Elan Greenberg '08
A native of Rockaway, NJ, Elan Greenberg is a Meinig Scholar and a Policy
Analysis and Management graduate in the College of Human Ecology. As Student
Assembly President, Elan has applied his studies in inequality to his work
on the University Diversity Council-Working Group, chaired by CSI
Executive Committee member Professor David Harris. Most recently, he has
moderated a community diversity forum in the wake of racial tensions at
Ithaca High School, and he has assisted the Asian and Asian American Forum
in its fight for an Asian American Community Center accessible to the
entire Cornell community. Elan is a recent graduate of Marine Corps
Officer Candidate School, and he will be commissioned a Second Lieutenant
in the Marine Corps in May 2008. He writes: "The Minor in Inequality Studies
has provided the tools to address issues of inequality both on campus and
in the greater Ithaca community. I'm confident that these tools will
remain relevant as a Marine Corps Officer, too."
Christy Ley Kidner '08
Christy Ley Kidner, from Ashtabula, Ohio, is majoring in sociology with minors in both inequality and law and society. She has focused most of her inequality studies on the gender wage gap, employment discrimination, and women's education. Currently, she is conducting research for a senior honors thesis on the relationship between cultural appearance ideologies and women's occupational aspirations. This summer, she hopes to apply her knowledge of anti-discrimination policies in an internship at a nonprofit women's rights organization in New York City. During her final semester at Cornell, Christy will shift her studies to another area of inequality, considering poverty's effects on health outcomes. Ultimately, she hopes to further apply her knowledge of women's rights by practicing as a civil rights attorney, where she will focus on employment discrimination. Christy writes: "The Minor in Inequality Studies has enabled me to analyze the roots of social ills, a skill that will prove beneficial to me as a civil rights lawyer."
Sarah Olesiuk '08
Sarah Olesiuk first became interested in inequality after visiting a small West Virginia town that was subject to the destructive coal mining process of mountaintop removal. She has since extended her interest in inequality into action through her work with Appalachian Voices, a non-profit environmental organization that seeks justice for the people and the environment of the central and southern Appalachians. Sarah is currently pursuing a degree in development sociology with minors in inequality and Latino studies. Her research involved a project that mapped the settlement and migration trends among migrant workers in upstate New York. The inequality courses Sarah has taken at Cornell have provided a better understanding of the injustices that are prevalent both within and outside our country's borders. This summer she plans to participate in the Cornell Urban Scholars Program and will work for an organization that promotes social justice. Upon graduation, Sarah will attend law school and hopes to return to her home state of North Carolina to advocate for the underrepresented. She writes: "I will take what I have learned about inequity, apply it to whatever career I may have, and to strive to make the world a more just, equal place."
Shane Dunn '07
Shane Dunn '07 spent seven weeks in Bath, England, following graduation. While a junior at Cornell, Shane spent a semester abroad in Bath with the Advanced Studies in England program, and returned as the program's summer graduate intern -- a position that offered him the opportunity to help shape and enhance the summer study abroad experiences of 40 undergraduates from a number of United States colleges and universities, while re-exploring England himself! Upon his return from Bath, Shane accepted a job as a program assistant at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Although he is not directly working in the arenas of social justice or inequality-based work, Shane is assisting his colleagues in fundraising and alumnae relations to maintain the strong networks and connections that Radcliffe and Harvard have around the country and around the world. While continuing to work full-time at Radcliffe and Harvard, Shane will begin a master's in arts program in higher education administration at Boston College beginning in the fall. This great opportunity will open up a wealth of possibilities to actively pursue social justice and equality through the vehicle of higher education around the world, and he is very excited to begin working with his fellow students and Boston College's faculty.
Sharon Jank '07
While working full-time as a custodian on campus, Sharon Jank completed her bachelor’s degree in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell through the Employee Degree Program. Simultaneously working in the service sector while attending an elite university fostered Sharon’s interest in understanding mechanisms that generate inequality from a sociological perspective. Since graduating in May 2007 after completing CSI’s Minor in Inequality Studies and an honors thesis on educational inequalities and popular media, Sharon has returned to Cornell as a full-time PhD student in the Department of Sociology where her educational and employment experiences have integrally shaped her current research interests. Through her research in stratification, gender, and labor market organization, Sharon hopes to meaningfully contribute to contemporary debates surrounding poverty and inequality.
John Chu '06
John Chu is originally from Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Cornell with a degree in communications studies and a Minor in Inequality Studies. He immediately began work on a Congressional National Park Internship sponsored by the Unilever Corporation and administered by the Student Conservation Association. He worked at the Statue of Liberty National Monument and for Congressman Ron Kind of Wisconsin. John is graduating from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in June 2008 with a Master of Public Administration. He will then go to work for the Communications Directorate of the U.S. Census Bureau as a Presidential Management Fellow where he will be building partnerships between the Census and local organizations around the country in an effort to include hard-to-reach groups such as immigrants and low-income citizens in the 2010 Census. John writes: “The Minor in Inequality Studies has provided me with a solid background in understanding issues of racial and economic inequality.”
Samantha Henig '06
Samantha Henig became interested in inequality after she relocated to an elite Manhattan private school from a large public school outside Washington, DC and saw firsthand how stark the differences in education can be. A 2006 graduate of Cornell with a degree in sociology, she is now pursuing a career in journalism. Samantha works as Newsweek as the editorial director of college projects, where she has spent the last year running Current, a national magazine written by college students. She also freelances regularly for Slate Magazine, and has also written for Newsweek, the Boston Globe, the Boston Phoenix, the Chronicle of Higher Education and Harvard Magazine. She is particularly interested in news stories concerning education, the gender wage gap, and health issues for the poor. Her Cornell education and its emphasis on inequality has turned her into a more thoughtful, analytical writer. Samantha writes: "My studies through the Center for the Study of Inequality constantly guide my work as a journalist."
Sarah Vaughn '06
Sarah E. Vaughn is from Chicago, Illinois and graduated in 2006 as a College Scholar, studying both anthropology and sociology. While at Cornell, Sarah appreciated the flexibility of the Minor in Inequality Studies. She was able to explore a number of disciplines outside of her specific area of study while still focusing on her main research interests. After graduation, she began a PhD program in Anthropology at Columbia University. As a graduate student, Sarah is currently thinking about how NGOs shape nationalist discourse(s) about race and gender in Guyana. An integral part of her research is to understand the links between the work of academics, civil organizations and NGOs.
Sarah writes that the classes she took for the Minor in Inequality Studies "directly influenced my current research and commitment to producing scholarly work that not only sheds light on issues about inequalities worldwide but also provides possible solutions."
Anthony Panzera '05
New Yorker Anthony Panzera, a 2005 Biology and Society degree recipient, is passionate about applying the knowledge he gained through the Minor in Inequality Studies to his career goal: addressing the inequitable distribution of health and the disproportionate incidence of chronic disease in the United States. As a graduate student in the Master of Public Health program at Brown University, Anthony is currently working on a CDC-funded project addressing obesity in urban Rhode Island children who are on special assistance programs. Anthony capitalized on the Minor in Inequality Studies's interdisciplinary flexibility and recommends combining scholarly work with volunteerism as a way to make learning experiences both fruitful and effective. Anthony writes: "The Minor in Inequality Studies reminds me professionally of the goals I have set forth for my career and, personally, of the humanitarian passion I discovered at Cornell."
Genevieve Quist '05
Genevieve Quist is currently pursuing a doctorate in Social Policy at the University of Oxford through a Rhodes Scholarship, where she focuses on the intersection of urban housing and education policies. The 2005 Salutatorian of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Genevieve minored in Inequality and Law and Society. Her senior honors thesis on single-mother families and welfare reform, as well as her undergraduate research on rural childhood poverty, are directly rooted in what she learned through the Minor in Inequality Studies. After graduation, this Williston, Vermont native served as a Teach For America corps member in Los Angeles, where she worked to help her students make significant academic gains in a very low-income middle school. Genevieve writes: "The content I learned through the Minor in Inequality Studies were my motivation for joining Teach For America and pursuing graduate work in public policy."
Tara Leigh Wood '05
Tara Leigh Wood has made it a personal mission to effect positive change in the communities where she lives. After graduating in 2005 with a degree in sociology, she continued at the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs earning her Master's Degree in Public Administration. Tara is now a Development and Program Associate with the Young Women's Leadership Foundation in New York, an organization whose goal is to provide top-notch, all-girls public education for disadvantaged children. In this rewarding career, Tara sees first-hand the elimination of educational inequalities can result in greater opportunity for her students. Tara writes: "The classes at Cornell, and specifically the Minor in Inequality Studies, provided a great foundation for this line of work."
Carmela Blackman '04
Currently, Carmela Blackman works for Estee Lauder Companies doing Institute Development for the Aveda brand, helping to oversee the three corporately owned Aveda Institutes in New York, DC, and Minneapolis. After graduation, Carmela returned to her hometown of Manhattan to serve as the Executive Office Manager of the Cornell Club, a home away from home for Cornellians since 1889. She majored in sociology and is a member of the class of 2004. Carmela enrolled in inequality courses at Cornell to gain a better understanding of obstacles people face in today's society. Regarding the Minor in Inequality Studies, she writes: "Having some knowledge of what people are facing within their own cultures has added to my own character and enables me to draw from a greater perspective when I make decisions regarding what organizations to support, what candidates to vote for, and even the kinds of people I associate with."
Josh Tetrick '04
Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, Josh Tetrick is currently attending the University of Michigan Law School, with a global business and investment concentration at Michigan's Ross School of Business. Since graduating in 2004 with dual majors in sociology and government, he has applied his interest and scholarly expertise in inequality by working in UN associated roles in both Nigeria and Kenya. A special interest to aid transitional societies emerging from decades of economic and political difficulties led him to an appointment with the Harvard Project for American Indian Economic Development and a fellowship with the Harvard Project on Justice in Times of Transition. Of the Minor in Inequality Studies he writes: "The seeds of my interest in finding novel solutions to our world's biggest needs lie in the experiences provided by the Minor in Inequality Studies."
Kaitlin Tierney '04
Originally from Upstate New York, Kaitlin Tierney now resides in Washington, DC
and works for the World Bank Institute, Poverty Reduction and Economic
Management Sector. She works for the Public Sector Governance
Program, which promotes
responsive, responsible, and accountable public governance in developing
countries. The program reaches political leaders, senior policymakers,
legislators, managers, practitioners at various levels, technical experts, civil
society leaders, academics, and scholars. Kaitlin graduated from Cornell in 2004
with a degree in sociology and writes: "The Minor in Inequality Studies through Cornell has provided me with the foundational knowledge that is applied to my work at the World Bank."