Brendan Frizzell

Brendan Frizzell is a rising third-year Sociology PhD student at the University of Southern California. His research broadly investigates sociological phenomena in Latin America, but he is also interested in sociology of family, gender & sexuality, economic sociology, immigration, social demography, globalization, and development. His empirical paper (master’s thesis equivalent) takes a demographic approach to understand how steadily rising inflation and unemployment in Argentina affect family formation and union types. A second project investigates how the US Dollar is used as a tool of financial, hegemonic domination over Latin American countries at macro-, meso-, and micro-level scales. As a descendant of Panamanian immigrant to the United States, each of his research areas and projects are not only pertinent to his own life, but to many others who often go unnoticed by sociological literature and western academia at large. At USC, he primarily works with the following faculty: Daniela Urbina Julio, Emily Smith-Greenaway, Dan Schrage, and Tomás Gold. 

Prior to enrolling as a doctoral student at USC, Brendan graduated cum laude from Rice University with majors in Sociology, Spanish & Portuguese, and Latin American & Latinx Studies and certificates in Civic Leadership and Portuguese Language. He was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, Gateway Scholars Fellow, Goliard Travel Fellow, and Loewenstern Fellow. His senior honors thesis in sociology entitled “Mi casa es tu casa: Investigating Cohabitation and Inflation Rates in Gran Buenos Aires” studied the relationship between economic instability and family-formation practices, and his capstone project in civic leadership focused on analyzing interviews conducted by Advocates for Immigrant Survivors, a Houston-based NGO. In addition to this work, he worked as a research assistant for Christina Diaz, Elizabeth Roberto, Jaleh Jalili, and Gustavo Guajardo. 

• BA Rice University, 5/2024