IRMS will host a preconference at the upcoming ASA annual meeting in New York on "Pursuing Impact Scholarship: Approaches in Disrupting Authoritarianism, Disinformation, and Male Supremacism." In 2019, a group of emerging scholars in sociology and political science founded the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism to address a lack of scholarly attention to misogynist ideology and to connect research to action for gender justice. With three IRMS cofounders in attendance, the preconference will highlight the organization’s development as a model for engaged public scholarship and explore how we work with organizers, media, and communities. Discussion of our 2026 white paper will offer an example of solutions-focused research, which challenges dominant trends and offers new solutions for work around preventing violence and supremacism. ASA registration here.
The theme of this year’s ASA resonates deeply with IRMS’s approach, centering historically marginalized voices in academia, advancing solutions-focused research, and investing in collaboration with and resources for social justice organizations, research nonprofits, engaged community members, and concerned media. As sociology thrives as a field that embraces interdisciplinary collaborations and collaboration outside of academia, the preconference brings together sociologists in conversation with scholars from other disciplines and researchers outside of academia. Presenters will pair their expertise with personal experiences navigating the desire to pursue impact research, especially for historically marginalized researchers such as women, trans people, and people of color who are challenging dominant academic paradigms.
IRMS was founded as a disruption of the status quo, and our goal for the preconference is to offer IRMS an example for sociologists seeking ways to rethink their approach to scholarship through both practical and strategic insights. Each session is organized with short presentations followed by extensive time for discussion, to encourage collaborative insights and idea generation from participants interested in their own connection to public sociology. We will complete the event with an hour put aside to discuss in the preconference community how to take the lessons learned into their own future practice.
We are also looking into a virtual alternative for those not attending ASA. Email contact@theirms.org to indicate your interest in receiving more details when available.
ASA Full-Day Preconference Preliminary Agenda: 9am - 5pm
9am: Welcome, Introductions, and Agenda-Setting
9:15am – 11:15am: Carving a Path for Impact Scholarship: Addressing Authoritarianism and Male Supremacism in the United States
Presenters:
Dr. Chelsea Ebin, IRMS Co-Founder, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Drew University
Dr. Pierce Dignam, IRMS Co-Founder
Robin O’Hanlon, PhD Student, Criminal Justice, Graduate Center, City University of New York
This preconference session will offer insights from two IRMS co-founders and a current IRMS mentee working in political sociology, political science focused on the contemporary United States. Their interdisciplinary work on U.S. right wing movements, male supremacism, theocracy, and authoritarianism will shape a conversation regarding how this scholarly expertise can be applied to working toward a more equitable society. This session will explore their experiences as scholars working within academia seeking to pursue impact research, including the challenges faced and the spaces that have supported this kind of work. It also explores opportunities for advancing a culture of solutions-focused research in emerging scholars, from curriculum development to mentoring programs.
Presenter Information:
Dr. Chelsea Ebin is an assistant professor of political science and international relations at Drew University, author of The Radical Mind: The Origins of Right-Wing Catholic and Protestant Coalition Building, and coeditor of Male Supremacism in the United States: From Patriarchal Traditionalism to Misogynist Incels and the Alt-Right. She is a co-founder of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism and a fellow at the Far Right Analysis Network. Her research focuses on right-wing movements and ideologies, with a particular focus on the Christian Right and male supremacism, which will offer generative grounds for discussing the present political situation in the United States and how scholars can engage with democratic threats. As an IRMS co-founder who remained within academia, Ebin is able to provide substantial insights from her personal experiences navigating the desire to pursue impact scholarship in an academic career that will be valuable to preconference participants asking how to make this a reality.
Dr. Pierce Dignam is a sociologist who studies the intersection of social movements, gender, collective identity, and politics in the digital age. His work has focused on the social movement dynamics of male-supremacist spaces on Reddit, the Trump campaign’s working-class appeals, and Trump supporters' cultural understandings of masculinity and anti-establishment politics. His research has been published in Race Gender and Class, Signs, Social Currents, and Men and Masculinities. Dignam’s work offers guidance on the current political status quo and how scholars can navigate towards a more equitable society in their research approaches.
Robin O’Hanlon is a doctoral candidate in Criminal Justice at the CUNY Graduate Center whose research examines male supremacist social movements and the use of moral frameworks to expand criminalization and punitive governance. Her work has been published in Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, Critical Criminology, and Men and Masculinities. O’Hanlon’s focus on the criminalization of abortion and miscarriage, and the practices of the abortion abolition movement, offers a specific exploration of a research with clear policy disseminations, with her experience as an IRMS mentee offering insights for emerging scholars at the preconference–or those mentoring emerging scholars–to this about pathways to developing an impact research focus.
11:15am - 11:30am: Break
11:30am-12:30pm: IRMS as a Model for Disrupting the Status Quo
Presenter: Dr. Alex DiBranco, IRMS Executive Director and Co-Founder
Session Description: The Institute for Research on Male Supremacism provides a model for scholars seeking to have real-world impact. Built from scratch beginning in 2019, IRMS currently engages a transnational and interdisciplinary community of more than 70 fellows and mentees interested in connecting research to action. This session will frame IRMS as an example of this year’s ASA theme and intentions, in how it has centered historically marginalized voices in academia, advanced solutions-focused research, and invested in collaboration with and resources for social justice organizations, research nonprofits, engaged community members, and concerned media. We encourage collaborative insights and idea generation from preconference participants interested in their own connection to public sociology.
This session will explore the IRMS 2026 white paper, “A Restructuring of Thought Around Male Supremacism and Violence Prevention,” as an example of solutions-focused research and analysis produced by a transnational collective of scholars within the IRMS community. The paper assesses the barriers to effective prevention and intervention in violence and supremacism, indicating areas for improvement within academic and practitioner fields. It suggests a new way of thinking about prevention through the lens of long-term cultural and structural change, with suggested solutions that foreground anti-authoritarian educational approaches, embraces diverse gender and social stratifications, and centers creativity and joy.
Presenter Information: Dr. Alex DiBranco has been executive director and co-founder of IRMS since its creation in 2019. In addition to her Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University, where she studied the development of right-wing infrastructure in the United States, DiBranco has worked in journalism, online organizing, communications, and nonprofit research with organizations such as Change.org, Political Research Associates, and Collective Power for Reproductive Justice. She is a past fellow of the Pop Culture Collaborative and the Dangerous Speech Project. These varied skills and experiences are invaluable in leading IRMS as an institution that bridges academia and activism. DiBranco is also invested in the needs of communities like IRMS in terms of researcher security and mental health. Her diverse background and years building IRMS from scratch as a research community committed to creating change provide valuable insights for the structuring and facilitation of this preconference.
12:30pm-1:30pm: Lunch
1:30-3:15pm: Countering Supremacism and Disinformation Through Creative Approaches: Opportunities Within and Beyond Academia
Moderator: Alex DiBranco, Institute for Research on Male Supremacism
Presenters: Jennifer Pozner, Founder, Women in Media & News
Aya Taveras, Director of Narrative Initiatives, Cinereach
Sociology thrives as a field that embraces collaborations outside of academia. This panel brings into the conversation contributions from other fields that can provide insights for public sociologists on approaches to creating impactful work. The session explores creative opportunities for impact countering supremacism and disinformation, such as translating research for use in developing narrative change, presenting analysis in graphic novel format, or influencing video game design.
Presenter Information:
Jennifer L. Pozner is a feminist, anti-racist media critic, speaker, and founder and former E.D. of Women In Media & News. Her 2010 book, Reality Bites Back, was the first to expose how reality TV functions as backlash against gender and racial justice. Her next, It's Not You, It's Media (forthcoming, 23rd Street Books), is the first-ever media literacy graphic novel for adults. Pozner’s discussion of her upcoming graphic novel will explore the decision to pursue this unique format for disseminating her decades of expertise on media mis/disinformation and misogyny, to engage people as participants in demanding more accurate and justice-informed media, contributing to the preconference’s exploration of new ideas for sociologists to turn their expertise into solutions-focused resources. Pozner will also discuss the resistance to social justice-informed media criticism and the lack of investment in media covering sexism and gender justice.
Aya Taveras is a research translator and strategist working at the intersection of media and narrative change. She leverages insights across various disciplines to mitigate the gap between creatives’ intentions to affect behavioral and attitudinal shifts through storytelling and their potential impact. Her work has influenced a number of children’s animated series, video games, and films. She currently contributes to how Cinereach is articulating its relationship to measurable change. Taveras has acted as a bridge, bringing academics into conversation with entertainment creators to inform the development of creative media that avoids reproduction of the supremacist status quo and advances equity narratives, and will offer to the preconference an understanding of this industry and the opportunities for academics for forge impactful collaborations.
3:15-3:30: Break
3:30-5pm: Closing Discussion: Where Do We Go From Here?
We invite attendees to join us in a conversation about applying these concepts around impact scholarship and disrupting authoritarianism, supremacism, and disinformation to their own work and to influencing sociology as a discipline.