Ellen Meiser

Ellen Meiser is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo within the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on food studies, workplace violence in restaurant kitchens, and medical sociology with intersectional gender analysis.

Key contributions include:

• Groundbreaking work on violence normalization in commercial kitchens via food media analysis
• Development of kitchen capital theory explaining career advancement in culinary fields
• Co-creator of The Social Breakdown sociology podcast with 7,800+ monthly listeners

Her research methodology combines ethnographic fieldwork (120+ hours in restaurant kitchens) with 50 in-depth interviews of culinary professionals. She actively engages students through community-based research projects, notably the 2023 East Hawaiʻi Policing Study and Maunakea field excursions (huakaʻi) for experiential learning.

Current work explores medical sociology through Congrats! You’ve Won the Cancer Lotto! – a pop sociology book co-authored with Nathalie Rita about young cancer patients’ experiences.