Splash Biography

NADIA ALMASALKHI, PhD Student in UC Berkeley Dept. of Sociology

Major: Sociology

College/Employer: UC Berkeley

Year of Graduation: G

Brief Biographical Sketch:

I am a Syrian American (what sociologists would call a "second-generation Syrian immigrant"). I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and I attended the University of Kentucky, where I majored in Arabic & Islamic Studies, French, and International Studies. Throughout high school and college, I interned with refugee resettlement agencies and non-profit immigration law firms.

My current research is about how immigrants from an authoritarian country (Syria) exercise their political rights (or don't) after they settle in a democratic country (the US). In Fall 2019 I helped teach Introduction to Sociology at UC Berkeley, and in Spring 2020 I helped teach Contemporary Global Immigration.

Past Classes

(Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

O832: History & Theories of Migration and "Assimilation" in Splash Fall 2021 (Oct. 30, 2021)

Sociologists often ask 2 questions about migration: "Why do people migrate?" and "How do immigrants assimilate/integrate in the host society?" This will be a crash course on the many sociological explanations to these questions, as well as the historical changes in US immigration that have influenced changing perspectives over time.