RESEARCH, OUTREACH, & ENGAGEMENT

Ensuring A Better Future Here & Afar

Our Research Mission & Values

Inspired by Colorado State University’s land-grant heritage, the Sociology Department support’s CSU’s commitment to excellence and to setting the standard for public research university research for the benefit of the citizens of Colorado, the United States and the world. Sociology at CSU has a long tradition of high quality research in support of effective solutions to complex social, economic development and environmental problems.

  • Our Sociology Department supports four research centers that actively contribute to CSU’s Tier 1 interdisciplinary community of faculty and graduate.
  • Sociology faculty members blend their research, teaching and outreach/engagement, bringing to their classrooms up-to-date knowledge and expertise about current societal problems and providing unique opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to work with them on research.
  • Sociology faculty are University leaders in “engaged scholarship,” which is encouraged by Colorado State University as a Carnegie Elective Classified University for Engagement. According to Carnegie, “Community engagement describes collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.”

“Sociology helps get to the core of scientific questions by offering tools to understand why problems arise in the first place.” – Michael Carolan, Professor of Sociology

Recent Faculty Projects

center for environmental justice spent nuclear storage sociology stephanie malin

Stephanie Malin’s team receives $2 million DOE award to study spent nuclear fuel storage

August 18, 2023

As part of a U.S. Department of Energy study, CSU is partnering with Boise State University to research how to improve the approach of locating these storage facilities by encouraging meaningful community engagement and participation in decision-making to enhance environmental equity.

Read More
farmers market

CSU’s Food Systems Institute brings interdisciplinary work to one table

May 3, 2022

The new CIOSU will work to advance University efforts toward strengthening the economic, environmental, cultural and social foundations of the state’s local and regional food systems.

Read More
mountain forest landscape

NSF funds Jeni Cross and transdisciplinary sustainability collaborators

March 21, 2022

Breaking free from the silo: Regional network focuses on all parts of the sustainability puzzle Article by Stacy Nick. Originally published on SOURCE. A new Colorado […]

Read More
Lab logo

Prison Agriculture Lab launched by Joshua Sbicca, Becca Chalit Hernandez, Azmal Hossan, Julia Kovacs

December 15, 2021

Joshua Sbicca has launched the Prison Agriculture Lab, a collaborative space for inquiry and action that focuses on agricultural practices within the criminal punishment system. […]

Read More

Recent Books & Publications

An Agricultural Adjustment Administration representative in his office, Taos County, New Mexico, December 1941. The agency was created under the New Deal to reduce farm surpluses and manage production.

The Conversation publishes Josh Sbicca’s “US agriculture needs a 21st-century New Deal”

July 19, 2019

By Maywa Montenegro (UC-Davis), Annie Shattuck (UC-Berkeley), Josh Sbicca (CSU). Originally published on The Conversation.  US agriculture needs a 21st-century New Deal These are difficult times in […]

Read More
screenshot of Conversation headline

Stephanie Malin’s climate crisis work published by The Conversation

July 3, 2019

By Becky Alexis-Martin (Manchester Metropolitan University), James Dyke (Univ. of Exeter), Jonathon Turnbull (Cambridge), Stephanie Malin (CSU). Originally published on The Conversation.  Climate crisis: migration […]

Read More
journal cover

Stephanie Malin published by Energy Policy

June 18, 2019

Stephanie Malin, Adam Mayer and colleagues published “Putting on partisan glasses: Political identity, quality of life, and oil and gas production in Colorado” in Energy Policy. 

Read More

Presentations

Feminist Criminology cover

Kellie Alexander and Jeff Nowacki’s research on gender & promotion in policing published by Feminist Criminology

December 24, 2021

Ph.D. student Kellie Alexander and Dr. Jeff Nowacki’s research “Women in power? Examining gender and promotion in policing through an organizational perspective” was published December 24, 2021 by Feminist […]

Read More
Jessie on radio show

Jessie Luna visits West Africa as keynote speaker and radio panelist on pesticides & public policies

November 20, 2021

Jessie Luna gave the keynote address at a fall conference in Côte d’Ivoire (West Africa) on Pesticides and Public Policies in the Global South. Her […]

Read More
RIHN logo

Michael Carolan keynote speaker for RIHN 15th International Symposium

February 9, 2021

Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) held its 15th International Symposium virtually January 13–16, 2021. This year’s theme was “Transitioning Cultures of Everyday Food […]

Read More

Awards & Honors

Ian speaking

Prabha Unnithan honored at retirement gathering

By Sociology Communications | April 26, 2023

Prabha Unnithan’s retirement gathering was held April 26 at CSU’s Durrell Center. Current faculty, staff and graduate students were joined by emeritus professors and former graduate students in honoring Dr. Prabha Unnithan and Dr. Shashi Unnithan, his wife. Prabha grew up in Malaysia after his parents migrated there from India. After completing high school in […]

Carolan with award

Michael Carolan wins international Business Impact Award for A Decent Meal

By Sociology Communications | October 27, 2022

Michael Carolan received the Frankfurt Book Fair’s getAbstract 2022 International Book Award for Business Impact. Carolan was flown to Germany in October and honored during a formal ceremony. Carolan’s newest book, A Decent Meal: Building Empathy in a Divided America, was selected from 10,000 non-fiction titles. The jury chose it “for its timely relevance that […]

Prabha accepting award

Prabha Unnithan honored by the Academy of Criminal Justice Science

By Sociology Communications | March 26, 2022

The Academy of Criminal Justice Science (ACJS) presented Dr. Prabha Unnithan with the prestigious Gerhard O.W. Mueller Award for Distinguished Contributions to International Criminal Justice at the International Section’s Annual Awards Luncheon during the 2022 ACJS Annual Meeting held in Las Vegas in late March. This annual award is given to an individual who has made an […]

In The Media

The Audit: Can healing our divided nation start at the dinner table?

By Sociology Communications | November 15, 2022

CSU Sociology Professor and Food Systems Institute Co-director Michael Carolan spoke to The Audit podcast about his research into food, food systems and building empathy on common ground.

A rendering of the proposed Santa Clara Agrihood.

Joshua Sbicca interviewed by Civil Eats about agrihoods and “green gentrification”

By Sociology Communications | September 13, 2022

Agrihoods Promise Fresh Food and Community. Can They Add Equity to the List? Agrihoods promise to save farmland by turning it into a residential amenity. Can this effort to bridge housing and farmland support environmental justice? Article by Greta Moran. Originally published by Civil Eats.  Please click here to read.

Lab logo

Food Sleuth Radio interviews Joshua Sbicca about prison agriculture

By Sociology Communications | August 25, 2022

By Melinda Hemmelgarn. Originally appeared on Food Sleuth Radio. Did you know that over 600 U.S. prisons include agricultural activities of some kind? Join Food Sleuth Radio host and registered dietitian, Melinda Hemmelgarn, for her interview with Joshua Sbicca, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Prison Agriculture Lab at Colorado State University. […]

“Sociology: because life is a team sport.”
– Lynn Hempel, Associate Professor of Sociology