PhD Sociology

The PhD program is designed to admit relatively small numbers each year, which afford students the opportunity to forge close working relationship with the faculty. All PhD students are admitted with a five-year year-round funding package which includes a stipend, tuition remission, and health insurance (see: Financial Aid and Awards). Our faculty and graduate students work together in a number of interdisciplinary research projects, programs, and centers, including the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute; the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict; Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy; the Institute for Urban Health Research; Northeastern Environmental Justice Research Collaborative, the Institute on Race and Justice, the Network Science Institute, NULab for Texts, Maps and Networks, and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Many of the faculty in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology have additional interests and are affiliated with other departments on campus, including environmental studies; law, policy, and society; Latino, Latin American and Caribbean studies; African American studies; international affairs, Jewish studies; and criminal justice. Students who wish to work with faculty in other disciplines are encouraged to enlist the aid of the sociology graduate director or their advisers in contacting individual faculty members.

To ensure that PhD students become not only effective researchers and writers but also successful instructors, we offer teacher-training with the aim of instilling a skill-set that prospective academic employers find desirable through the University’s Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through Research (CATLR). We also provide numerous funded research opportunities and other resources for our students with the centers or with individual faculty members. As a result, our students frequently present papers at professional conferences and publish articles during the course of their graduate studies. In addition, the department and affiliated centers often host national and international visitors, speakers, and conferences, further enhancing educational opportunities for our graduate students. Finally, each year the department offers a set of workshops on academic writing, teaching, grant writing, the job market, and other “professional development” matters.

For information on applying, deadlines, FAQ’s and required materials, please click here.