Biography

I am a sociology graduate student and researcher in New York City.

Currently, I am a PhD candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center. 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.

I am also currently an instructor at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. In addition to my teaching and dissertation research, I am a doctoral 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