Katherine Kang-Ning Chen
(Sociology, June 2004)
Thesis Title: The Burning Man Organization Grows Up: Blending Bureaucratic and Alternative Structures
Committee: Peter V. Marsden (chair), J. Richard Hackman, David John Frank
Initial Placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, Derek Bok Teaching Center, Harvard University
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, The City College of New York
Katherine K. Chen’s research specialty is the study of organizations; her other research interests include work and occupations, economic sociology, social movements, urban community, and cultural sociology. Her ethnographic studies include research on the growing organization behind the annual Burning Man event. Her award-winning book, Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event, shows how an enabling organization can support members’ efforts without succumbing to either under-organizing’s insufficient structure and coordination or over-organizing’s excessive structure and coercive control