CURB GRADUATE RESEARCH AFFILIATES

 

Steve Lee

Steve S. Lee grew up in Springfield, Virginia and completed his undergraduate degree in sociology in 1997 from James Madison University.  Currently, he is a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt University.  He has written extensively on the musical and artistic landscape in American culture.  Recent public publications include a chapter, co-authored with Richard A. Peterson, on the social development of alternative country music in the United States, which was published in the book Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual.  He published an article for the journal Poetics on the effects of telecommunications deregulation in the 1990s on the diversity of music that Americans hear on the radio.  His dissertation examines the aesthetic mobility of cultural forms in the United States during the 20th century.

 

Josh Packard

Josh Packard is a fourth year student in the Sociology Ph.D program at Vanderbilt University.  He completed his undergraduate work in 2000 with a B.A. in English from Texas Lutheran University.  Past research projects have included an examination of how female football players negotiate risk in pursuit of personal fulfillment, along with a community level perspective on the causes of suicide.  He is currently engaged in his dissertation about how culture and religion interact with technology to shape new religious groups.

 

 

David Touve

David Touve is in the Ph.D program in Management at Vanderbilt University, within the Organizational Studies group at the Owen Graduate School of Business.  He received a MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, with additional coursework at the Stern School of Business at NYU, and received a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.  He began his career on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, quickly moving from a private trading group to membership in the exchange, and finally to managing his own market making operation.    In 1998, he licensed music from a group of independent artists and built a web service, Audiodiner.  The project received immediate attention and was cited in Billboard, Wired, and Crains.  David also led the marketing efforts for Sonique, a media player company acquired by Lycos, and for Kick, a media application developer acquired by Sony.  While completing his MBA, David moonlighted as a video game journalist, contributing to the site Joystiq.com.   He has consulted on various media and technology projects, including a mobile and wireless project for McDonalds, and worked with and supported social projects including a free computer lab in Chicago's central public library and a needs-directed group, Random Acts.

 

 

 

CURB UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH AFFILIATES

 

Brielle Bryan

Brielle Bryan is a junior in Vanderbilt’s College of Arts & Science from Atlanta, Georgia.  She is a Communication Studies, Sociology, and Theatre triple major.  She first started working with the Curb Center in the spring of 2005 as an assistant producer for the Looking Forward documentary filmed for use at the Wallace Conference and is now an undergraduate research assistant.  She is also actively involved in Vanderbilt University Theatre as an actress and a member of the student executive board.

 

 

Ania Lipowska

Ania Lipowska began working at the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy in August, 2005.  A native of Krakow, Poland, she moved to Atlanta, Georgia when she was seven years old.  She has been playing the violin for fourteen years and is currently pursuing a Violin Performance major at the Blair School of Music.  As a senior at Vanderbilt, she is also earning a second major in Sociology.

 

 

Kazmira Pytlak

Kazmira Pytlak is a native of Brooklyn, New York and a junior in the College of Arts & Science. While majoring in anthropology, her interests in culture and human rights extend into various disciplines and environments, from sociology, history and philosophy, to community service and organizing related to issues of social and economic inequality. Her post-undergraduate considerations include graduate studies in anthropology and non-profit work abroad, and she hopes to one day be an educator.

 

Neala Swaminatha

Neala Swaminatha is a junior at Vanderbilt pursuing a Bachelor of Music from the Blair School of Music. In addition to conducting an independent study focused on cultural policy with Bill Ivey, she has completed several internships in the arts management field.  She is currently a teaching assistant for Music, Arts, and Ideas, a Vanderbilt undergraduate class that explores the changing historical relationships among music, fine arts, literature, and philosophy.  She was an assistant producer for the Looking Forward documentary filmed for use at the Wallace Conference and is now an undergraduate research assistant.  Neala is an active flutist in both the Vanderbilt and Nashville communities.  Since her freshman year she has served as principal flutist in several Blair ensembles including the Vanderbilt Orchestra, Vanderbilt Wind Ensemble, and Vanderbilt New Music Ensemble.