Aida Parnia

PhD Candidate · Sociology University of Toronto

I am a critical demographer and sociologist who uses quantitative methods to study migration, health, and labour, with close attention to how populations are counted — what the data captures, and who it leaves out. I am a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Toronto, where my dissertation, The Archives of Expendable Labour: A Critical Quantitative Study of Labour Migration in Canada, examines the lives of temporary residents and labour migrants in Canada. My earlier work addressed socioeconomic, racial, and gender-based inequalities in health.

In my teaching, I am committed to demystifying statistics for students who think numbers aren’t for them and giving them the confidence to engage, critique, and use data. Since 2020, I have taught statistics for social sciences as a course instructor and teaching assistant in undergraduate and graduate courses.

Email Google Scholar ↗ GitHub ↗ CV (PDF) ↗

Aida Parnia

Research

Selected Publications

2021
Shahidi, F. V. & Parnia, A. Unemployment Insurance and Mortality Among the Long-Term Unemployed: A Population-Based Matched-Cohort Study. American Journal of Epidemiology.
2020
Parnia, A. & Siddiqi, A. Socioeconomic disparities in smoking are partially explained by chronic financial stress: marginal structural model of older US adults. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
2020
Shahidi, F. V., Parnia, A. & Siddiqi, A. Trends in socioeconomic inequalities in premature and avoidable mortality in Canada, 1991-2016. CMAJ.
2018
Parnia, A. et al. Environmental factors associated with blood lead among newcomer women from South and East Asia in the Greater Toronto Area. Science of the Total Environment.

Full list on Google Scholar ↗

Teaching

Courses Taught

  • Intermediate Quantitative Methods U of T · Undergraduate · Course Instructor
  • Statistics for Sociologists U of T · Graduate · Teaching Assistant
  • Intermediate Data Analysis U of T · Graduate · Teaching Assistant
  • Theories of Stratification U of T · Undergraduate · Teaching Assistant
  • Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Sociology U of T · Undergraduate · Teaching Assistant
  • Intermediate Quantitative Methods in Sociology U of T · Undergraduate · Teaching Assistant
  • Advanced Topics in Sociology: Sociology of Emotions U of T · Undergraduate · Teaching Assistant

Workshops

  • Quantitative Boot Camp for Graduate Students Sociology Department, U of T · Instructor
  • Introduction to R Computational & Quantitative Social Sciences (CQSS) Methods Training Days, Data Science Institute, U of T · Instructor