Shepherding Curiosity Two innovative sociology research projects conducted in collaboration with professor of sociology Jonathan Eastwood give “networking” a whole new meaning.

By Kelsey Goodwin
May 26, 2025

During the 2024-2025 academic year, coffee and collaboration became the hallmark of Friday afternoons for Trip Wright ’25, Shannon Tozier ’25 and professor of sociology Jonathan Eastwood. The trio met weekly at Pronto, a popular coffee shop and gelateria in downtown Lexington, to discuss, debate and collaborate on the two students’ senior thesis projects.

Wright, a sociology major with minors in data science and poverty and human capability studies, and Tozier, a sociology and philosophy double major with a minor in poverty and human capability studies, chose projects that share a foundation in computational sociology and network analysis, research interests that are central to Eastwood’s work and teaching.

Tozier’s project explores how negative social relationships shape interpersonal networks and social behavior. Their project was shaped by their simultaneous coursework in philosophy and network science, specifically a final project they completed in their network science class with Eastwood, which asked students to build visual models of social networks based on popular shows or movies – in Tozier’s case, the show “Glee.” The project explored how relationships evolve over time and sparked Tozier’s interest in a concept known as negative ties. This term refers to relationships people try to avoid, and Tozier says it is an under researched area in network analysis. At the same time, Tozier was taking a philosophy class that centered around love and commitment and realized the two were connected in key ways.

“I realized [my philosophy class] was all about how our relationships to each other shape our normative demands on the ways we’re supposed to act and that this connects perfectly to this network science course,” Tozier remembers, “and these particular relationships that are sort of influencing the entire social sphere.”

Tozier decided to integrate technical modeling with ethical and theoretical concerns as they mapped out the project.

“Shannon’s ability to connect philosophical and sociological ideas with computational methods goes well beyond what one would typically expect of an undergraduate student,” Eastwood says. “Moving from an idea about friction in social life to a realization that a lot of existing research on relational networks likely misses important negative ties, to developing a plan to examine the ability of available data imputation strategies to address the issue — just seeing that as a potential pathway for research is very impressive, and pulling it off is a real achievement.”

Tozier says they did not know they wanted to major in sociology when they arrived at W&L and were inspired by their first course with Eastwood to pursue their current path.

“He’s one of my biggest mentors on campus,” Tozier says. “Methodologically, he’s also interested in the kind of quantitative analysis that interests me, too. I have often gone to his office hours to listen to him explain things to other students just to get his perspective and take advantage of the opportunity to absorb as much of that as I can while I’m here.”

“Working with these students on these projects has been fulfilling, and those weekly gelato meetings were some of the most fun teaching experiences I’ve had in my career.”

~ Jonathan Eastwood, professor of sociology 

Tozier plans to pursue a doctoral program in sociology at Duke University after graduation and is interested in continuing to study inequality, disability and network theory as they embark on their doctoral research. Tozier says the group’s weekly meetings have been energizing as they complete this chapter of their research experience.

“It’s been so great for keeping me on track and motivated to have a weekly check-in and progress update,” Tozier says. “I’m also a big proponent of discussing ideas with peers. I think that’s so crucial to academia as a whole — being able to bounce your ideas off other people and develop them. There have definitely been times I’ve come in with this very half-baked idea, but I sit down with them for an hour and I discuss it and come out with such clarity about the next step forward. It’s also been wonderful to see Trip’s project evolve as well.”

Wright’s data-intensive project examines the role of public transportation systems in shaping social inequalities across urban environments. Focusing on Washington, D.C., Dallas and Atlanta, the project uses advanced computational modeling and what is known as a network-based regression model to analyze whether public transit mitigates or reinforces socioeconomic and racial inequalities. Wright says his project approaches neighborhoods as nodes in a network, with public transit travel times serving as weighted ties between points, and he drew datasets from both existing demographic data for the cities he chose to study and travel time simulations generated from R, a programming language widely used in sociology research for data analysis and visualization.

Wright’s research was inspired by a summer internship with Charles Allen ’99, a member of the D.C. Council and chair of the council’s Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

“I spent two months focused on transportation policy and organized a town hall to help inform [Allen’s] constituents about a proposed bus route redesign, the first since the system was established nearly 50 years ago,” Wright says. “The event was at an elementary school, and it was there that I had an ‘aha’ moment. I realized the consequences of upending these routes that people have shared their lives around, and that got me thinking about how existing transportation offerings serve residents across the city.”

Wright added that he wanted the models in his project to explore whether public transit can either be a force for removing inequalities or reinforcing them and said Eastwood was instrumental in helping him bring his innovative vision to life.

“He really helped steer me toward the right statistical model for what I was trying to do because the way I’m applying it to neighborhoods is, as far as we know, totally new,” Wright says. “He actually met the person who developed this model at a conference maybe two summers ago, and when we first started thinking about using it, he ran it by him. The guy was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve never seen anyone use it like this before.’ So, it’s kind of uncharted territory for everyone involved, which is really exciting. Especially as an undergrad, it feels pretty incredible to be using this model to explore a question I’m genuinely fascinated by in a totally new way.”

Wright hopes to pursue work after graduation in transportation, housing and economic development and said working collaboratively on this project with Tozier and Eastwood has been invaluable preparation for his future.

“It’s been really nice having Shannon as a sounding board,” Wright says, “where we sit with Dr. Eastwood and have these intellectual discussions over coffee or gelato once a week. I feel like I’m really learning as a student and researcher with this project and that it’s stretched my brain in ways that a typical seminar course wouldn’t have.”

Wright emphasized the importance of the mentorship he has received from Eastwood throughout his time at W&L, describing him as “the perfect shepherd for all my curiosities.”

“I’ve joked that I’m getting a B.A. in Dr. Eastwood,” Wright says. “I think a lot of my successes in the project have been built on various courses that I’ve taken from him and the skills that I’ve learned and built over the last three and a half years learning from him.”

“Trip demonstrated outstanding initiative and the ability to do sustained, complex and novel work. I think this is partially due to the depth of his curiosity,” Eastwood says. “One of the things that has impressed me the most is his ability to take an idea and run with it, drawing both on his understanding of urban design and policy questions and his facility with using computational skills as he addresses those questions. There were many weeks when I was shocked by how much he had accomplished since our previous meeting.”

Eastwood said meeting with the two students weekly and having in-depth conversations with them mirrors the kind of work they will do in graduate school.

“Working with these students on these projects has been fulfilling, and those weekly gelato meetings were some of the most fun teaching experiences I’ve had in my career,” Eastwood says. “Both students were smart and motivated when they arrived at W&L, and I think they have taken great advantage of the many opportunities at this university. As a result, they’ve grown tremendously, and I think they’re graduating as a pair of intellectual powerhouses. I’m confident they will have impactful careers in which they make good use of their talents, and they are certainly well on their way.”

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