Ryan Calder, PhD student in sociology

Ryan Calder is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, doing field research on the revolutions across the Middle East-North Africa region. In early 2011 he spent time in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Bahrain's Pearl Roundabout, and Libya, trying to understand the social roots of the "Arab Spring" — "why these unprecedented uprisings are happening and what they mean to ordinary people."

Calder's research interests include economic sociology, political sociology, political economy; the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia; globalization, finance, Islamic banking, and Islamic jurisprudence.