SOCIOLOGY - Key Persons
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- Graduate Student / Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty University - Distinguished - Professor Environment
Angélica De Jesús is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department in Nekwejong (Lansing), MI. Her research focuses on environment, health, traditional ecological knowledge, sustainability, and race in the Caribbean. Angélica's nearly 10 years of experience includes evaluation projects, community-based research, and policy work within the areas of public health, urban planning, and racial/environmental justice. She earned a BA in Theater Arts and a BS in Psychology with a minor in Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University (2012) and a Master's of Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Michigan (UofM) as a Rackham Merit Fellow. During her MPP, Angélica completed research on the history of colonial conservation and land-use policy in Puerto Rico and most recently completed medical marijuana policy work for the City of Grand Rapids. Angélica is a proud member of the Proyecto Palabras PR project - an interdisciplinary initiative supporting grassroots, people-led recovery in Puerto Rico.
Angélica's research is inspired by cultural-geographies of Black/Indigenous
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- Assistant Professor
- Member of the Undergraduate Education Committee
- Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Environment Migration
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- Associate Professor Emeritus
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- Member of the Department Advisory Committee
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Dr. Broman is a sociological social psychologist by training. Dr. Broman teaches courses in family, race and ethnicity, medical sociology, and survey methods. In the past ten years, Dr. Broman has graduated several students with the PhD degree, almost all of whom have gone on to tenure-track jobs and/or postdoctoral scholar positions. Dr. Broman also has extensive experience working with undergraduate mentees, most recently serving as a mentor for the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE). Many of these undergraduate students have gone on to graduate or professional school. Dr. Broman has served several regional and national organizations, including NIH on review panels, NSF, the BlueCross-Blue Shield Foundation, regional sociological associations and the American Sociological Association, both as chair and as a member of the Committee on the Minority Fellowship Program. In addition, Dr. Broman has served and currently serves on several editorial boards.
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- Associate Professor Emeritus
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- Emeritus Faculty Environment / Associate Professor Emeritus
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- Professor Emeritus
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- Chairman of the Undergraduate Education Committee
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- DEI Coordinator
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Dr. Soma Chaudhuri is a qualitative methodologist whose research lies at the intersection of gender, development, social movements and violence. She studies how violence at the community and household level is used to legitimize structural and institutional level gender inequalities that specifically disadvantage women. Relatedly she explores the role of non-state actors in creating effective strategies for encountering such violence through empowerment programs, the impact it has on the women's lives, and reasons for failure of such programs.
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- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University
- Tenure Faculty Associate Professor Environment / Associate Professor
Dr. Stephen P. Gasteyer is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. His research focuses on community development, environmental justice, and the political ecology of landscape change, with specific attention food, energy, water, and public health. Recent research has addressed the food access and impacts urban greening in small US cities, alternative energy and community action, environmental equity in access to water and sanitation, and water governance. Dr. Gasteyer was a 2015-16 Fulbright Scholar at Birzeit University, Ramallah, Palestinian territories. Dr. Gasteyer's previous positions include: assistant professor of Human and Community Leadership Development at the University of Illinois (2005-2008); Research and Policy Director at the Rural Community Assistance Partnership in Washington, DC (2002-2005); research consultant on issues of global water governance (2001-2002); UNAIS project worker on Agroecosystem research at the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem, and the Palestine Institute for Arid Lands and Environmental Studies, Palestinian territories (1993-1996); Program Associate for the Committee on Sustainable Agriculture, World Resources Institute (1991-1993). He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali from 1987 through 1990. He received a BA from Earlham College in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Iowa State University in 2001.
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- Graduate Student / Department of Sociology / Assistant - Professor Tenure - Faculty Migration
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- Member of the Graduate Education Committee
- Graduate Student / Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Health - and - Medicine
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- Graduate Student / Department of Sociology / Environment
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- Assistant Professor
- Member of the Graduate Education Committee
- Assistant Professor Tenure Faculty Migration Health and Medicine Other Environment
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Jennifer Carrera is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. She has a joint appointment between the Department of Sociology and the Environmental Science and Policy Program.
Dr. Carrera's research uses an environmental justice perspective, grounded in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methods, to examine the differential impacts of access to environmental resources on distributions of power in marginalized communities. Her area of research focuses on environmental justice issues of access to clean water and sanitation in low-income communities.
As part of MSU's Global Water Initiative, Dr. Carrera was lead PI for a WaterCube research team which conducted a CBPR citizen science study investigating water quality associated with water shutoffs in Detroit. This work was featured in MSU's The Engaged Scholar Magazine.
In 2018 Dr. Carrera was awarded a Transition to Independent Environmental Health Research Career Award (K01) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), to work with community partners in Flint, Michigan to develop low-cost technologies for understanding environmental risks and protecting public health. She aims to establish evidence-based pathways for engaging with communities to enhance public health through the co-development of low-cost technologies to address unmet community scientific needs.
CURRENT RESEARCH
Often little consideration is given to how communities produce their own information about proper ways of managing risks and opportunities. Through working with communities to develop their own research questions, collect, analyze, and interpret data community members may gain environmental health literacy as well as an interest in the governance of their resources. As the Flint Water Crisis demonstrates, knowledge about water quality is deeply tied to questions of environmental justice. Dr. Carrera uses citizen science methods along with co-development of innovative, low-cost technologies for environmental monitoring to address issues of undone science in the context of environmentally vulnerable communities.
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- Graduate Student / Department of Sociology / Assistant - Professor Tenure - Faculty Migration Health - and - Medicine Other Environment
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- Assistant Professor
- Member of the Department Advisory Committee
- Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Health - and - Medicine
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- Officer Supervisor / Department of Sociology / Associate - Professor Teaching - Focused - Faculty Other
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- Communications Manager
- Communications Manager / Department of Sociology / Environment
In addition to her doctoral study, Kitty is a research supervisor on the Invisible Obstacles, Hidden Curriculums (IO/HC) team with Angélica Ruvalcaba M.A. and Jennifer Lai Ph.D. The team explores the institutional systems of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the academy.
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- Department of Media & Information / Emeritus - Faculty Environment
- Professor Affiliated Faculty
Keith Hampton, Ph.D., enjoys sharing and exploring new research across disciplines, and introducing students to the study of social network analysis. He is a focused teacher whose research-rich style brings concepts to life through the study of media and information theory and methods. Hampton studies community and the relationship between digital technologies, social networks, democratic engagement and the urban environment.
A dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, Hampton received his doctorate and Master of Arts in sociology from the University of Toronto, and his Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in sociology from the University of Calgary. Before joining the faculty at MSU, he was the Endowed Professor in Communication and Public Policy and Co-Chair of the Social Media & Society Cluster in the Department of Communication in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers. Other previous posts include assistant professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; as well as Assistant Professor of Technology, Urban and Community Sociology, and Endowed Class of '43 Chair in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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- MSU Foundation Professor of Sociometrics
Kenneth Frank received his Ph.D. in measurement, evaluation and statistical analysis from the School of Education at the University of Chicago in 1993. He is MSU Foundation professor of Sociometrics, professor in Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education; and adjunct (by courtesy) in Fisheries and Wildlife and Sociology at Michigan State University. His substantive interests include the study of schools as organizations, social structures of students and teachers and school decision-making, and social capital. His substantive areas are linked to several methodological interests: social network analysis, sensitivity analysis and causal inference (http://konfound-it.com), and multi-level models. His publications include quantitative methods for representing relations among actors in a social network, robustness indices for sensitivity analysis for causal inferences, and the effects of social capital in schools, natural resource management, and other social contexts.
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- Assistant Professor Emeritus
- Department of Sociology / Professor Tenure - Faculty Health - and - Medicine
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- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor of Social Relations and Policy James Madison College
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- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor Tenure Faculty Migration
- Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Other
- Director of the Chicano
María Isabel Ayala is Director of the Chicano/Latino Studies Program and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Ayala's work calls attention to the intra-group diversity and capital of Latinx people by examining the relationship between their unique and complex racialization and sociodemographic experiences and behaviors. Moreover, adopting strength-based approaches, Ayala explores the role of Latinx identities in reconstructing structures, centering and highlighting agentive and resilient behaviors and cultures in the navigation of physical, symbolic, and social White spaces. Her humanistic and social justice commitment and her dedication to inclusivity shape her research, teaching, and leadership. Ayala is a 2020-21 Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program Fellow.
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- Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Other
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Maxine Baca Zinn is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Her books include: Women of Color in U.S. Society (with Bonnie Thornton Dill), and Gender Through the Prism of Difference (with Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Michael Messner, and Stephanie J. Nawyn). She is the coauthor (with D. Stanley Eitzen) of Diversity in Families and Social Problems, both of which won McGuffey Awards from the Text and Academic Authors Association for excellence over multiple editions. With Eitzen, Baca Zinn is also the author of In Conflict and Order: Understanding Society and Globalization: The Transformation of Social Worlds. In 2000, Baca Zinn received the American Sociological Association's Jessie Bernard Award for expanding the horizons of Sociology to include the study of women. She received the Charles Horton Cooley Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the Michigan Sociological Association in 2013, and the Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award from the Latino/a Section of the American Sociological Association in 2015.
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- Graduate Student / Department
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- Department Chairperson
- Department Chairperson / Department of Media & Information / Environment
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- Assistant Professor
- Member of the Graduate Education Committee
- Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University
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- Tenure Faculty Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor
Molly Copeland is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. Her research joins social network analysis and medical sociology to examine how social relationships can benefit or introduce risks to health across the life course. Most of her work examines how patterns of connections with others relate to mental health in ways that vary by gender, by network context, and for at-risk groups, such as isolated youth. Current research projects examine how adolescent peer networks relate to depression, self-harm, physical health, and substance use in adolescence, with persistent effects on adult health. She received her doctoral degree in sociology from Duke University.
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- Professor Emerita
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- Associate Professor
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- Tenure Faculty Associate Professor Health and Medicine / Associate Professor
Ning Hsieh's research broadly concerns health, sexuality, aging, and social relationships. Their current work examines health and health care inequities faced by sexual minority and older populations in two focal areas: (1) how structural inequalities influence health and well-being through shaping social networks and relationship quality, and (2) the impact of intersecting social positions and identities, particularly sexuality, gender, and race/ethnicity, on health and health care experiences. Dr. Hsieh's research appears in Demography, Gerontologist, Health Affairs, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, Journal of Marriage and Family, LGBT Health, Society and Mental Health, and other peer-reviewed journals and book volumes. Their scholarship has been recognized by awards from the American Sociological Association, Society for the Study of Social Problems, and IPUMS. They have also received the 2022 Teacher-Scholar Award at Michigan State University. Before joining MSU, Dr. Hsieh was a National Institute on Aging postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago. They received their doctoral degree in demography and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
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- Academic Program Coordinator
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- Assistant Professor
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- Graduate Student / Department
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- Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Environment
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- Senior Academic Specialist - Advisor
- Senior Academic Specialist - Advisor / Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Health - and - Medicine Migration Environment Other
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- Department of Sociology / Department - Chair Tenure - Faculty Professor Environment
- Professor Emeritus
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- Member of the Department Advisory Committee
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Steven J. Gold is professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Educated at Brandeis University, University of California Santa Cruz, and University of California Berkeley, his scholarly interests include international migration, ethnic economies, ethnic community development, qualitative field methods and visual sociology. Gold is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of nine books including The Israeli Diaspora (Routledge/University of Washington Press 2002) which won the Thomas and Znaniecki Award from the American Sociological Association's International Migration Section for the best book on international migration in 2003. His book Ethnic Economies, co-authored with Ivan Light of UCLA, has received 1710 Google Scholar citations. His edited volume, Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration, (Purdue University Press 2020) was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice, a magazine that reviews academic books published by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association. Along with Rubén G. Rumbaut, Gold was Book Series Editor of The New Americans: Recent Immigration and American Society, LFB Scholarly Publishing, which published 116 volumes. Gold has served as Graduate Program Director of the MSU Sociology Department for 12 years, and has chaired 23 PhD dissertations. He is the author of over 150 journal articles, book chapters and book reviews. The past chair of the American Sociological Association, International Migration Section, and the former President of the International Visual Sociology Association, he received the Charles Horton Cooley Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Sociology from the Michigan Sociology Association in 2007. He was a Visiting Scholar for the Erasmus Mundus Joint European Master's in International Migration and Social Cohesion program at the University of Amsterdam and University of Osnabruck during Fall 2014. He received the Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association, International Migration Section in 2019.
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- Emeritus Faculty University Distinguished Professor Environment
- University Distinguished Professor Emeritus / Department of Sociology / Emeritus - Faculty Other Migration
Thomas Dietz is a human ecologist and environmental sociologist. His research focuses on the drivers of environmental change and human well being, on the social psychology of environmental decision making and on the interplay between science and values in decision making. He was founding director of the Environmental Science and Policy Program at MSU, and remains active there, in the Animal Studies Program and at the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability. Dietz has served as chair of the US National Research Council Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change and as Vice-Chair of the Committee on Advancing the Science of Climate Change. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been awarded the Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America, and has won research awards from the American Sociological Association sections on Environment and on Animals and Society. In 2017 he delivered the Mitchell Lecture on Sustainability at the University of Maine. Also in 2017 he was named University Distinguished Professor at MSU. He is an Affiliate of the Gund Institute of Environment at the University of Vermont.
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- Visiting Scholar / Department