Bio

Sofia Checa is a fifth year graduate student. Her research interests include political sociology, social movements, social change, participatory democracy, income inequality, and comparative-historical methods. She is currently working on her dissertation, looking at pro-democracy movements in Pakistan. Sofia has served on a number of departmental committees including the Graduate Policy Committee, the Chair Search Committee, and served as the Co-chair of the Sociology Graduate Student Association. She has also been an active member of different campus groups including the Graduate Employee Organization, the Graduate Student Senate, the UMass Anti-War Coalition, and the Palestine Action Coalition.

Education

2003 M.A. Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park
2000 Masters in Business Administration, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad (Pakistan)
1997 B.Sc. Mathematics, Statistics, and Psychology, Federal Government College, Islamabad (Pakistan)

Research

Dissertation title: Comparing Pro-Democracy Movements in Pakistan: The 1960s and 2000s

Comprehensive exam (paper) title: Political Parties and Participatory Democracy: The Case of the Brazilian Workers’ Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Research Assistant for Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi (UMass) on participatory governance, August – December 2005.

Research Assistant for Professor Patricio Korzeniewicz, (University of Maryland, College Park) on long-term trends in inequalities between countries, August 2002 – May 2003

Research Intern for the Children’s Department at the National Crime Prevention Council in Washington, D.C., October 2003 – June 2004.

Research intern for the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., September 2003.

Publications
“Brazil’s Workers’ Party: From Local Practices to National Power” with Gianpolo Baiocchi.  December 2007. WorkingUSA: A Journal of Labor and Society, 10 (4), p. 411-430.   

“The New and the Old in Brazil’s PT” with Gianpaolo Baiocchi. In Leftovers: Tales of the Latin American Left. Jorge Castañeda and Marco .A. Morales (eds). (2008, Routledge).

“Cities as New Spaces for Citizenship Claims: Globalization, Urban Politics and Civil Society in Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa in the 1990s” Forthcoming (2009) in Altered States: Politics After Democracy. Omar Dahbour (ed). New York: Routledge.

Teaching

Sociology 106 – Race, Class, Gender & Ethnicity, Fall 2006
Sociology 401 – Sociological Theories and Perspectives, Junior Writing Component, Spring 2006

TA experience
Sociology 212 – Elementary Statistics, Fall 2007
Sociology 106 – Race, Class, Gender & Ethnicity, Spring 2007 & Fall 2004
Sociology 107 – Contemporary American Society, Fall 2005
Sociology 103 – Social Problems, Spring 2005
Sociology 100 – Introduction to Sociology, Fall 2001 & Spring 2002

Undergraduate program
Project Assistant for the Undergraduate Program, Fall 2007-Spring 2008.