Jane Zavisca

As Associate Dean, Dr. Zavisca’s chief goal is to foster an environment in which research and scholarship can thrive. She directs research development initiatives in SBS, in cooperation with the Social and Behavior Sciences Research Institute (SBSRI) and UA’s Research Development Services (RDS). She advises on college priorities and policies in relation to research, and is also the primary point of contact for research ethics and compliance issues and for research center governance in SBS. She works with units across the university to connect SBS researchers with scholarly, governmental, and public communities. Dr. Zavisca is available to consult with faculty on developing their research agendas, identify and apply resources to support their research, building research collaborations, and navigating UA’s research infrastructure. Dr. Zavisca is also responsible for graduate affairs in SBS and collaborates with UA’s Graduate College on initiatives related to graduate student funding, professional development, and placement.

Dr. Zavisca’s primary scholarly expertise as a sociologist is in the areas of housing, property rights, stratification, and policies in the post-Soviet region. She also studies cultural understandings of mortgages in the United States. Her work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright, and UA’s Confluencenter. She has broad training and experience in quantitative, qualitative, and historical/archival research methods. Courses she has taught include research design, statistic, survey design, the social meaning of money, and the sociology of culture, as well as graduate professionalization seminars on research presentations and job placement strategies.