Jeni Cross, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Sociology. She earned a bachelor s degree from Colorado State University and received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Davis.

She is a community sociologist, conducting research with and for community partners to solve community problems and improve quality of life.  Her research has focused on issues of public health, place attachment, behavior change, community engagement, and using social networks to create systems change.  One current research project, funded by the U.S. EPA, examines the impact of green schools on student and teacher performance and health. Her study, the Social Network of Integrative Design, is the first study to use social network analysis to describe the social processes of innovation in a variety of building design projects from community gardens to large commercial office buildings. Additionally, she is funded by the NIH Clinical and Translational Sciences Award to lead the Science of Team Science core at the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Center. She is a sought-after speaker, regularly lecturing on cultivating transdisciplinary teams, developing behavior change programs, and creating systems change. Her TedX talk on the 3 Myths of Behavior Change has been viewed over 1 million times and been adapted in dozens of courses across the globe in social science an environmental science courses.