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2023 Distinguished Alumni - Sociology and Anthropology
Olivia M. Blackmon, BA Sociology '99, MA '11, PhD '15, boasts an impressive background with more than 20 years of professional experience in critical infrastructure, regional innovation, partnership development and business operations.
Kevin Nazar Pastor earned his PhD in Sociology from George Mason University in 2025. While at George Mason he was adjunct professor for the Honors College, graduate lecturer for the Department of Sociology, GRA for the Institute for Immigration Research and the Center for Social Science Research, president of the Public Sociology Association and member of the Global South Hub at CSSR.
For her dissertation, Zahra used large-scale survey data to developed identical regression models for the U.S. and U.K. to explore how gender, national origin, and policy structures influence household labor decisions among dual-earner married couples.
Her study is based in an Ayahuasca treatment center in the Peruvian jungle, where she was in residence as a researcher for nearly two years. In her analysis, plant medicine opens onto broad questions about Western conceptions of both 'sickness' and 'healing.' She interrogates the individualist assumptions that produce the 'pathologies' and the treatments associated with psychopharmacology and other modalities now typical in Western mental health practice.
I have two areas of interest, survey research and immigration. For survey, I am interested in questionnaire design, particularly web surveys, and innovative weighting techniques. For immigration, I am interested in household dynamics. How are immigrant and immigrant households different? What do parent-child interactions look like and how does that hinder or facilitate integration?
