Sonia Giebel

Sonia Giebel, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow at the Research Professorship Global Sociology (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung) and a Dahrendorf Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Her work bridges sociology of education, identity studies, and computational methods, focusing on diversity discourses in higher education admissions.

• Primary Affiliation: Global Sociology, WZB
• Current Fellowship: Dahrendorf Fellow, University of Oxford

Her research explores:

• How universities construct social identities and diversity frameworks
• Income disparities in college application strategies
• Gender performance in STEM admissions
• Computational analysis of mass application data

Recent publications span Poetics, Sociology of Education, and Science Advances, with broader trends showing interdisciplinary analysis of meritocracy and systemic bias. Media outlets including the New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education have featured her work.

Scientific recognition includes:

• Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (Vietnam)
• Dahrendorf Fellow (Oxford, 2025)

She is completing her first book, Diversity in Pieces (University of Chicago Press), analyzing multiracial applicants' narratives in college admissions.