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 Dana Benjamin, I write dark, twisted, and hopeful serial thrillers. I’m the author of the 5-book historical Cold War family saga and thriller series Spies in Moscow (coming soon).
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.
Narratives as weapons and tools of radicalization
As Director of the New War Research Consortium, I’ve led a large-scale multidisciplinary study on the role of narratives in malign influence operations. This seminal article lays out our approach and introduces the WARP (Weaponize, Activate, Radicalize, and Persuade) framework.
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.
Spies in Moscow series
“… The Americans meets Bridge of Spies”
COMING SOON!
In a war of nations, family is the ultimate battlefield.
In 1980s Moscow, Sofia Reitman lives a life of quiet defiance. By day, she’s a devoted wife and mother. By night, she’s a spy, risking everything to weaken a regime that has imprisoned her husband, persecuted her family, and branded her people as traitors.
But when her husband, Mendel, unexpectedly returns from the gulag—a man broken and transformed by his ordeal—Sofia’s carefully constructed world shatters. He’s distant, volatile, and burdened by a faith she doesn’t recognize. As hidden listening devices surface in their home, Sofia confronts a terrifying question: Is the man she loves a victim, a zealot… or a pawn of the KGB?
Meanwhile, young KGB agent, Artur Gregorovich, infiltrates Sofia’s world, tasked with seducing her and exposing her family’s network of dissidents. But as he delves deeper into their lives, he begins to question everything he believes about loyalty, truth, and the true cost of power.
With her family fractured, her home under surveillance, and a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse unfolding, Sofia must navigate a labyrinth of secrets and betrayals. Because in a world where everyone is watching, the only way to survive is to trust no one—not even the ones you love.
AFFILIATIONS
