SOCIOLOGIST, DATA SCIENTIST, & NOVELIST
As Sociologist Dana Weinberg, I earned my doctorate in Sociology from Harvard University. An ethnographer and a data scientist, I am the author of the award-winning book Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing.
As the thriller writer D.B. Shuster, I write dark, twisted, and hopeful serial thrillers. I’m the author of the Russian mafia crime thriller Kings of Brighton Beach and the historical Cold War family saga and thriller series Sins of a Spy.
My adventures in indie publishing have provided inspiration and insight as I research digital disruption in the publishing industry. I study author careers, and the behaviors of authors, publishers, and consumers with an eye toward understanding both the book industry and the gig economy.
I started my career as a Survey Scientist at the Picker Institute, studying the results of staff hospital surveys. My research in healthcare spans hospitals and nursing homes and a range of direct care workers, examining issues in teamwork, collaboration, and job design.
The research for my fiction–which helps me bring to vivid life the exotic worlds of mobsters, undercover agents, Cold War spies, and Soviet Jews in my novels–has also inspired my non-fiction research interest in Russian information operations on social media.
I’m proud to be a Sociology professor at Queens College and the Graduate Center-CUNY. I teach both graduate and undergraduate courses in the Data Analytics programs, which I helped design.
Research in the Spotlight
gender discrimination in publishing
In this groundbreaking study, Adam Kapelner and I explore patterns of discrimination in publishing by both publishers and indie authors and consider what they mean for discrimination in the gig economy.
russian information operations
With seed money from the Army Cyber Institute’s Insider Threat Research program, MAJ Jessica Dawson and I are studying Russian Information Operations’ targeting of veterans and active-duty service members.
high performance work environments
My team’s findings underscore the potential benefits for providers, patients, and health care organizations of designing work environments that value and support a broad range of employees as having essential contributions to make to the care process and their organizations.
code green
My book Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing (Cornell, ILR: 2003) describes the merger and restructuring of the Beth Israel and Deaconess Hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts, at a time when the hospital was losing over a million dollars a week.
Nursing, once a cornerstone of Beth Israel’s excellent reputation for patient care, was hard hit by the changes. Yet the nurses on the front line of patient care struggled to be heard when changes threatened care quality and patient safety.
This book examines the conflict between nurses and administrators, the consequences for nurses’ work and patient care, and the steps nurses and other healthcare workers can take to advocate for themselves and patients.
Critical Praise
Winner of the 2009 Connecticut Nurses’ Association Media Award, Code Green has been translated into Japanese and Korean
Sins of a spy series
“… The Americans meets Bridge of Spies”
1985. In Moscow’s beleaguered Jewish community, an informant for the CIA and an undercover KGB agent match wits. He’ll stop at nothing. Neither will she.
Coming Soon!
AFFILIATIONS
