Mark Pachucki

Graduate Student in Sociology

Biographical Note

Born and raised in Schenectady, New York, Mark is a PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow. His research is broadly concerned with culture, health, social networks, and nonprofit organizations (click here for Soc 95 syllabus). Prior to his time in the Sociology department, Mark spent five years working with the nonprofit arts presenters Jazz at Lincoln Center. Current research projects separately examine: how taste preferences interact with social status and network affiliations; how actors in a field of public health practice understand professional boundaries.

Mark is a recipient of dissertation support from the National Institute for Aging/National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and is a 2008-09 LILA research fellow at Project Zero. He is an active member of the Culture and Social Analysis, and Health and Social Structure workshops. In his off-hours, Mark considers himself an extreme runner, which could mean either this, or this; it depends on the day of the week.

Recent projects:

•Pachucki, Mark A., Jennifer C. Lena and Steven J. Tepper. Forthcoming. "Creativity narratives among college students: Sociability and everyday creativity."The Sociological Quarterly.(pdf)
•Pachucki, Mark A., Chris Bail, and Lauren Rivera. 2008. "An Invitation to Cultural Sociology at Harvard." Culture, Vol. 22(3). (pdf)
•Pachucki, Mark A., Sabrina Pendergrass, and Michèle Lamont. 2007. "Boundary Processes: Recent Theoretical Developments and New Contributions." Poetics, Vol. 35., pp 331-351.(pdf)
•Pachucki, Mark A. 2008. "Understanding evaluation: How 8-year old musicians taught me to be a better sociologist." Unpublished essay.


Working Papers:

•Pachucki, Mark A., with Ronald L. Breiger. "Cultural Holes: Beyond Relationality in Social Networks and Culture". In preparation for Annual Review of Sociology, 2010.
•Pachucki, Mark A. "Museums project." Under review.
•Mark A. Pachucki, Nicholas A. Christakis. “Changes in Complexity in American Eating Behaviors Over Two Decades.” In development.
•Lena, Jennifer C. and Mark A. Pachucki. “Networks of Rap Samples.” In development.

06/03/2009

Research Interests

Culture, Health, Social Networks, Nonprofit Organizations

Previous Degrees

B.A. Sociology, Columbia University, 2003.
A.M. Sociology, Harvard University, 2007.

Prospectus Title

A taste for tastes? Evaluating the spread of food choices and healthy behaviors in a large social network

Committee

Nicholas Christakis (chair); Michèle Lamont; Filiz Garip

Abstract

The goals of this thesis are: (a) to evaluate the extent to which taste preferences, specifically patterns of food choice, might be observed to spread through a population; (b) to evaluate interrelationships between social status and food choice; and (c) to evaluate the roles that social ties play in mediating food choice and health outcomes such as obesity and cardiovascular disease. While it is commonly accepted that what we eat affects our well-being, existing research that seeks to specify causal relationships between eating behaviors and health outcomes has largely ignored the role of social connections between networks of individuals. To what extent do our specific food consumption patterns depend on the taste preferences of people to whom we are directly (or indirectly) connected?

The question of how food choices and our health might be connected with our taste preferences is particularly timely because the phrase “taste preference” in its dominant sociological usage usually refers to cultural production. For instance, we speak of “a taste” for certain music, art, religion, political choice, or lifestyle, when the phrase “cultural preference” might be just as apt. This type of semantic blurring, in and of itself, is not necessarily problematic. But social scientists have done a great deal of work in recent years to systematically document the properties of cultural preference formation and how human interaction influences choice, without returning to give consideration to this most literal interpretation of taste: the taste for food.

This project has the potential to help explain variation in health status by giving empirical attention to food choice and social connectivity. By synthesizing three unusually complete data sources on health outcomes, social ties, and eating behaviors, I hope to elaborate upon relationships between eating behaviors, network characteristics, and health outcomes over a 20-year period. Falsifiable hypotheses concerning taste transmission and strength of social ties are generated by insights drawn from sociological research of taste preferences, social networks, inequality, and biological theories of diet, nutrition, and disease.

By looking quantitatively at the diffusion of innovation of our tastes for food, this research represents a fresh way of thinking about the interconnectedness of culture and our social networks. With growing concern for the alarming rise in obesity and cardiovascular disease, this project also has important public health implications. A better understanding of the social mechanisms that underlie these health conditions can point to more effective behavioral interventions to address modifiable risk factors for disease. This research has the potential to make the public think more critically about not just what, but how, it eats, and more broadly to demonstrate mechanisms by which social norms can change in a given population.

Miscellaneous Additional Information

Software Skills

AtlasTi, Pajek, Stata, UCInet

Suggested Links

Romare Bearden, Empress of the Blues 1974

Contact

617-495-8769 (Phone)
617-496-5794 (FAX)

568 William James Hall
33 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Office Hours

Summer 2009, by appt.