People

Faculty

Kevin Anderson
  • Distinguished Professor

Social and political theory, history of social thought, Africa and the Middle East, Sociology and Politics of Crime and Law

  • Assistant Professor

Migration, social stratification based on skin color, and the effect of social programs on socio-economic and demographic outcomes

John Baldwin
  • Professor

G. H. Mead, human sexuality, socialization, capitalism, micro-macro synthesis

Jean Beaman
  • Associate Professor
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies

Race, Ethnicity, Nation; International migration; Urban Sociology; Culture; Ethnography/Qualitative Methodology

Tristan Bridges
  • Associate Professor
  • Department Vice Chair

Gender, Sexualities, Masculinities, Families, Cultural Sociology, Inequalities, Qualitative Methods

  • SSMS 3320 Faculty Office
  • SSMS 3314 Men & Masculinities Journal
Alicia Cast
  • Associate Professor

Social psychology, family, gender

  • SSMS 3125
Maria Charles
  • Professor

Gender, Inequalities, Global and Transnational Sociology,  Work, Education, Demography

Waverly Duck
  • Professor
  • North Hall Endowed Chair

Urban Sociology, Ethnography and Ethnomethodology, Race and Ethnicity, Culture, Health Disparities, Criminology, Inequality and Social Justice, Theories of the Interaction Order

Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi
  • Professor

Culture, Social Theory, Sociology of Knowledge

John Foran
  • Distinguished Professor

revolutions, global justice movements, radical social change, development and globalization, Middle East studies, Latin American studies, Third World cultural studies, social theory, political sociology, comparative historical methods

  • SSMS 3417
Lisa Hajjar
  • Professor
  • Department Chair

Sociology of law; sociology of human rights; political sociology; state theory; Middle East Studies; American Studies; law and conflict; torture; war crimes; international humanitarian law.

  • SSMS 3109 Chair Office
  • SSMS 3018 Faculty Office
Dana Kornberg
  • Assistant Professor

Environmental politics, urban sociology, economic sociology, global/comparative sociology, ethnography, South Asia

Yader Lanuza
  • Assistant Professor

(im)migration, race & ethnicity, education, family, culture, punishment

  • SSMS 3409 Faculty Office
  • SSMS 3407 Lab
Jessica Lopez-Espino
  • Assistant Professor

Law and society, language and discourse, child welfare law, racialization, ethnography

Jan Nederveen-Pieterse
  • Distinguished Professor

globalization, development studies, global political economy, cultural studies, emerging societies, ethnicity, multiculturalism, future studies

Geoffrey Raymond
  • Professor

Conversation Analysis, Ethnomethodology, Policing

  • SSMS 3413
  • SSMS 3410 Conversation Analysis Lab
Victor Rios
  • Professor

Urban ethnography, juvenile justice, Latino sociology

  • SSMS 3012
William I. Robinson
  • Distinguished Professor

Globalization, Global Political Economy, Political Sociology, Development, Latin America, Inequality, Crisis of Capitalism

Denise Segura
  • Professor
  • Diversity Representative

Chicana and Chicano Studies, feminist studies, gender, family, work, race-ethnic relations, education

Elena Skapoulli - Raymond
  • Associate Teaching Professor

Sociolinguistics, language and gender, language and identity, gender identity, gender and migration, language and youth, youth culture and globalization

 

  • SSMS 3010
Tagart Cain
  • Assistant Teaching Professor

Gender, social psychology, substance use / addiction, mixed methods

  • Associate Professor

Gender, work, health, social psychology, and social inequality

Sarah Thebaud
  • Professor
  • Director of Graduate Studies

Gender, Organizations & Work, Social Psychology, Family, Social Inequality, Economic Sociology

Tara Tober
  • Associate Teaching Professor

Cultural Sociology, Collective Memory, Inequality, Comparative/Historical Sociology, Ireland

Winddance Twine
  • Professor

Gender, Inequality, Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, Feminist Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Race, Racism & Anti-Racism, Work and Organizations, Visual Sociology

 

Kevin Whitehead
  • Associate Professor

Race and racism; social categories and identities; ethnomethodology and conversation analysis; interactions in conversational and institutional settings; conflicts and violence in interactions

  • SSMS 3411 Faculty Office
  • SSMS 3410 Conversation Analysis Lab
Terrell Winder
  • Assistant Professor

Race & Ethnicity; Gender & Sexuality; Urban Sociology; Social Psychology; Education; Qualitative Methodology; Medical Sociology; Mixed Methodology

Hannah Wohl
  • Associate Professor

Creative industries, culture, markets, valuation, sociological theory, ethnography

Lecturers

Janice Baldwin
  • Senior Lecturer

Human Sexuality, Gender, AIDS

Raymond Clémençon
  • Senior Lecturer

Global environmental governance, climate change, sustainable development, political economy, international organizations and governance

 

Katherine Maldonado
  • Graduate Student
  • Teaching Associate

Health; Social Inequalities; Family; Feminist Theory; Socio-Legal Studies; Visual Methodology 

  • Lecturer
  • Lecturer

Urban sociology, environmental sociology, political economy, race and ethnicity

  • SSMS 3129
Jason Turowetz
  • Lecturer

Ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, medical sociology, social theory

  • SSMS 3127

Emeriti Faculty

Richard Appelbaum
  • Emeritus
  • Distinguished Professor

World-system theory; global production and labor; science, technology, and society

Denise Bielby
  • Emeritus
  • Distinguished Professor

Culture, gender, work, and social psychology/life-course

 

William Bielby
  • Professor Emeritus

Organizational inequality, workplace discrimination, media & popular culture.

Jon Cruz
  • Professor Emeritus

Social theory, culture, race and ethnicity,knowledge

Sarah Fenstermaker
  • Professor Emeritus

Work and gender, feminist inquiry, feminist theory, research methods

 

Richard Flacks
  • Professor Emeritus
Noah Friedkin
  • Professor Emeritus

Social Networks, Influence Systems, Social Psychology, Complex Organizations

 

Roger Friedland
  • Professor Emeritus

Cultural theory; architecture; religious nationalism; institutional theory; space, time and social theory

 

 

Avery Gordon
  • Professor Emeritus

Social theory, radical thought and practice, militarism, imprisonment, art and literature

Mark Juergensmeyer
  • Emeritus
  • Distinguished Professor

Specializes in the global dimensions of religion in public life, South Asian religion and society, religious violence, neo-nationalism, and conflict resolution

Gene Lerner
  • Professor Emeritus

conversation analysis, social life of very young children, social aspects of syntax

George Lipsitz
  • Professor Emeritus

Race, Culture and Social identities, 20th-century U.S. history, urban history and culture, social movements

 

Fernando Lopez-Alves
  • Professor Emeritus

Comparative historical sociology, comparative politics, globalization. Latin American politics, organized labor

 

 

Melvin Oliver
  • Professor Emeritus

Race, ethnicity, nation, class, wealth inequality

Belinda Robnett
  • Professor Emeritus

Race and Ethnicity, African American Experience, Race/Class/Gender, Social Stratification, Social Movements, Social Change, Family, Inequality

Thomas Scheff
  • Professor Emeritus
Beth Schneider
  • Professor Emeritus

Sexuality, feminist and gender studies, social movements, health/AIDS, lesbian/gay studies

 

Gary Schulman
  • Professor Emeritus
Bruce Straits
  • Professor Emeritus
John Sutton
  • Professor Emeritus

Organizations, law, crime and punishment, comparative sociology, culture

 

Verta Taylor
  • Emeritus
  • Distinguished Professor

social movements, gender, sexuality, culture, health and mental health

Jonathan Turner
  • Professor Emeritus

Interpersonal Processes, Status and Roles, Sociology of Emotions, Social Psychology, History of Sociological Theory, Philosophy of Science, Contemporary Sociological Theory, Social Change, Theory Construction, Comparative Institutions, Social Stratification and Inequality, Historical Sociology, Race and Ethnic Relations, Human Social Ecology, Human and Societal Evolution, Evolutionary Sociology, Neuro-sociology, Modeling of Social Processes

Thomas Wilson
  • Professor Emeritus
  • Emeritus
  • Distinguished Professor

race and racism, political sociology, comparative/historical sociology, social theory

Raymond Wong
  • Professor Emeritus

Social stratification, comparative sociology, methods and statistics, sociology of economic change, demography

Affiliated Faculty

Elizabeth Ackert
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Geography

Professor Ackert's research interests include racial/ethnic inequality, immigration, education, health disparities, urban geography, and quantitative methods. Her work examines explanations for why racial/ethnic and immigrant-origin groups are unequally distributed across contexts– including schools, neighborhoods, and immigrant destinations– and evaluates the consequences of this contextual inequality for disparities in outcomes in domains such as education, residential mobility, and health. Dr. Ackert is particularly interested in understanding how the attributes of immigrant-receiving contexts, including states, communities, neighborhoods, and schools, influence the educational and health outcomes of children and adolescents of Mexican origin.

 

Paul Amar
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Global Studies
  • Comparative Politics
  • Middle East Politics
  • Social Movements and Revolution
  • Critical Security Studies
  • Police and Military Studies
  • Human Rights / Socio-Legal Studies
  • Latin American Studies (especially Brazil, liberalization, human rights, sexuality/race/religion, urban inequality, state theory, regionalism)
  • Middle East Studies (esp. Egypt, Persian Gulf, Lebanon, regionalism, public security, state theory, globalization, urban development, morality, masculinity, gender/sexuality)
  • Theories of state, governance, institutional and legal change
  • Queer Theory
  • Post-Colonial Studies
Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Chicano Studies

Race, labor, empire, social movements, urban studies, Latin American studies, Central America, Marxism, liberation theology

 

  • 1706 South Hall, 1714 South Hall
Mary Hancock
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • History

Sociocultural Anthropology (South Asia, social theory, nationalism, religion, cultural studies, feminist theory, public memory)

Barbara Herr Harthorn
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Anthropology

Sociocultural Anthropology (medical anthropology, psychological anthropology, risk and perception, environmental and health inequality, science, technology and society, gender, race and new technologies, public engagement/deliberation, immigration and health, mixed methods for social research, collaborative interdisciplinary research)

  • HSSB 2074 (Anthropology), HSSB 2059 (Anthropology Lab)
Ricado  Jacobs
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Global Studies

Global political economy of urbanization, ecology and agrarian change, with a focus on post-colonial Africa

 

Laury Oaks
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Feminist Studies

Sexual and reproductive politics; health advocacy movements; feminist analysis of public health, medicine and science; qualitative research methods

  • 4714 South Hall
John S.W. Park
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Asian American Studies

Ph. D, University of California, Berkeley, Jurisprudence and Social Policy

Immigration law and policy, race theory, political theory and public law.

  • HSSB 5050
Lisa Sun-Hee Park
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Asian American Studies
David Pellow
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Environmental Studies

Environmental Justice Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Social Change, and Social Movements

Simone Pulver
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Environmental Studies
Leila J. Rupp
  • Affiliated Faculty
  • Feminist Studies

Women's Movements,

Sexualities,

Transnational History

  • 4710 South Hall

Visiting Faculty

Christina Aushana
  • UC Presidential Postdoc Fellow

 Sociology of police vision and racialization; media studies; feminist film theory and visual culture; Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) social movements; science and technology studies (STS); performance ethnography 

Tomone Komiya
  • Visiting Scholar
  • SSMS 3410
Gursan Senalp
  • Visiting Scholar

Globalization Studies, Turkish Politics, History of Economic Thought and Analysis 

Xingchen Lu
  • Visiting Scholar

Conversation Analysis, Doctor-Patient Interaction, Pragmatics

Staff

Lisa Blanco
  • Business Officer
  • Manages Sociology's administrative office
  • Handles confidential faculty and staff matters for the department and insures compliance with and implementation of procedures and policies
  • Addresses space, equipment, computing, or other facility’s needs
  • Oversees department payroll 

 

  • 805-893-2085
  • SSMS 3113
Monica Gascon
  • Graduate Program Advisor
  • Oversees the graduate program
  • Provides administrative counseling to current and prospective graduate students
  • Handles payroll for TAs and Associates

 

  • 805-893-3328
  • SSMS 3111
  • Undergraduate Advisor
  • Provides counseling to Sociology majors and prospective majors
  • Assists with curriculum planning and course development

 

  • (805) 893-3314
  • SSMS 3119
Christine Gorgita
  • Academic Personnel Assistant
  • Administers the department merit and promotion processing for tenure, retention, and other advancements.
  • Processes all faculty and lecturer recruitment for permanent and short-term hires.

 

                       

 

  • 805-893-2043
  • SSMS 3117
  • Peer Advisor

Simiao He (何 思邈) is a third-year undergraduate student at UCSB, currently pursuing a double major in Sociology and Psych & Brain Sciences. As an international student from China, Simiao can provide advising for international and exchange students. She is also happy to assist with academic planning for students who intend to double major.

Madhu Khemani
  • Office Assistant
  • Issues SSMS room and mailbox keys
  • Orders supplies
  • Handles mail distribution
  • 805-893-3118
  • SSMS 3005
Melissa Martinez
  • Financial Coordinator
  • Balances department monthly ledgers and tracks faculty research expenditures
  • Processes reimbursements, invoices, and contracts
  • Hires student assistants and readers and addresses payroll questions

 

  • 805-893-4324
  • SSMS 3115
  • Undergraduate Advisor
  • Provides counseling to Sociology majors and prospective majors
  • Assists with curriculum planning and course development
  • (805) 893-3314
  • SSMS 3119

Graduate Students

Trevor Auldridge Revele
  • Graduate Student

Education; Health; Inequality and Regeneration; Rural, Suburban, and Urban Sociology; Ethnography; Community-Engaged Research

Madison Avila
  • Graduate Student

Gender and work, occupational segregation, women in STEM, demography

  • SSMS 3015
 Cristina Awadalla
  • Graduate Student

Aesthetics, Political Culture, Feminist Theories and Activism, Central America

Lauren Bickell
  • Graduate Student

Sociology of Gender; U.S. Gender History; Feminist Epistemology; Intersectionality; Social Movements; Cultural Sociology; Memory and Memorialization

  • Graduate Student

Culture, popular culture, play, fandom/audience studies

Jason Budge
  • Graduate Student

LGBTQ+ Inequalities, Health Equity and Policy, Survey Research Methods, Gender, Education, Science and Technology

Adam Burston
  • Graduate Student
  • Graduate Student

Conversation Analysis, Ethnomethodology, Policing, Criminology, Science and Technology Studies, Critical Data Studies

  • Graduate Student
Noa Cykman
  • Graduate Student

Environmental Sociology. Relational Sociology. Decolonial Theory. Multispecies Studies. Agroecology. 

  • SSMS 3013
 Jennifer David
  • Graduate Student

Gender, sexuality, race, culture, work, social psychology, mixed methods

Alex Eleazar
  • Graduate Student

Migration, mobilities, gender & sexuality, race & ethnicity, Central America, postcolonial feminist theory

Yijie Fang
  • Graduate Student
  • SSMS 3011
Ryan J. Fisher
  • Graduate Student

Legal theory and praxis; sociology of law; social movements; application of dialectical methodology to real-world issues (e.g., law, racism, climate change)

Humberto Flores
  • Graduate Student

Policing; State Violence; Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Class; Critical Criminology; Qualitative Research Methods

Emily Fox
  • Graduate Student

Gender, Sexuality, Friendship, Masculinities, Culture, Social Psychology, Feminist Theory

  • SSMS 3021
Matthew Fritzler
  • Graduate Student
Christina Grübler
  • Graduate Student

Masculinity, heterosexuality, media, science and technology studies, sociology of cultures, digital games, affective networks

  • Graduate Student

Medical Sociology, Economic Sociology, Culture, Gender, Qualitative Methods, Wealth & Inequality.

Charlotte Hoppen
  • Graduate Student

Education, Organizations, Gender, Labor, Policy

 

  • Graduate Student

Social Inequalities, Latinx Sociology, Youth and Adolescence, Masculinity, and Education.

Naomi Joseph
  • Graduate Student

Race, Social Movements, Gender, Asian American Studies

  • Graduate Student
  • Graduate Student
  • Graduate Student

Labor, Political Economy, Race, Quantitative Methods

Yucheng Liu
  • Graduate Student

Culture, Sociology of art 

  • Graduate Student

Health, immigration, race, social inequalities.

Katherine Maldonado
  • Graduate Student
  • Teaching Associate

Health; Social Inequalities; Family; Feminist Theory; Socio-Legal Studies; Visual Methodology 

Jose Manuel Mejia
  • Graduate Student

Historical political sociology, contentious politics, antimining struggles, Andean and Latin American politics, Marxism, indigenous socialism.

Marisa Meno
  • Graduate Student

race and ethnicity, migration, national identity, citizenship

 

  • Graduate Student

Race and ethnicity, South Asian identity, cultural sociology, transnationalism

  • Graduate Student
Hoai-An Nguyen
  • Graduate Student
  • Graduate Student

Carceral Systems; Policing; Race, Class and Gender, Asian American Studies; Critical Ethnic Studies

  • Graduate Student
Irem Seyma (Seyma) Ozdemir
  • Graduate Student

Feminist theories, international migration, political economy, and citizenship studies.

Timothy Perez
  • Graduate Student

Critical Theory, Latino Cultural Studies, Social Theory

  • Graduate Student

conversation analysis, gender, sexualities

  • Graduate Student
Nioshi Shah
  • Graduate Student

Race and Caste Intersections; Intersectionality; South Asia; South Asian Diaspora

  • Graduate Student

Sexualities, Gender, Masculinity, Sex/Gender-Based Violence, Qualitative Methods, Inequalities

Corinne Tam
  • Graduate Student

gender, masculinities, race, Asian Americans, identity, culture, emerging adulthood

Sara Tyberg
  • Graduate Student

Gender and Sexuality, Masculinities, Violence, Dating and Intimacy, Privilege, Elites, Culture, Reproductive Health

Ian Anthony Waller
  • Graduate Student

Astrology as a Social Phenomenon, Masculinities and Gender, Stigma, Culture.

  • Graduate Student
  • SSMS 3015
Siming Yu
  • Graduate Student

Gender, Sexuality, Masculinities, (Im)migration, China

Shangxin (Marat) Zheng
  • Graduate Student

Conversation analysis, Mandarin talk-in-interaction, conversational repair

Graduate Students on the Job Market

  • Graduate Student

Culture, popular culture, play, fandom/audience studies

Jason Budge
  • Graduate Student

LGBTQ+ Inequalities, Health Equity and Policy, Survey Research Methods, Gender, Education, Science and Technology

  • Graduate Student

Medical Sociology, Economic Sociology, Culture, Gender, Qualitative Methods, Wealth & Inequality.

Katherine Maldonado
  • Graduate Student
  • Teaching Associate

Health; Social Inequalities; Family; Feminist Theory; Socio-Legal Studies; Visual Methodology 

  • Graduate Student

Sexualities, Gender, Masculinity, Sex/Gender-Based Violence, Qualitative Methods, Inequalities