Questions?
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Sociology
202-885-2475
Fax: 202-885-2477
socio@american.edu
Battelle Tompkins, Room T-21
Linden, Sandra L
Senior Administrative Assistant
Michael Bader
,Assistant Professor
Michael Bader researches cities and ways in which people interact within the built environment. His scholarship centers on racial and economic segregation, neighborhood inequality, and health and nutrition disparities. He’s also interested in social ... [More]
Monica Biradavolu
,Research Assistant Professor
Monica Biradavolu joined AU in 2010 after postdoctoral positions at Yale University and Duke University. She researches the structural determinants of health, an interdisciplinary focus that embeds health within economic, social, political and gender... [More]
Kim Blankenship
,Department Chair, Sociology
Kim M. Blankenship, PhD, is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Center on Health, Risk and Society at American University. She previously served on the faculty of Sociology at Duke University and at the Duke Global ... [More]
Andrea Malkin Brenner
,Assistant Professor
Dr. Brenner received her BA in Sociology from Brandeis University, her MA in Education from Boston College, and her PhD in Sociology from American University. She joined the faculty at American University and has been teaching Sociology to Undergradu... [More]
Alan Dahl
,Professorial Lecturer
Dahl specializes in comparative-historical sociologist with a focus on social change, particularly the distinct paths taken by national societies that determine their place in the global political economy. His current work, The North of the South: Pl... [More]
Bette Dickerson
,Associate Professor
Bette J. Dickerson has served as Chair of American University’s Department of Sociology, Director of AU Women’s and Gender Studies Program and Chair of its University Diversity Committee. She is past President of the Association of Black Sociologists... [More]
Brenda Kirkwood
,Instructor
Brenda Kirkwood’s interests focus on strengthening the public health workforce through expansion of public health educational and training opportunities. She has been actively involved in national initiatives aimed at bringing the study of public hea... [More]
Susan McDonic
,Assistant Professor
Susan McDonic's research interests include contemporary religious movements, international development, Africa, Asia and globalization. Specifically she has studied one of the world’s largest development organizations: World Vision, a faith based org... [More]
Michelle Newton-Francis
,Assistant Professor
Dr. Newton-Francis teaching and research interests lie at the intersection of popular culture, body and embodiment, and gender. Currently, she applies these interests to the study of erotic labor industries and cultural representations of female sexu... [More]
Celine-Marie Pascale
,Associate Professor
As a sociologist who studies language, Dr. Pascale's research concerns culture, knowledge and power. Her first book, Making Sense of Race, Gender and Class: Commonsense, Power and Privilege in the United States (Routledge, 2007) explores inequalities... [More]
Natalia Ruiz-Junco
,Assistant Professor
Dr. Natalia Ruiz-Junco does research on interpretation, social interaction, culture and social change. She has the following research and teaching interests: classical and contemporary social theories; interactionist and interpretive theories; qualit... [More]
Randa Serhan
,Director of the Arab Studies Program and Assistant Professor
Randa Serhan is a political sociologist who is interested in immigrant communities, nationalism, and citizenship. She began graduate school in Canada where she was interested in gender and law. Since then she has worked on PTSD in post-conflict Leban... [More]
Salvador Vidal-Ortiz
,Associate Professor
Dr. Vidal-Ortiz's scholarship cuts across racialization, sexuality, gender, and religion, and is interdisciplinary. Aside from completion of his book manuscript about sexual minorities in Santería (an Afro-Cuban religion), he has published awa... [More]
Chenyang Xiao
,Assistant Professor
Dr. Xiao earned his MA at University of Toledo, OH, and PhD at Washington State University. His main research interests include environmental beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and public opinions over environmental issues. He is also interested in applie... [More]
Gloria Young
,Director, Women's and Gender Studies
Gloria A. (Gay) Young has a longstanding focus on gender and development which has led her to study a range of issues, including the nature and consequences of women’s labor force participation in post-colonial societies – in Mexico, in particular – ... [More]
Adjunct Faculty
Asoka Bandarage
,Adjunct Professorial Lecturer
Asoka Bandarage currently teaches in the Sociology Department specializing in International Development. She taught at Yale University, Brandeis University, Macalester College, Georgetown University, European Peace University and Mount Holyoke Colleg... [More]
Scholars in Residence
Katherine Frank
,Scholar in Residence
Katherine Frank is a cultural anthropologist currently studying the meaning and negotiation of sexual exclusivity in contemporary relationships. In addition to her work on monogamy, she has also written on the sex industry, pornography, feminism, eat... [More]
Fred Lazin
,Abensohn Professor
Dr. Lazin comes to AU from Ben Gurion University, where he was named Lynn and Lloyd Hurst Family Professor of Local Government in 1991. He has authored over sixty scholarly articles and chapters in books. He has written and edited ten books dealing w... [More]
Staff
Emeritus
Gert H. Mueller: Analytical Sociological Theory
Karen K. Petersen
John C. Scott
Austin Van der Slice
Affiliate Faculty
Rachel Robinson
,Assistant Professor
Dr. Robinson’s research focuses on the politics of population, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, and she also studies the determinants of birth timing in the United States. Her most recent work on Africa explored the process of... [More]



