Research Interests:

My research interests and publications include work on the topics of environmental justice, climate change, sexuality, race, class and gender. My doctoral dissertation is a study of the 2016-17 environmental justice movement led by Oceti Sakowin Tribal members on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. This movement sought to protect water sources in the region by protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Engaging with qualitative methods and a range of interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, this research analyzes the ways Indigenous epistemology informed the movement, and how experiences of historical and contemporary violence and trauma, social identities, and perceptions of place, home, and environment shaped activists’ motivations and behaviors. In my current postdoctoral research position, I design, manage, and lead a statewide qualitative research study that seeks to better understand rural Missourians perceptions of equity, health, and well-being. Engaging with place-based theoretical frameworks, and taking an intersectional approach, this study seeks to understand a range of diverse lived realities and perspectives.

Courses Taught:

• A Colloquium on the Human Body
• Class, Status, and Power
• Cultural Pluralism
• Environmental Justice
• Feminist Theory and Methodology
• Freshman Orientation: The Leader Within
• Gender and Development
• Gender and Psychology
• Global Ethics
• Global Perspectives on Women and Development
• Introduction to Sociology
• New Sexualities
• Queer Theory
• Social Deviance
• Social Inequalities
• Sociology of Gender
• Sociology of Health
• Unruly Women in American History
• Witches: Hunted Healers and Rebel Bodies  
• Women and Religious Experience
• Women and Society*
• Women in American Government
• Women in History: Goddesses to Witches
• Women’s Issues, Women’s Voices