Black Boxes: reviews the hidden expectations and rules within higher education, and how first-generation graduate students describe, negotiate, and navigate these rules and structures
Ivory Tower Socialization: examines how first-generation graduate students moved from making sense of unknown structures, norms, and values to trying to live and learn within a culture that was often unclear or even at odds with values
Building Capital: highlights the multifaceted relationships established by first-generation graduate students within academic settings and throughout their time in graduate school
Doing (Me) Research: looks at how first-generation graduate students use personal experiences and community connections to enrich academic inquiry while grappling with the intellectual and emotional labor inherent in research topics closely aligned with their identities

Jarring Juxtapositions: uncovers how first-generation graduate students navigate the many tensions and dissonances at the heart of the first-gen experience
Family Role: inspects how first-generation graduate students perceive, understand, and negotiate their roles in their families during the graduate school experience
Financing Education: offers a critical exploration of the financial barriers that first-generation graduate students experience at the graduate level
Mental Health Management: reviews the influential yet largely unacknowledged role of mental health, offering critical insights into interventions that institutions can employ and expand to the benefit of all students
Making Meaning of First-gen Identity: demonstrates the impact of context, institutional narrative, and representation in faculty, staff, and peers on the process of sensemaking about the first-generation identity