Biography

I am a PhD candidate in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. My research falls into the domains of economic, labor, and political sociology.

My dissertation, tentatively titled Organizing Without and Under the Law: Public Sector Unions and the State in Michigan and Ohio, 1950-1985, explores the emergence of the public sector labor movement in the Midwestern United States, focusing on the relationship between state-level collective bargaining laws and government worker union power.

In addition to my dissertation research, I am also a researcher at the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College, a research assistant at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, and a research analyst at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. My research with the National Center has been featured in the Washington Post and the New York Times. I also serve as the newsletter editor for the Labor and Labor Movements section of the American Sociological Association.

In my free time, I like to edit the Wikipedia. I contribute by writing and editing mostly sociology articles and articles about CUNY. You can find my user profile and list of contributions here. I am also an amateur iNaturalist. You can find my observations using the app here.

Find me on Google Scholar, Keybase, Twitter, ResearchGate, or ORCID.

Email: jvandernaald [at] gradcenter.cuny.com