Kristen Velyvis

Kristen A. Velyvis is a graduate student in the department of Sociology. Her main focus within sociology has been demography, which she has used to look specifically at the spread of HIV in Senegal. In 1997, Kristen conducted her Masters Thesis research in Dakar, Senegal. She studied the sexual networks of migrant Serere women and discovered that they had fewer sexual partners than the literature on economically vulnerable, migrant women in Africa suggests. This surprising finding inspired her dissertation research into the protective factors that shield migrant Serere women from sexual behavior that puts many other African women at risk for HIV infection. To further this research, Kristen participated in a Dual Citizen Intellectual Summer School, which provided her with an opportunity to spend six weeks engaging with African scholars and doctoral students and learning more about reproductive health in Africa before she returns to Senegal this fall to begin her dissertation research.

Read Kristen’s post-fellowship report here.