Josephine Carrier
Josephine Carrier is a graduate from Union University in Jackson, TN, where she double majored in Sociology and Mathematics. Originally from a rural Appalachian town in northeast Tennessee, she always knew that substance abuse was a problem in her region but didn’t realize the scale of the opioid epidemic until she took a Social Problems class at Union. By then, she had rediscovered her passion for mathematics and realized that a career researching issues in rural areas like her hometown was a feasible possibility. She then decided to pursue Discipline-Specific Honors in Sociology, a program that allowed her to work on her thesis during upper-level coursework outside of capstone class, and thus, produce a more well-developed project. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University.
Carrier worked on two different projects as a SUMR Scholar: one with Dr. Evan Anderson, JD, PhD evaluating the Philadelphia Police Assisted Diversion program to combat the opioid epidemic, and one with Michael Blank, PhD and Dr. Donna Coviello, PhD on the PATH for Triples Study (PFT), which identified HIV positive patients with mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Carrier assisted with data analysis tasks and used data from this study and others to further her current research questions and develop new ones.
When she’s not reading about drugs or playing with numbers, she enjoys winning tournaments with Union’s debate team, spending quality time with friends, and reading about other things.