Meet the People of the Irsay

Biography

Maleah Fekete (she/her) received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University in 2024. Her research seeks to understand the social processes surrounding mental disorders. She considers how social factors like gender, close relationships, and patterned meaning-making contribute to disparities in mental health. Her research focuses on stress-related mental health outcomes such as depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She is especially interested in understanding how individuals’ learned methods of interpreting their experiences influence their vulnerability to mental disorders. She has published her research in outlets including *American Sociological Review, Current Psychology, *and Pathways Magazine. She is currently working on projects investigating the social predictors of vulnerability to stress, social inequality in resilience to stress, and patterns of meaning-making that expose rural working-class men to heighten rates of risk-taking-related distress.