Meet Our New Sociology Faculty
Margaret Frye
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Margaret Frye is an assistant professor of sociology. Her research investigates the complex and often misaligned relationships between culture, ideas, and demographic patterns. Much of our shared culture is about what people do during key life junctures—finishing school, getting married, having a child, starting a career—but our beliefs, ideals, and expectations are imperfect reflections of these demographic regularities. Frye uses a diverse set of both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate these questions. Her research is primarily located in sub-Saharan Africa, and she is currently in the midst of a longitudinal data collection project in Kampala, Uganda, examining changing understandings of status resulting from Uganda’s simultaneous expansion of university education and contraction of formal employment opportunities.
Pablo Gastón
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Pablo Gastón will be Assistant Professor of Sociology starting in September 2018. A comparative historical sociologist, Pablo investigates changing patterns of economic conflict in the American labor movement, with a focus on collective bargaining in hospitals. He obtained his PhD in Sociology from Berkeley in 2017. Before coming to Michigan, he was a Postdoc at Rutgers University’s Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations.
Matthew Sullivan
Director of SOUL Program & Lecturer
Matthew Sullivan studies medical sociology and sociology of science. His research areas include assisted reproductive technologies, genetics, and conceptions of medical risk. He is particularly interested in the interactions between professional and lay expertise and the ways in which those interactions create biopolitical actors. Additionally, Sullivan is the Director of the SOUL (Sociology Opportunities for Undergraduate Leaders).
