The Division of Social Sciences is happy to welcome seven new faculty to its ranks in 2019. Their scholarly contributions will further expand the diversity and interdisciplinary research strengths for which the Division of Social Sciences is known.
Jean Beaman
Assistant Professor, Sociology | Ph.D., Northwestern University
Jean Beaman is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was previously on the faculty at Purdue University and has held visiting fellowships at Duke University and the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Her research is ethnographic in nature and focuses on race/ethnicity, racism, international migration, and state-sponsored violence in both France and the United States. She is author of Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France (University of California Press, 2017), as well as numerous articles and chapters. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University. She is also an Editor of H-Net Black Europe, an Associate Editor of the journal, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, and Corresponding Editor for the journal Metropolitics/Metropolitiques.
Charmaine Chua
Assistant Professor, Global Studies | Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Charmaine Chua is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her current research interests are in the rise of just-in-time logistics as a political-economic force that shapes contemporary race, class and state-capital relations across the US-China supply chain. Chua received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota, with an emphasis on political theory and international relations. She is the Review and Open Site Editor for Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and a member of the Abolition collective.
Douglas J. Kennett
Professor, Anthropology | Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Douglas J. Kennett (B.A. [1990]; M. A. [1994]; Ph.D, [1998], University of California, Santa Barbara) Douglas J. Kennett is a Professor of Environmental Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara. He has held faculty positions at California State University Long Beach (1998-2001) and the University of Oregon (2001-2011) and Penn State (2011-2018). He is the author of The Island Chumash (University of California Press, 2005) and co-editor of the book Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture (University of California Press, 2006). His current interests include the study of human sociopolitical dynamics under changing environmental conditions, human impacts on ancient environments, and behavioral response to abrupt climate change in the past.
Dan Lane
Assistant Professor, Communication | Ph.D., University of Michigan
Dan Lane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. His research and teaching explore how individuals and groups use communication technology to create social and political change. Most recently, he has studied how political expression on social media can stimulate political engagement, improve intergroup relations, and reduce political inequality. These interests have their origins in Dan’s time as the founder of Good Eye Video, a digital storytelling company for non-profits. His research has been published in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Information, Communication & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, & Human Communication Research.
Anshu Malhotra
Assistant Professor, Global Studies | Ph.D., SOAS, University of London
Anshu Malhotra is Kundan Kaur Kapany Chair of Sikh and Punjab Studies. She has taught at the Department of History, University of Delhi. She holds a Ph.D from SOAS, University of London. She works on gender and histories of Punjab, Sikhs and South Asia, cultural studies, and autobiography studies. She is the author of Piro and the Gulabdasis: Gender, Sect and Society in Punjab (OUP, 2017) and Gender, Caste and Religious Identities: Restructuring Class in Colonial Punjab (OUP, 2002). She has co-edited Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture and Practice (OUP, 2012); Speaking of the Self: Gender, Performance and Autobiography in South Asia (Duke University Press, 2015; Zubaan, 2017); and Text and Tradition in Early Modern North India (OUP, 2018).
Sameer Pandya
Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies | Ph.D., Stanford University
Sameer Pandya, Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies, is an interdisciplinary scholar and fiction writer who brings together cultural analysis and cultural production in his study of race, migration, and dislocation among South Asian Americans. He has published essays in the Journal of Asian American Studies, Amerasia, and South Asian Popular Culture and his first book The Blind Writer: Stories and a Novella was on the longlist for the PEN/Open Book Award. His research interests include cultural and literary studies, Asian American and postcolonial studies, and creative writing. He earned his BA from UC Davis and his PhD from Stanford University.
Satyajit Singh
Professor, Asian American Studies | Ph.D., University of Delhi
Satyajit Singh is Professor in the Departments of Political Science and Global Studies. He has worked as Professor at the University of Delhi, as Dean at School of Development Studies and School of Human Ecology, at Ambedkar University of Delhi and in The World Bank. He is interested in Governance, Public Policy, Institutional Reforms, Indian Politics, Development and Environmental issues. His publications include The Local in Governance: Politics, Decentralization & Environment (OUP 2016); Taming the Waters: The Political Economy of Large Dams in India (OUP 1997); (co-ed) The Dam and the Nation: Displacement and Resettlement in the Narmada Valley (OUP, 1997); (co-ed) Decentralisation: Institutions and Politics in Rural India (OUP, 2007).
Terrell Winder
Assistant Professor, Sociology | Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
Terrell Winder is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. An urban ethnographer, Winder's research areas include race & ethnicity, sexuality & sexual health, qualitative research methods, and education. He is currently completing a book manuscript tentatively titled, Unspoiling Identity: How Black Gay Men Learn to Overcome Stigma. In this book, he examines stigma response processes among stigmatized populations negotiating more than one stigma simultaneously. Winder received his B.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.
