Azdren Coma
Education
B.A Sociology, Rutgers University, 2016
Areas
Environmental sociology, climate change, methods (surveys, experiments, quantitative methods, GIS), organizations, inequalities.
Research Areas
My main interests are in environmental sociology and research methods. In my master’s thesis, I explored the influence of political elite cueing on support for environmental spending through a survey experiment. Key findings show that the political identity of supporters of environmental legislation significantly impacts support among Republicans. Further exploration of this topic shows that partisan polarization on environmental issues may be a highly gendered issue.
Another research project involves exploring large environmental organizations in the United States using IRS form 990 data. This forthcoming comping publication (in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly journal) explores environmental nonprofit organizations that have embraced a focus on either climate change or social justice issues. Among other things, the findings revealed key differences in organizational characteristics and their likelihood of adopting a focus on climate or justice.
More recently, my dissertation research involves a mixed-methods approach to understanding climate change organizations that do mitigation or adaptation. Specifically, I am interested in understanding the success of climate organizations using (1) a survey of organizations to understand their characteristics, (2) a survey of Americans to understand their support for climate organizations that do either adaptation or mitigation or both, and (3) a survey experiment measuring individual support to understand better the mechanisms that influence support.
Bio
Azdren Coma graduated with a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in Social Justice from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He worked on an undergraduate thesis through the departmental honors program, entitled Social Influences on Disaster Risk Communication, which was the recipient of the prestigious Henry Rutgers Scholar Award.
Since then, he has co-founded an environmental non-profit in his hometown of Struga, Macedonia F.Y.R.O., Struganët për Strugën/ Стружани за Струга, which has focused on the eradication of environmental crime in the region.
Presentations
Coma, A. 2016 “Social Influences on Disaster Risk Communication.” Presented at the Aresty Research Center Symposium, South Plainfield, New Jersey.
