Sino Esthappan (he/him) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. He uses a range of empirical cases, like college hookup cultures and criminal court punishment practices, to investigate the relationship between legal and technological innovations and cultural and organizational change.
Sino’s dissertation examines how local officials and national policy stakeholders co-produce and institutionalize diverse risk assessment practices in U.S. pretrial hearings. Using fieldwork in five criminal courts and in-depth interviews with courtroom officials (i.e., judges, attorneys, pretrial officers) and policy stakeholders (i.e., advocates, developers, legislators, and researchers), his project aims to better illuminate how innovations in risk assessment technologies are linked to change in criminal court punishment practices.
Sino holds an M.A. in Sociology from Northwestern University, an M.S.c. in Anthropology from Vrije Universteit Amsterdam, and a B.A. in Political Science from Vassar College.
