Academic Status
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Mikhail Balaev received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Oregon in 2008. Growing up in Soviet Russia, he witnessed the massive socio-economic change brought by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which inspired his interest in sociology. Prior to coming to Flinders University, Mikhail worked at Washington State University in the United States.
Mikhail is a macro-sociologist with broad academic interests in economic and political sociology and research methods. His current work analyses the role of the economic elite in the formation of the upper level of the executive branch in the U.S. government. This NSF and ASA sponsored multi-year project includes the collection of data on the professional affiliations of Presidential appointees before and after executive government office from 1978 to the present. His goal is to create a dynamic time-series network model of the political power elite in the U.S.
2008. Ph.D., Sociology. University of Oregon.
2005. MA, Sociology. University of Oregon.
In addition to receiving formal degrees, Mikhail received extensive research training at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research (Summer Program):
2012. Social Network Analysis: An Introduction. ICPSR, Summer Program. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).
2011. Latent Growth Curve Models: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach. ICPSR, Summer Program. UNC.
2011. Structural Equation Models: An Introduction. ICPSR, Summer Program. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
2006. Categorical Data Analysis: Models for Binary, Ordinal, Nominal, and Count Outcomes. ICPSR, Summer Program. UNC.
2013. “A Longitudinal Analysis of Networks and Changes in Network Dynamics”, National Science Foundation, Award# 1330507 -- USD $166,571 (AUD $214,877).
2013. “Who Rules America Revisited”, American Sociological Association's Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline -- USD $7,000 (AUD $9,030).
Mikhail is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology. His teaching focus is Research Methods, Quantitative Methods, Globalization, and Economic Sociology.
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