Zosia Cooper

I am a PhD candidate in Sociology at UC San Diego. I study the future of work from the perspective of workers, with a particular interest in how people build security and make meaning of work. I employ mixed methods, using quantitative data to establish trends in behavior and qualitative data to uncover social psychological and organizational mechanisms.

A defining feature of contemporary work is uncertainty, as careers are unsettled by both economic and technological change. In one stream of work, I examine how early career workers, for whom these uncertainties are most acute, navigate them. Another (related) feature is changing attitudes about the centrality of work in peoples’ lives; a second stream traces the emergence and effects of these beliefs. A final stream asks how professionals experience and manage political tension in their fields. My CV can be found at this link.