Biography

Mona Zahir came to sociology by way of an eclectic undergraduate education in philosophy at the University of Chicago, where she also took coursework in biology, chemistry, computer science, social science, and the humanities. She ultimately decided that sociological research methods and theories were best suited to her interests and her ultimate goal of producing knowledge towards positive social impact.

Mona’s main methodological interests include combining qualitative and quantitative insights gained from content analysis of digital data (via qualitative coding as well as computational topic modelling); descriptive and inferential statistics of organizational data; social network analysis; surveys; and interviews.

Mona’s main theoretical interests concern the role of organizational actors from various sectors (academia, government, industry, non-profit) in promoting (or curtailing) biotechnology to solve social problems. Examining the dual role of organizations in the economy and social sphere is of particular interest.

Mona’s main empirical interest focuses on the technology of cellular agriculture applied to the food industry.