Three UMaine students named to American Sociological Association Honors Program

Three University of Maine students have been selected into the American Sociological Association (ASA) Honors Program and will present research at the group’s 112th annual meeting in Montreal this August.

Competitively selected from across the nation, the ASA Honors Program brings sociology students to the annual meeting to participate in a range of activities, including the presentation of research projects in a roundtable setting. This year, all three of UMaine’s applicants — Alli DellaMattera, Julianna Ferguson and Sam Saucier — were accepted into the program based on the quality of their research projects.

DellaMattera, a sociology and Spanish double major and Honors College student from Belfast, Maine, worked with Steven Barkan, interim chair of the Department of Sociology, on an independent study looking at family influence on problem drinking among young adults.

Ferguson’s research project, which she also worked on through an independent study with Barkan, focused on adverse childhood experiences and the predictors of juvenile violence. Ferguson is a sociology major from Massachusetts with minors in Spanish and political science.

Saucier, from Saco, Maine, will present her research on the social constructs learned through consuming pornography. A double major in sociology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, and an Honors College student, Saucier’s project encapsulated her honors thesis and the research she has done in her majors.

The students also will present their research at the 2017 UMaine Student Symposium on April 24 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.