News

SOAN alum Rich Majerus ’07 was appointed Vice President for Strategic Planning and Marketing and Communications at Trinity College.

Trinity President Dan Lugo said, “Rich is a leader with deep experience in higher education, data, and operational strategy. He brings a breadth of expertise across institutional strategic planning, marketing and communications, enrollment, advancement, and operations—a unique combination that will help us guide Trinity’s next chapter.”

SOAN alum Janaki Fisher-Merritt ’99 and ARTH alum Anne Dugan ’00 were featured in the Duluth Reader for their Food Farm — and their rutabagas! The piece is titled, “Rutabaga propaganda: Spreading the gospel about the underappreciated root vegetable.”

Cheryl Yin, assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton, received a Grant-in-Aid Award to conduct archival research at the Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA) at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Her project, “The Relationship between Southeast Asian Refugees and Refugee Sponsors,” examines the history of refugee sponsorship and the complex relationships formed between refugees and sponsors. Alongside interviews, Yin will examine IHRCA archival materials regarding refugee resettlement policies and procedures.

Annette Nierobisz, Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at Carleton, has published a chapter in the newly released Handbook on Unemployment and Society titled, “Flexible Workers and Other Fantastical Myths of the Neoliberal Era.” The piece explores how life stage creates unique restrictions for older, unemployed workers, which challenges their capacity for geographic relocation.

SOAN and BIOL major Maggie Hu ’26 has had a paper accepted for the AAGE biennial conference taking place in Amherst, Massachusetts, May 8 – 10, 2026. Her paper is titled “Aging Successfully With Parkinson’s Disease,” and builds on both her comps research and a Spring Term 2025 ACE project with the Rock Steady Boxing program at the Northfield Area Family YMCA that Maggie completed in the course Anthropology of Health and Illness. The Association for Anthropology, Gerontology, and the Life Course (AAGE) was established in 1978 as a multidisciplinary group dedicated to the exploration and understanding of aging within and across the diversity of human cultures, taking a holistic, comparative, and international perspective.

SOAN alum Raul Raymundo ’87 published a letter to the editor in the January 12 edition of the Chicago Tribune titled, “We deserve answers.”

Cheryl Yin, assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton, presented a paper on October 25 at the 2025 Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies Conference in Victoria, B.C. on a panel that she also organized. Her paper, “‘They Said we Were all Equal’: competing Ideologies Surrounding (Linguistic) Equality under the Khmer Rouge,” analyzes two stereotypical figures associated with the Khmer Rouge: the communist revolutionary and the cruel torturer. Yin’s panel addressed the conference theme, “Pursuing the Common Good,” through a discussion of language.

Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, Broom Professor of Social Demography and Anthropology at Carleton, presented a paper titled, “Un/commoning Kinscription: Financial and Emotional Economies of Bamileke (Cameroon) Reluctance toward Child Fostering” at the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology (DGSKA) in Cologne, on September 30. To her delight, a Carleton SOAN alum,— Andrew Haxby ’03, now in a post-doctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology — was on the same panel.

Annette Nierobisz, Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at Carleton, published an opinion essay with co-author Dana Sawchuk titled, “Gen X may be the first to need a universal basic income after late-career job loss,” in The Hill.

Annette Nierobisz, Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at Carleton, published an op-ed for Fortune on August 24 titled, “We interviewed 62 older Minnesotans who lost white-collar jobs later in life. Nearly 75% refused to move, and 3 big problems kept them locked in place.” The essay is co-authored with Dana Sawchuk of Wilfrid Laurier University.