University at Buffalo (UB)
Students on the Job Market 2024-25
Shiyue Cui
Email: shiyuecu@buffalo.edu
Dissertation: “Making It Work Here”: Mixed Methods Research about Refugee Employment, Family Dynamics, and Gender Roles”
Committee: Robert Adelman (chair), Kristen Schultz Lee, Yige Dong, Wooksoo Kim
Research Areas: International Migration, Environmental Sociology, Race and Ethnicity, Criminology, Gender and Family, Urban
Shiyue Cui is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on international migration, environmental sociology, and social inequality. Her dissertation combines quantitative data analysis with qualitative interviews to comprehensively examine refugees' resettlement experiences in New York State. Her research demonstrates that family and gender practices play a crucial role in shaping their employment prospects and cultural capital accumulation. Additionally, Shiyue investigates displacement, mobility, and population dynamics among vulnerable communities. She also uses algorithms to analyze post-disaster mobility with large mobile phone data.
Byung Soo Lee
Email: byungsoo@buffalo.edu
Dissertation: “The Perceived Meaning of Eldercare among the Sandwich Generation of Adult Koreans and Korean Immigrants in the United States”
Committee: Kristen Schultz Lee (chair), Robert Adelman, Debra Street
Research Areas: Sociology of Family, Aging and the Life Course, Immigration, Gender, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity, Sociology of Education
CV: Byung Soo Lee CV
Short Bio
Byung Soo Lee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. His research focuses on how Asian immigrant families in the United States experience the changes of family relations and the narratives of the families that reveal the gap between the subjective perception of family relations and the structural changes in a given society. His current research examines how Asian immigrant family members interpret the meaning of eldercare with the intersection of gendered experiences.
Laura Obernesser
Email: lauraobe@buffalo.edu
Dissertation: “The Ambiguity of Help: Grandparents, their Adult Children, and the Ambiguity of Childcare among Rural Western New Yorkers”
Committee: Kristen Schultz Lee (chair), Ashley Barr, Debra Street
Research Areas: Family, Families and Inequality, Family Roles, Rural Families, Aging and the life course, Transition to adulthood, Intimate Relationships, Kinship ties, Generations and Society, Stress, Agency, Qualitative Methods
Short Bio
Laura Obernesser is a family sociologist. Her qualitative research focuses on how individuals idealize family, make sense of their relationships and roles within families and the effects these understandings have on their everyday experiences. Her research focuses on (1) family ideals: the desires, fears, and expectations held by individuals within families related to family life and how inequalities have effects on how individuals understand their relationship to societal expectations in the context of changing families and (2) agency: the behaviors and thoughts families engage in to cope with, and sometimes change their realities.
Her dissertation work focuses on the role ambiguity between grandparents and their adult children (parents) in rural families and how these care givers make sense of their family roles, relationships, and realities in the context of COVID-19. In her study, she examines parenting and grandparenting roles, class and gender inequalities, and how individuals within these families experience stress related to childcare and family.
Srushti Upadhyay
Email: srushtiu@buffalo.edu
Dissertation: “Let’s Click!": Intimacy, Economy, and Technology in the World of Sugar Babies
Committee: Erin Hatton (Chair), Robert Adelman, Yige Dong
Research Areas: Gender and sexuality, Labor, Gender and Work, Digital work and labor, Technology, Sex work
Short Bio
Srushti Upadhyay is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at The University at Buffalo. Upadhyay’s research focuses on gender and precarious work in the digital age. Currently, she is working on her dissertation which uses sugar dating as a case study to understand the complex and multidirectional intersections between technology, intimacy, and economy. She is also working on collaborative projects examining depictions of violence in introductory Sociology textbooks. Upadhyay has been awarded the Advanced PhD Dissertation Fellowship by University at Buffalo’s Gender Institute (2023-2024).
Zhe (Rachel) Zhang
Email: zzhang67@buffalo.edu
Dissertation: “Neighborhoods and Wellbeing: A Life Course Approach”
Committee: Ashley Barr (chair), Robert Adelman, Yunmei (Iris) Lu
Research Areas: Urban Sociology, Criminology, Health, Family, Quantitative Methods
Short Bio
Rachel/Zhe Zhang is a Sociology Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Instructor at the University at Buffalo. Her research asks how neighborhoods shape experiences of health, crime, and family relationships using quantitative methods. She is currently working on her dissertation, and her dissertation studies the effect of neighborhood characteristics and changes (i.e., gentrification) on the well-being of individuals and families from the life-course perspective. Meanwhile, she is also working on other research projects. For example, examining the urban and rural differences in adolescents’ delinquent behaviors and drug use, across cohorts, using the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey.