Sociology Department

Sharon Paterson: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Sociology, Specializations: Inequality, Work/Occupations, and Higher Education

Arthur Scarritt:  Vita

Office Hours:   On sabbatical Fall 2022 and Spring 2023

Research interests: The organization of society perpetuates racial inequalities, and strategies for overcoming these unequal relations.

Rebecca L. Som Castellano: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: A rural sociologist and agrifood scholar Dr. Som Castellano environmental and agri-food system change, including how stratification and inequality influence experiences with the environment. Current research focuses on 1) well-being among Latina farm workers in Southwestern Idaho, particularly experiences with pesticides and ecological knowledge; 2) land use change and farmland preservation in the Treasure Valley; 3) dynamics of gender and labor among wildland firefighters.

Virginia Husting:; Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: My work studies how people build and change their senses of self, how political emotions are sedimented in and expressed through institutionalized in social/physical spaces, and how systems of inequalities shape emotions and subjectivities shaped through systems of domination. I am currently interested in two projects; first, thinking through settler coloniality and emotion using the work of Mini Aodla Freeman; second, using Hannah Arendt’s work to model the problems of digital capitalism. My work is informed by feminist, poststructuralist, and decolonial research and perspectives.

Marty Orr: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Social theory, inequality, social movements, the environment, and the mass media.

Dora Ramirez: Vita
Office Hours:   By Appointment

Research Interests: Nation-building while examining the internalization of socio-political global effects and the influence of colonization among Latinx and Indigenous populations in the United States and the U.S./Mexico border.

Raul S. Casarez Vita 

Office Hours by Appointment

Research Interest: Race, Ethnicity, Immigration, Social Inequality, Boundary Making, Intergroup Relationships, Identity Formation

Soulit Chacko Vita

Office Hours by Appointment

Research Interest: Race and Ethnicity; Immigration; Transnationalism; Work; Gender & Sexuality; Body and Embodiment; Ethnography; Asian & South Asian Diaspora

Sarah Mawhirter: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Sociology, Gender Studies, Focuses on: Critical Higher Education, Embodied Research Methods, Carceral and Mass Incarceration Activists’ Studies, Higher Education in Prison, and Transformative Criminal Justice Law and Public Policy.

Desiree Brunette: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Sociology of the family, Sociology of the Sex, Sociology of Religion, and Medical Sociology,

Michael Kreiter: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Inequality; Critical Race Theory; Cultural Studies: Popular Culture; Neoliberalism; Gender; Intersectionality; Mixed Methods

Carissa Wolf: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Media Studies, Journalism, Mass media and society, Media Literacy, Sociology of health and medicine, Disability studies, Fringe and extremist groups, Public sociology, Sociology of Food

Carolina Valderrama-Echavarria: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Applied Sociological Research, and Action Sociology with a particular focus on the areas of relationship development, community building and engagement, and social program analysis.

Carter Ashleigh Merklinghaus: Vita 
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Military Service, Life Course, Social Psychology, Gender, Substance Use, Masculinity, Social Problems

Chandra Reyna Vita
Office Hours by Appointment

Research Interest: social inequality and stratification, racial and gender socialization, racialization, racial identities, Latinx and multiracial families

Charles Dickinson: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests:Teaching and Learning; Racial and Ethinic Minorities, and Technology and Culture.

Dr. Coline McConnel Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research Interest:  Civil rights law, cultural shifts in environmental sustainability, and global health policy

Jeff Cates: Vita
Office Hours By Appointment

Research Interests: Sociology of work, environmental sociology, and socioeconomic inequality, primarily related to race, ethnicity, and the (mis)use of technology. My Master’s thesis focuses on “rent-to-own” businesses and their relationship to low-income communities, with a heavy reliance on qualitative methods. For more information, check out the recently published article Poverty Delivered in the public sociology journal Contexts 

Jeremy Maxand: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Sociology of disability and contemporary political social movements.

John Verburg: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests:

Kimberly Scheffer: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests:

Kristina Jensen: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests:  

Office Hours: by Appointment

Research Interests: Immigration (emphasis on undocumented immigration); Latin Experiences, Medical Sociology.

Robert Reed: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: -Education and cultural reproduction -Generational differences on the efficacy of mobile devices and learning in the classroom- Teaching sociology-Media socialization

Michael Blain: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Imperialism, Terrorism, Politics, Victimage Ritual, and Biopolitics

Angeline Kearns Blain: Vita
Office Hours: By Appointment

Research interests: Gender Studies,  Peace Studies, Immigration, Irish-American Sociology,  Sociology of Ireland