Ella Siegrist is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research sits at the intersection of law, punishment, and politics. Using historical-archival and qualitative methods, Ella’s work explores how the criminal-legal system shapes and is shaped by overlapping social institutions, from motherhood to medicine to politics. Her dissertation research focuses on the history of state punishment in West Virginia since the 1870s, tracing the development of mass incarceration in the Appalachian region. Across her research, she explores how punitive state organizations from police to prisons have displayed significant ambivalence, reflected in cyclical debates over the intended functions of state institutions and the actors within them. She brings this historical approach to understand how mass incarceration is sustained today, particularly as incarceration is reconfigured into new markets, including rural jails.

 

Beyond her research, Ella has taught courses for Washington University’s Prison Education Project, St. Louis University, University of North Carolina-Asheville, and Warren Wilson College. These courses include Introduction to Sociology, Medical Sociology, Gender and the Prison System, and Carceral Appalachia. Ella received a BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Warren Wilson College in 2019 and an MA in Sociology from the University of New Mexico in 2021.