Michael
Branch
Educations & Degrees:
MA, Sociology, Syracuse University, 2017
BA, Foreign Languages – French Specialization, Elmira College, 2014
Research Interests:
Police, Criminal Justice, Race, and Sociological Theory
Biography
Michael Branch is a fourth-year doctoral student
in Sociology at Syracuse University, where he also received his master’s
degree. His bachelor’s degree is from Elmira College in Foreign Languages with
a specialization in French. Michael's academic focus is on police, criminal
justice, race, and sociological theory. His tentative dissertation project is
an ethnographic work that focuses on how racial images and narratives are
constructed and employed in rural policing, areas which commonly have mostly
white populations. Michael has conducted two years of fieldwork with police
academies, examining how gender and masculinity are contextualized in the
training of future law enforcement officers and how police recruits are taught
to see policing as a career that is precarious both in terms of job security
and life security, which does not match statistical data about policing. He has
also conducted research on military veterans’ support of police. He has worked
as a research assistant and interviewer on a project that investigated factors
influencing usage of pre-exposure prophylaxis for young men who have sex with
men. Michael received Syracuse University’s Outstanding Teaching Assistant
award last year and currently serves as the Graduate Representative in the Sociology
Graduate Student Assemblage.