Dr.
Schnittker: Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences
Dr.
Jason Schnittker, assistant professor of sociology,
has been appointed the Janice and Julian Bers Assistant
Professor
in the Social Sciences, SAS Dean Preston has announced.
Dr. Schnittker joined the faculty in 2001 after completing
both his Ph.D. and M.A. at Indiana University and his
B.A. at the University of Dayton, where he graduated summa
cum laude.
In
addition to teaching courses on medical sociology, social
psychology, and the sociology of mental illness, Dr.
Schnittker serves as the associate director of the Population
Aging Research Center and is a faculty affiliate of the
Health and Societies undergraduate program, and of the
Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program.
Dr.
Schnittker has completed extensive research in the fields
of social psychology, medical sociology, research methods,
and stratification. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn,
he supervised the "Indianapolis Quality of Life and Health
Study" at Indiana University.
His
scholarship explores sociodemographic differences in
beliefs about health, physicians, and medicine, as well
as the epidemiological associations between race, socioeconomic
status, and health. Along with a variety of research
awards Dr. Schnittker has received grants from the National
Institute of Aging and the National Institute of Mental
Health.
Dr.
Schnittker's work has been published in leading scholarly
journals including the American Sociological Review, Journal
of Health and Social Behavior, Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion, and Social Psychology
Quarterly. His forthcoming article "Misgivings of
Medicine?: African Americans' Skepticism of Psychiatric
Medication" will be included in an upcoming issue of
the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, a journal
for which he also serves on the editorial board. The
author of several book reviews, Dr. Schnittker's latest
review addresses "Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial
Profiling During a Medical Nightmare," by Charles L.
Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs.
This
chair was created by Janice Smith Bers, who earned her
B.A. in elementary education at Penn in 1939, and her
husband, the late Julian S. Bers. Mr. Bers studied finance
at the Wharton School and was honored with Penn's Alumni
Award of Merit in 1968. An Emeritus Trustee of
the University, Mr. Bers also served as a trustee of
the Health System.
