Cristen Dalessandro

I am a sociologist currently in Colorado (PhD University of Colorado Boulder) studying inequalities, young adulthood, intimacy, and identity. This fall (2018), I will be joining Pacific University (Oregon) and teaching courses on family, gender, qualitative methods, and public sociology!

My research, which broadly focuses on identity, inequalities, and intimacy in young adulthood, has been published in outlets such as Gender & Society, Sexualities, Sociological Perspectives, Culture, Health & Sexuality, and other peer-reviewed journals. My dissertation project explores the intimacy stories of young adults aged 22-32 and interrogates how young adults’ relationship narratives both reveal the importance of personal and group identities to young people’s understandings of intimacy and selfhood while at the same time they help naturalize ideas about identity differences that may contribute to inequality. I also explore how young adults’ identity aspirations (in addition to their backgrounds) can help shape how they understand, and make sense of, themselves.