LaShawnDa Pittman-Gay received her Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University in 2010 and is currently a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow here in Sociology. Associate Professor Deirdre Oakley is her Sponsoring Scientist and Dr. Pittman-Gay is collaborating on the Public Housing Project, as well as continuing her own research. As an ethnographer she complements the Public Housing Research team. Dr. Pittman-Gay is certainly familiar with GSU because she received her Bachelor’s degree in Urban Government Administration here in the 1990s. Dr. Pittman-Gay recently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Poverty Center (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2010-2011). Her dissertation, “Standing in the Gap: African American Caregiving Grandmothers,” uses in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork to examine how low-income, urban custodial grandmothers cope with the demands of primary caregiving. Her other research interests include social inequality; poverty; race, class, and gender; black women and HIV/AIDS; and health disparities. Her research has been funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Ford Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation.
Contact Information:
Office: 404-413-6601
Email: lpittman@gsu.edu
Or
lashawndapittman2009@u.northwestern.edu
