Taft Crowley is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science. His subfield concentrations are political economy and comparative politics. Through these lenses Taft focuses on issues of migration, land reform, demographic imbalances, and the politics of LGBTQ Americans. His current project aims to understand the connection between land reform and migration in Central America. This project hopes to better explain the constraints and choices of potential migrants in the Northern Triangle, with the hope that such work can better inform policy choices in migrant origin and destination states. Taft’s other work has sought to understand the politics resulting from male surpluses in India and changing group solidarity within cis-gay men in the US.

I am a PhD student in Economics. Prior to UCSB, I studied at the University of Delhi and the University of Texas at Austin. I've also previously worked on field research in India and Kenya on a wide range of topics in education, child health & nutrition, voter preferences, and cash transfer programs. My primary research interests are labor and development economics. I am especially interested in issues related to gender and education. I'm currently working on research projects on the effect of labor market opportunities for women on fertility and the effect of public school access on student learning in India.

Madison is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara. Her broad research areas include gender, work and organizations, and social psychology. She received her MA in Demographic and Social Analysis at UC Irvine in 2021, with a thesis that investigates work hour-reductions by occupation during COVID-19.

Currently, she is exploring how early career aspirations and education choices may influence career outcomes for individuals in ways that contribute to broad, and pervasive patterns of occupational segregation by race, ethnicity, and gender in the United States.

Additionally, Madison is working on other projects that examine the contents of gender stereotypes in the United States, education aspirations for immigrants in the U.S. and U.K., and using content analysis to examine how individuals create gender identities within organizations and on social media.essions.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:

2024 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award, UCSB Department of Sociology

2023 Louis H. Towbes Fellowship, University of California, Santa Barbara