Research Interests
- Intersections of Identity & Individual Difference
- Substance Use and Addiction
- Healthcare Experiences
- Narrative Life Histories
- First-generation students
- Incarcerated populations
Research Description
My multi-methods research pursuits largely center on identity, individual differences, and healthcare experiences. I aim to unite psychological and sociological ways of thinking to paint a clearer picture of individual and population-level processes. My dissertation work combines personality psychology, spatial analysis, and public health data to investigate regional disparities in patterns of substance use and substance-related harm.
Education
M.S. Psychology: Social-Personality focus with a Minor in Development (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2025)
M.A. Sociology: Health & Medicine focus (Michigan State University, 2023)
B.A. Sociology; Psychology: Subplan in Law, Justice, and Social Change (University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, 2020)
Courses Taught
PSYCH 312: Race & Ethnicity (fs'26)
PSYC 250: Personality Psychology (fs'25)
PSYC 328: Psychology of Gender (fs'23-ss'25)
SOC 241: Social Psychology (fs'22-ss'23)
SOC 216: Sex and Gender (ss'22)
ISS 318: Lifespan Development Across Cultures (fs'21)
Additional Campus Affiliations
Career Exploration: Inclusive Excellence Fellow (ss'26)
Writing Center Consultant (fs'24-ss'25)
Recent Publications
Kirks-Cler, D., shuster, s., Walker, M., & Hsieh, N. (2026). How Identity Nonrecognition Shapes the Health Experiences of LGBTQ+ People. Social Psychology Quarterly, 89(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/01902725261436857
Kirks-Cler, D., & Marathe, M. (2026). Representation on Our Terms: How Trans and Gender-Diverse People Prioritize Inclusivity in University Information Systems. Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26). Association for Computing Machinery, 494(1–15). https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790736
shuster, s., & Kirks-Cler, D. (2026) Identity Impermanence as a Generic Social Process: The Malleability of Gender in Transgender and Nonbinary People's Lives. Symbolic Interaction. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.70059.
Kirks-Cler, D., Safford, S., & Marathe, M. (2025). Towards Inclusive Infrastructures: Examining the Experiences of Gender-Diverse People in University Systems. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 9(CSCW), Article 499. https://doi.org/10.1145/3757680. (Best Paper Honourable Mention Award).