Brown University

Contested Illnesses Research Group
Brown University , Providence RI


Tyson Smith

Tyson Smith, PhD researches how soldiers adjust after returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He is interested in how veterans' understandings of identity affect mental health understandings and outcomes. This mixed-method project addresses how both male and female veterans cope informally (outside the VA and other formal healthcare systems). He is also completing a book manuscript that is based on his research of independent professional wrestlers. The study of this subculture focuses on the connections between violence, gender, class, and pain. He is currently teaching two courses: Sociology of Gender and The Sociological Imagination. This spring he will teach Military Health. His personal website is: