Corina Graif

Graduate Student in Sociology

Biographical Note

Corina's research work addresses questions related to how personal and community social capital and social networks impact individuals’ criminal involvement, social and spatial mobility and ultimately, their well-being; how immigration, ethnic diversity, and residential segregation impact neighborhood development trajectories and community risk factors such as crime and mortality rates. She is interested in methodological aspects related to measuring diversity, neighborhood effects, social capital, segregation, and spatial diffusion. She also examines how within- and cross-group interactions and organizational onvolvement vary by race, ethnicity, immigrant status, and occupation .

Her interests also include aspects related to legal and criminal justice systems and experimental methods. With Jeffrey W. Lucas and Michael J. Lovaglia she coauthored a paper titled "Misconduct in the Prosecution of Severe Crimes: Theory and Experimental Test", published in Social Psychology Quarterly, March 2006.

For 2008-2009 she received a Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Project for Justice, Welfare, and Economics, at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (an interdisciplinary committee presided by Nobel prize winner, Amartya Sen). In 2007 she received the Howard T. Fisher Prize for excellence in Geographic Information Science.

In addition to sociology, she loves hiking in the White Mountains, watching documentaries, reading and learning about different cultures, languages, sounds, mythology, and foods from all over the world.

04/23/2008

Research Interests

Neighborhood effects, urban processes and development, segregation, migration and immigration, ethnicity, crime, social networks and organizations, civic involvement, social and spatial inequality and mobility, well-being, experimental and survey research methods.

Qualifying Paper Title

“Diversity as a Way of Life: From Neighborhood Social Differentiation to Spatial Dynamics of the Creative Class”

Prospectus Title

“Mobility in Isolation: Neighborhood Effects and the Blocked Migration Pathways of the Urban Poor”

Committee

Robert J. Sampson, Mary C. Waters, Christopher Winship, Peter V. Marsden

Miscellaneous Additional Information

Oral Exam Topic

Immigration, Community Processes, and Crime

Software Skills

Stata, Spss, Pajek, Ucinet, ArcGIS, Netminer, Sas, Mathematica, R, Geoda

Conferences at Which I've Made Presentations

Graif, Corina. 2007. “Creative Class and Diversity: Spatial and Temporal Dynamics in Chicago Neighborhoods". Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. New York. Section on Multi-Ethnic Cities. Organized by Eric Fong. Discussant John Iceland.

Graif, Corina. 2007. “Immigration, Diversity and Residential Segregation: Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Neighborhood Growth”. Summer Workshop on Immigration and Social Change in Britain and the U.S. Organized by Mary C. Waters, Robert Putnam, Robert Sampson, June 25-July 6, 2007 University of Manchester, UK.

Graif, Corina. 2006 . "Conceptualizing and Measuring Diversity and its Benefits across Neighborhoods: A Multi-Method Spatial Approach". Graduate Student Conference on Embracing Diversity: Latino Immigration and the Transformation of American Society, Sponsored by Mary C. Waters and Jennifer Hochschild, Harvard University, October 13-14.

Graif, Corina. 2005. “Spatial Inequality and Community Wellbeing”. GIS and Population Science Workshop, Population Research Institute and Center for Spatially Integrated Social Sciences, UCSB 2005 June 19-July 2, Santa Barbara, CA.

Contact

617-495-4933 (Phone)
617-496-5794 (FAX)

609 William James Hall
33 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138