Teaching brings many benefits. I find that it sharpens my own abilities of argumentation and critique, as well as enhancing my ability to distill complex data and theories so that students, many of whom have never taken a sociology course before, are able to understand it and engage with their classmates in an intelligent and respectful way. Whenever possible, I always try and foster research projects for my students that can combine their interests in other fields with that of sociology, designing my curriculum to allow them to do their own research at the end of the course.

My work over the past two years with Ege Onal, now laboratory assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Professor Robert S. Langer (tumor-selective nanotherapy), culminated in a recently released publication at the renowned undergraduate journal the McGill Journal of Medicine. You can read the article and more about the piece here. Finding unique ways to help students achieve their goals, as I did with Ege, is something I continue to enjoy in working with students, as I have had the opportunity to mentor a number of others in Sociology and other fields over the past three years. This project resulted in a publication due to a convergence of factors, such as Ege wanting to pursue an MD/PhD program where he could integrate sociological research and medicine, my own observations regarding COVID-19 and interests in medical sociology (my MA was actually done in this field, although not many people know that about me), and of course, the timelines of the topic itself. As COVID-19 and its variants continue to cause myriad societal dilemmas, I hope that Ege’s piece can provide an interesting viewpoint.

In a short interview, with the University of Illinois Sociology Department public relations intern, he had this to say about the paper and his experience with me: “The idea for this paper has been conceived through insightful teachings and fruitful discussions I was fortunate to be a part of under Brian F. O'Neill's mentorship. Previously, my diagnostics research in Bioengineering focused on the molecular understanding of ailments. In the lab, it was second nature to talk about some devastating diseases on paper. However, these diseases also had traumatic social and mental consequences on individuals. While taking the SOC 100 course under Brian F. O'Neill's instruction, I was inspired by the course material in Sociology and decided to undertake a sociology project to understand the social dynamics of diseases. Through Brian's encouragement, I continued this project the next semester and investigated the social and psychological impacts of the pandemic centered around concepts of stigma and guilt. Recently, our work was published in the McGill Journal of Medicine. As a student, I am deeply indebted to Brian's unwavering mentorship and support along this journey. And as an engineer, I am grateful to Brian for showing me how I can use Humanities to better understand the world around me and build a better world for humanity.”