Bringing the Whole Person to Work
How identities, experiences, and parts of life beyond formal work roles enter organizational life and influence connection.
Research
Research
My research centers on how people come to see and know one another as whole persons at work, and how that knowledge becomes consequential for relationships, connection, status, and public visibility.
Knowing Coworkers as Whole Persons
How conversations, disclosure, and interpersonal understanding shape meaningful connection at work.
Whole-Person Knowledge in Social Systems
How whole-person knowledge becomes embedded in status, visibility, and broader social dynamics.
Dissertation Research
Public Visibility & Professional Life
My dissertation examines what happens when professional lives increasingly unfold before public audiences. Through fieldwork and interviews with people who combine conventional employment with public-facing creator identities, I study how visibility beyond the workplace reshapes identity, relationships, and social dynamics within professional communities.
Dissertation Fieldwork
VidCon
A conference for digital content creators and their communities.
I examine how social media popularity influences interpersonal dynamics among part-time content creators who also hold full-time jobs.
Dissertation Fieldwork
AAFPRS Annual Meeting
American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
I examine how social media popularity influences interpersonal dynamics among plastic surgeons.
Other Fieldwork
Additional fieldwork
Field experiments and ethnographic research examine interpersonal connection in workplace and community settings.
Whole-Person Connection
Workplace Parenting Conversations. A field experiment in Hangzhou, China, examining how conversations about life beyond work shape workplace relationships and interpersonal experiences.
Collective Connection
In the Field · Miami. Ethnographic fieldwork exploring how dispersed communities create connection, shared meaning, and collective engagement.
Selected Scholarly Work
Selected publications
Accepted / Published
- Lin, Y., Gabriel, A. S., Sawyer, K. B., & Liu, Z. (In press). Feel free to chat about your kids? Exploring the effects of workplace parenting conversations. Organization Science.