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LERA 27th Annual PhD Student Consortium

"Navigating Polarization as a Junior Academic in Labor Relations"

Saturday, June 14, 2025, 9:15 am - 12 pm

(Held in Conjunction with the LERA 77th Annual Meeting, June 12-15, 2025)

The 2025 consortium is sponsored by contributions from:

Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations
Florida International University, College of Business
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and IWER
Michigan State University, School or Human Resources and Labor Relations
Pennsylvania State University, School of Labor and Employment Relations
Rutgers University, School of Management and Labor Relations
The Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University
University of Toronto, Center for Industrial Relations and Human Resources
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School of Labor & Employment Relations
University of Minnesota, Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies
University of Saskatchewan, Edwards School of Business

Thank you graphic 

 

27th PhD Student Consortium Co-Chairs:
Kwon Hee Han Deepa Iyer Akierah Binns Tinu Mathew

Kwon Hee Han
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 

Deepa Kylasam Iyer
Cornell University 

Akierah Binns
University of Guelph 

Tinu Mathew
York University 

 

What to expect

This year’s PhD consortium looks at how labor researchers and practitioners can work with polarization in the workplace and society. How can early-career scholars study contested issues? How can junior scholars publish in the polarized times? Junior scholars face the dual challenge of navigating the broader context in which they operate while balancing their careers and contributions to academia. This consortium aims to help PhD students address these challenges while building academic careers.

We will have a panel discussion with invited speakers around this theme. We are planning to invite scholars who can offer insights on exploring research topics that are socially or politically contested. We then move on to an interactive discussion around preparing for job talks and receiving mentorship and feedback as junior scholars. Whether you’re a graduate student, an early-career researcher, an established academic, or someone considering non-traditional career opportunities, this panel promises to provide valuable insights and actionable advice to support your success in your chosen journey.

 

2025 LERA PhD Student Consortium Agenda

9:15 am - 9:30 am:  Introduction and Welcome

9:30 am - 10:30 am: Part 1 - Democracy and the Future of Unions

  • Dr. Virginia Doellgast, Anne Evans Estabrook Professor of Employment Relations and Dispute Resolution, ILR School, Cornell University
  • Dr. John Logan, Professor of Labor and Employment Studies, Lam Family College of Business, San Francisco State University
  • Dr. Rachel Erstad, Research Director, Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies
  • Dr. Jack Fiorito, J. Frank Dame Professor of Management, Florida State University's College of Business 

10:30 am - 10:45 am: Break

10:45 am - 11:45 am: Part 2 - Mentoring and Publication

  • Dr. John Kallas, Assistant Professor, School of Labor and Employment Relations, University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
  • Dr. Adam Seth Litwin, Associate Professor, Global Labor and Work, Cornell University
  • Dr. Jake Rosenfeld, Professor and Chair of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis
  • Dr. Maite Tapia, Associate Professor, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Michigan State University
  • Dr. Danielle van Jaarsveld, E.D. MacPhee Professor of Management, University of British Columbia 
  • Dr. Carla Lima Aranzaes, Assistant Professor, School of Labor and Employment Relations, Pennsylvania State University
  • Dr. Michael Maffie, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, SC Johnson College of Business, Nolan School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University

11:45 am - 12 pm: Wrap-up and informal session (to gather interest for the next PhD Consortium)

Evening activities to be determined.

RSVP

You will have the opportunity to RSVP to this event at the time that you register for the LERA 77th Annual Meeting, June 12-15, 2025, Seattle, WA. If you are already registered and would like to attend this consortium, please contact [email protected] so it can be added to your registration.


Registration

The registration fee includes access to both the PhD Student Consortium and to the entire 4 days of LERA Annual Meeting.

Register at the 77th Annual Meeting homepage. For best price register by the early bird discount deadline, March 25, 2025. Registration fee is deeply discounted for LERA student members.

Reimbursement

Depending on fundraising, students attending the consortium may be reimbursed all or a portion of the student rate ($231) for their meeting registration fees following the conference. You will need to be present at the consortium and sign-in. Following the consortium, refunds will made to the card you used when you registered.

Speaker Bios

Panel 1 - Discussion on Democracy and the Future of Unions

Dr. Virginia Doellgast, Anne Evans Estabrook Professor of Employment Relations and Dispute Resolution, ILR School, Cornell University (awaiting bio)

Dr. John Logan, Professor of Labor and Employment Studies, Lam Family College of Business, San Francisco State University.
 

John Logan is Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University and a visiting fellow at the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center. Prior to that, he was Director of Research at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, Assistant and Associate Professor of Labor and Employment at the London School of Economic and Political Science and a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Labor and Employment-UCLA. He has published widely on unions and labor-management relations in the United States and internationally. 

Dr. Rachel Erstad, Research Director, Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies

Rachel Erstad (she/her/hers) grew up in rural Montana with her grandparents. She became involved in activism as a college student in Fargo, North Dakota, and took a position with a non-profit working to elect President Obama in 2008. At that time, she saw the power of organized labor as a driving force for change. In 2013, she began working at SEIU Healthcare 1199NW as an organizer and then transitioned into research in 2016. She led the team for over three years, developing new team members and providing research support for the union and not-yet-union members across Washington State and Montana. At the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, Rachel directs the Center's first applied research team, provides research support to worker-focused organizations, teaches a labor research class, and oversees our labor research grant outreach and selection process.

Dr. Jack Fiorito, J. Frank Dame Professor of Management, Florida State University's College of Business (awaiting bio)

 

Panel 2 - Mentorship (Roundtable discussion)

Dr. John Kallas, Assistant Professor, School of Labor and Employment Relations, University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign

Johnnie Kallas is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois' School of Labor and Employment Relations. He received his PhD from Cornell University's ILR School. His research focuses on strikes and labor organizing in the United States. He also serves as project director of the Labor Action Tracker, a comprehensive database of strike activity across the United States.

Dr. Adam Seth Litwin, Associate Professor, Global Labor and Work, Cornell University

Adam Seth Litwin is Associate Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell’s ILR School and serves as an associate editor at its flagship journal, the ILR Review. Over his 2022-2023 sabbatical, he served as the J. William Fulbright Visiting Professor of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia. Litwin’s research, anchored in industrial relations, examines the determinants and impact of labor relations structures and technological change.

Dr. Jake Rosenfeld, Professor and Chair of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis

Jake Rosenfeld is professor and chair of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis and a resident fellow of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy. His research focuses on the political and economic determinants of inequality in the United States and other advanced democracies. Rosenfeld’s 2014 book, What Unions No Longer Do (Harvard University Press), shows in detail the consequences of organized labor’s decline. His 2021 book, You’re Paid What You’re Worth and Other Myths of the Modern Economy (Harvard University Press), seeks to answer the basic question of who gets what and why? Rosenfeld received his Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from Princeton University.

Dr. Maite Tapia, Associate Professor, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Michigan State University

Maite Tapia is an Associate Professor at the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on worker voice within the workplace as well as worker organizing and movement-building within the broader society, confronting specifically workers' social identities and systemic inequality.

She received her PhD in the Department of Comparative and International Labor at the School of Industrial Relations at Cornell University in 2013.

She has published in leading scholarly journals such as the ILR Review, Industrial Relations, the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Socio-Economic Review, Work Employment, and Society, the Journal of Industrial Relations, and the International Journal of Human Resource Management. In addition, she is the co-editor and co-author of a 2014 Cornell University ILR Press book "Mobilizing against Inequality: Unions, Immigrant Workers, and the Crisis of Capitalism" as well as the 2022 LERA Research Volume “A Racial Reckoning in Industrial Relations: Storytelling as Revolution from Within”. Her research has been funded by the Hans Boeckler Foundation. 

Professor Tapia received the John T. Dunlop award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) to recognize ‘outstanding academic contributions to research’ (2019) as well as Luis Aparicio Prize for ‘academic excellence’ at the International Labor and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) in 2021. She is currently a member of the Executive Board of LERA.

Dr. Danielle van Jaarsveld, E.D. MacPhee Professor of Management, University of British Columbia (awaiting bio)
Dr. Carla Lima Aranzaes, Assistant Professor, School of Labor and Employment Relations, Pennsylvania State University.
 

Dr. Carla Lima Aranzaes is an Assistant Professor for the School of Labor and Employment Relations at Penn State. She completed her PhD in Human Resources and Labor Relations at the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University. She holds a Master’s in Organizational Psychology (Mexico) and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration (Bolivia). Dr. Lima Aranzaes' research focuses on collective action, collective voice, leadership, social networks, solidarity, intersectionality, and workers well-being throughout the different stages of the unionization process and collective bargaining that workers must undergo to improve their working conditions and gain or maintain a collective voice. Her research utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies as analytical tools. Dr. Lima Aranzaes has conducted in-depth fieldwork in Bessemer, Alabama, and Garner, North Carolina, as part of a nationwide research project examining the working conditions at Amazon warehouses.

Dr. Michael Maffie, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, SC Johnson College of Business, Nolan School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University  (awaiting bio)