Yeneca Lee

Graduate Research Assistant

Yeneca is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research broadly centers on social movements, movement organizations, and gender with a regional focus in East Asia. She is currently studying the feminist movement in South Korea and is especially interested in exploring how organizational structures, resources, mobilization strategies, and external influences shape movement trajectories and outcomes.

Tania Lucia Ramírez

Graduate Research Assistant

Tania Lucia is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a current fellow of the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship, granted by the government of Peru. Her research centers on the political economy of development and environmental change, and social movements with a focus on the Latin American region.

Karim Safieddine

Graduate Research Assistant

Karim is a PhD student interested in understanding the ways in which social movements, for what they represent in terms of various aspects of intellectual and organizational leadership, challenge or reproduce prevailing power relations and ideological norms between late 20th and 21st century Lebanon. In this context, his research focuses on the historical and contemporary development of the "Lebanese Left", particularly in relation to other more dominant local political forces. While he heavily relies on Gramscian optics in his studies, he is open to various models and methods.

Jay Kapoor

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Jay Kapoor is a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in Psychology on the Pre-Med track and minoring in Computer Science. He currently supports the MPE program as a research assistant, working closely with Yeneca Lee and Dr. Fernando Tomas-Aponte. Jay is also involved with Juno, an AI health platform, and contributes to a Computational Drug Discovery project focused on deep learning and structure-based approaches for drug development. His work aligns with his passion for addressing social inequality and leveraging technology to advance healthcare.

Former Research Affiliates

Chie Togami

REU Program Coordinator, Graduate Research Assistant

Chie is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Broadly speaking, her research spans environment, social movements, philanthropy, and gender. Her dissertation uses qualitative methods to examine the impact of foundation funding on the strategies and tactics of new climate change social movement organizations. In addition to her dissertation, she has researched and written about air quality, environmental justice, and epistemology in Western Pennsylvania. In 2021, she produced a limited series podcast about the social and environmental legacy of the U.S. Steel Corporation. More recently, she is a collaborator on a project examining the global environmental justice impacts of the Biden-Harris lead service line replacement initiative.

João Alípio-Correa

Quantitative Graduate Teaching Assistant

João is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in political methodology and comparative politics. His interests center on causal inference and regime change processes

Erik Durneika

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Erik Durneika is a Ph.D. student specializing in comparative politics and international relations. He holds an MA in Political Science from the University of South Florida. His research interests include ethnic conflict, migration, diasporas, authoritarian regimes, and transnational repression, with a focus on China and Central Asia. He is currently working on an interview-based project that explores the heterogeneity among refugees and exiles. 

Rachel Amanor

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Rachel Amanor is a Sophomore (rising Junior) at the University of Pittsburgh. She majors in Computational Social Science and minors in Linguistics. She used to support the MPE program as a research assistant with Chie Togami and Dr. Fernando Tomas-Aponte. Rachel has worked with the Equity Impact Center to gain leadership skills, teamwork capabilities, and collaborative experiences. Her research interests include the social development of people and inequality.