work and organizations, and qualitative research methods. 

My research areas include interpersonal violence, victimization, and policy. My dissertation research focuses on institutional responses to technology-facilitated sexual violence (e.g. revenge porn, dissemination of images, etc.). My research is qualitative and utilizes interviews, digital methodologies, and unobtrusive document analyses.