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Ariel Merkel

Ariel Merkel

Sociology, The New School for Social Research

Ariel Merkel is a Sociology PhD candidate at the New School for Social Research, with a focus on disability studies.  She earned her MA at NSSR in May 2011, and holds a BA (cum laude) in Cultural Anthropology from Wells College, a small women’s college in the Finger Lakes region of New York State.  Upon graduation in 2005, she was awarded the Carter A. Woods Prize for her thesis, which analyzed the strategies of Kanaka Maoli (indigenous Hawaiian) activists involved in the Cultural Revitalization Movement.