After earning a Masters in Sociology from UW, Akiko Yoshida entered the PhD program in Sociology at the University of Oklahoma. She was recognized
as the Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year for the year 2008-09 by both the University
of Oklahoma and the OU Sociology Department. She completed her doctoral degree in
May 2010 and won the Provost’s PhD Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences, Education,
and the Professions Division. We are very proud of her successes at OU!
Akiko is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology,
and Criminal Justice at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. She teaches introduction
to sociology, as well as courses on family, demography, research methods, and contemporary
Japanese society. Her general research interests are family, family demography, gender
and sexuality, and the intersection of class, gender, race/ethnicity, and nationality.
She utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods, and has conducted research
on increased singlehood among women in Japan, women who sell Mary Kay products, and
various forms of father involvement.
Akiko is currently working on a research project on single men in Japan while
writing papers and a book manuscript based on her dissertation research, which was
on singlehood in Japan. She is very active in terms of presenting her research at
various conferences and is already a published author, having recently published a
paper in Marriage and Family Review, and another paper “Women at Work: Tupperware,
Passion Parties, and Beyond” in an edited book by Williams and Bemiller.
