
Sociology Newsletter Winter 2025
- Department Happenings
- Faculty Updates
- Alumni Spotlights
- Student Highlights
- 2023-2024 Graduates
- Spring 2024 Capstone Presentations
- Undergraduate Research Opportunities
- Photos of the Sociology Department in Action
Department Happenings
New Faculty Member Dr. Larissa Beavers
The Sociology Department continues to grow! We welcomed Dr. Larissa Beavers, Assistant Clinical Professor of Sociology this fall. Dr. Beavers comes to UAH after a distinguished career as an intelligence analyst. Beavers earned her doctorate in Strategic Intelligence from the American Public University System. She has published research on the Israel-Hamas war, China, and Space Policy. This expertise adds depth to our department’s courses in criminology and intelligence studies, as Dr. Beavers teaches SOC 220: Analytical Writing for Intelligence Analysis, and SOC 462: Intelligence, Security, and Decision-Making.
New Hire for Fall 2025
The department has been authorized to search for a new, tenure-track Assistant Professor in Criminology. Tenure-track positions are valuable because they help our department build on existing strengths in criminology and develop our Minor and Concentration in Criminology and Intelligence Studies. With a deadline of November 15, we are currently in the process of reviewing applications and scheduling interviews. We expect our new hire to add new courses to our programs and engage students in their research.
Book Launch The Fallacies of Racism by Dr. Jennifer Sims
The department hosted a book launch for Dr. Sims' The Fallacies of Racism on August 28, 2024. One lucky winner walked away with a copy of the book!
Women's Equal Pay Day
The department also hosted Dr. Jessica Calarco, whose book Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net to mark Women’s Equal Pay Day 2024
New Criminology and Intelligence Studies Minor Launch Wednesday, February 19!
The Sociology Department is thrilled to announce the formation of a new Minor! The department invites each of you to our on-campus launch event for the Criminology and Intelligence Studies Minor on Wednesday, February 19, from 1-3 p.m. in Morton Hall Room 148.
The minor in Criminology and Intelligence Studies allows students to develop foundational skills like critical thinking and analytic writing used in intelligence and an advanced understanding of criminological theory and research. The minor helps prepare students from a variety of majors for future work with the FBI or other intelligence agencies, in criminal law, in policy development, and/or other related fields.
We have secured Jason Scott from the FBI facility at Redstone Arsenal, Dr. Desiree Wiesen-Martin, a sociologist who studies victims of crime, and Jim Hawkins, a member of the open source intelligence firm Dynamis, which is based in the Washington, D.C. area. Come hear them discuss the importance of criminology and intelligence studies for students.
Faculty Updates
Dr. Larissa Beavers is a retired U.S. Air Force First Sergeant and Intelligence Analyst with a Doctorate in Strategic Intelligence Studies from American Military University. Her expertise lies in Strategic Intelligence and its implications for U.S. National Security. She is also passionate about researching human rights issues and the evolving role of space warfare in international conflicts.
Dr. Dan Morrison completed his first year as department chair. In 2024, he submitted a National Science Foundation grant, presented research at several national and international conferences. He has also worked on two research projects. The first, with Dr. Jonathan Coley of Oklahoma State University, focuses on Christian colleges and universities, and follows up on his 2023 article on these institutions with Dr. Coley and colleagues. A second paper, with Dr. Claire Whitlinger of Furman University, focuses on students’ views of research projects on the university and enslavement. Morrison is also a podcaster. He published 34 episodes of The Annex, a sociology podcast. The show has been running for nearly a decade, and is produced at the Queens Podcast Lab at the City University of New York, Queens College. In 2025, Dr. Morrison will continue to host the podcast, submit papers on these projects for publication, and further develop his collaboration with Dr. Monica Casper of Seattle University, studying the science of brain injury.
Dr. Jennifer Sims is back! Having been awarded tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2023, she was away on a research sabbatical for most of 2024. She Zoom interviewed mixed-race people throughout the United States on their experiences within a changing socio-political environment; and in April, she traveled to the United Kingdom to conduct in person interviews with mixed-race people about their similar experiences there. With her colleagues at UAH and Auburn University, she completed the first paper from their biometric project that used heart-rate monitor data to assess students’ physiological responses during academic lessons on racism. In August, Dr. Sims traveled to Montreal, Canada to present the paper at the American Sociological Association and Association of Black Sociologists annual conferences. Also over the summer: her third book, The Fallacies of Racism, was published by Polity Press. Writing for the journal Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, Dr. Deadric T. Williams of the University of Tennessee- Knoxville called it “a must-read for any person who takes racism and the social construction of race seriously.” In 2024, Dr. Sims gave three podcast interviews on the book and traveled to Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York) and the University of California-Merced to give in-person book talks. Not neglecting the home front, her book launch party was held in Huntsville at Morton Hall in August; and in December she was a book vendor at the Birmingham Civil Rights Monument’s inaugural Holiday Harmony event at the historic Gaston Motel. The year 2024 held many firsts for Dr. Sims: She ran her first marathon in Nashville, Tennessee; went to Orlando, Florida for her daughter’s first-time attending Nationals for dance; saw her first on Broadway play in New York City while there for her daughter’s first national level summer intensive program; and hosted her first in-person non-profit organization fundraiser event (for Girls on the Run of North Alabama). Looking forward to 2025, Dr. Sims will teach an online class for the first time in four years, will finish her fourth book, and will return to running only half-marathons.
Dr. Christina Steidl has been busy with two nationally funded projects. Dr. Steidl is collaborating with researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Connecticut on a grant funded by the National Science Foundation, that will allow her to continue studying the educational and career trajectories of U.S. Armed Forces veterans after they complete their military service. The fist part of the project employs data from the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (e.g., Department of Veterans Affairs records and U.S. Census data) to trace the paths that veterans follow, with a particular interest in pursuit of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) degrees and careers. Findings suggest that trajectories after service differ by gender: women are more likely to return to college/university and pursue a degree, while men are more likely to go directly into the workforce. The second part of the project, which began in October, involves a collection of original survey data in order to examine how military service influenced motivations and skills needed to pursue specific types of degrees and careers.
Dr. Steidl is also a Co-P.I. and the Director of Research for Project DIAL, with colleagues Dr. Andrea Word (P.I., College of Education) and Dr. Amanda Giles (Co-P.I., College of Education). English Learners (EL) are currently one of the fastest-growing subpopulations in North Alabama. ELs represent as much as 25% of some districts’ total enrollment and often score substantially below their non-EL peers on tests used to determine College and Career Readiness. Because Alabama is one of many states nationwide that allow educators to be certified in ESL by test, rather than requiring specific teacher preparation courses or training in the field, teachers and school administrators are often underprepared to meet the needs of this subpopulation. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Project DIAL (Designing Instruction for Academic Literacies) has partnered with five north Alabama public school districts to address teacher preparedness in this regard in order to increase access to the curriculum for ELs. Specifically, Project DIAL trains teachers to analyze and intentionally design their instructional talk to reduce the cognitive load associated with language processing—in order to optimize the cognitive load available for content processing. Dr. Steidl's research team, which includes Sociology major William Mangold and Sociology minor Rebekah Faris, is evaluating the fidelity of implementation using MaxQDA software to qualitatively code transcripts of recorded classroom lessons from before and after the DIAL training. The transcript scores will be linked to student achievement and progress measures in order to assess the effectiveness of the training in helping EL's to progress.
Dr. Robert Thomson presented research comparing experiences with law enforcement between White and Black Christians at the annual meeting for the Southern Sociological Society in New Orleans, LA. Data collection remains ongoing but preliminary results suggest that while experiences with police vary significantly between White and Black Christians, both use religion to validate their experiences and inform their worldview. As part of UAH's RCEU program, he also worked with senior sociology major Emil Cucksee to collect and analyze interviews gauging perspectives of the criminal justice system, especially among gender and sexual minorities. Dr. Thomson also published a class activity in the American Sociological Association's Teaching Resources and Innovation Library for Sociology (TRAILS). The exercise, titled "Teaching Race and Gang Violence Using the Documentary Crips & Bloods: Made in America (Peralta 2008)," incorporates multimedia material with lecture, discussion, and essay assignments to prompt students thinking about the structural social causes of gang activity.
Alumni Spotlights
Titus Wortham, December 2024 Graduate
What inspired you to major in sociology? I wanted to major in a field that is personally interesting to me, and Sociology was the obvious choice in this regard. One of the main reasons I am interested in Sociology is that this field of study is connected to the Criminology classes. I have always been a big fan of crime shows and other media related to strange behaviors. Another equally big inspiration for me stems from how Sociology focuses on social phenomena and institutions that are so familiar to me. I think just about everyone would agree that their family structure, wealth, education, and so on have played a huge role in the development of their identities and how they are treated. Sociology digs into the secrets of how these factors actually play out and why our social environment is the way it is. Finding out the real stories behind these well known topics was just way too interesting to me.
How did your coursework at UAH challenge your understanding of American society? Can you provide specific examples that significantly impacted your thinking? A recurring theme in the Sociology classes here at UAH is that social behavior is learned and varies from one social setting to another. This fact alone didn't challenge my view of American society too much, but the true extent of how many of the behaviors I have once considered to be "natural" or "biological" are actually the result of social forces is something I severely underestimated. In one class, I had to go to a familiar social environment (I chose a local climbing gym) and analyze the behavior I saw under a sociological lense. It was crowded with both adults and children which made it shockingly clear how the expectations of how one should act in the climbing gym that seemed obvious to me (No walking under people, taking turns on the wall, proper falling technique, etc.) are things that people must learn, and are things the social structures around us are deliberately trying to teach.
Did you participate in any research projects, internships, or community engagement activities? How did these experiences enhance your understanding of sociological research methods and their practical applications?
For my senior capstone project in Sociology, I conducted a research study about how incoming college students choose their major and how they balance a multitude of preferences for what they want out of their major. I gathered my own data for this project using a survey and analyzed the data with a regression model. What really stood out to me while doing this project was how tricky it can be to gather accurate information on social topics. A survey may sound like a very straightforward way of collecting data, but there is a lot of room for biases to sneak in depending on the phrasing and ordering of questions or how respondents are sampled. Sociology is very people focused and our research methods clearly reflect that. Without knowing the proper techniques to reduce these biases that come with studying people, I doubt I would have gotten any meaningful results.
How did the social environment at UAH shape your sociological perspective? UAH is mostly known as an engineering school and one without a football team, so the social environment at UAH is pretty nerdy and lacks a party culture that is strong in other campuses. The culture at UAH in many ways defies the stereotypes of what the college experience is and how college students act. It really exemplifies for me how powerful social institutions are in shaping culture and how much of our actions are social products. I think a lot of people would view the rebellious stereotype of young people as a product of being young itself and overlook how social forces play a role in dictating in what ways college students act rebellious or if they even participate in that stereotype at all.
How has your sociology major at UAH prepared you for your future career goals? I think the most beneficial thing I took away from Sociology in regards to my future career came from the Sociology department's research methods, statistics, and capstone project classes. I learned a lot of practical skills like how to use SPSS and these classes gave me the ability to put these skills into practice in concrete ways that I will be able to refer to later on. Also, being a first-generation college student, the fact that middle-class norms are a recurring topic in Sociology helped me to know how I should be acting to give the impression that I'm responsible or respectful to others.
In what ways has your sociology major contributed to your personal growth? How has it shaped your worldview, critical thinking skills, and ability to analyze social issues? I think that majoring in Sociology has helped me be a less judgemental person. It is very easy to assume that someone's lack of success in life is purely a reflection of that person's inherent poor character. Most people wouldn't think about the environmental or social factors that can dictate a person's success. Sociology undermines the fundamental attribution error that I was more prone to using prior to college. Whenever I hear some widespread generalization about a group of people, whether good or bad, I am much more critical about its validity. And this is especially true if that generalization makes some judgement about the character and morals of that group.
Reflecting on your time at UAH, what are you most proud of achieving as a sociology major? What advice would you give to future sociology students? The achievements that I am the most proud of from my time as a Sociology major is winning the Outstanding Undergraduate Achievement Award in Sociology but proud of my senior capstone project and the 20 page paper I wrote for it. I remember back in high school, and even during my freshman year at UAH, the idea of writing a paper longer than six pages or undertaking a project that will take more than a few weeks to complete was unthinkable to me. If the me of four years ago saw the results of my research project, I don't think I would believe that it was written by me. My advice for future Sociology students is mostly the same advice I would give to any undergraduate. It is really important to apply yourself and immerse yourself into the classes you take. By reflecting on the subject material and how it could be seen or used in your own life makes it much easier to remember the material without the need for deliberate study time. Projects and essays are much easier to do if you are actively thinking about the implications of the classes you take as you go.
Jess Walter, May 2024 Graduate
What have you been doing since graduating with your sociology degree? I’ve been working and saving money for grad school, and trying to finish up my research project from Summer 2023.
In what ways have you used the skills and knowledge you learned in the UAH sociology program?
Probably the most useful skill I learned, at least for day-to-day stuff, would be academic writing. Most of my Soc classes assigned a lot of papers, which really helped me improve my ability to research and compose good essays. Also being able to competently research random things that interest me is very useful.
How has your training in sociology impacted your life outside of work? Most commonly, I’ve noticed a lot of theory-in-action in my regular life, especially in terms of people - for instance - casually enforcing gender stereotypes or racism and so on.
What inspired you to major in sociology? I hadn’t had any exposure to the field before taking Intro to Soc, so that class was really eye-opening, and I just had to know more. I was also rubbish at Biology (my previous major), so that helped make the switch easier.
What was your favorite sociology class? Why? I’m torn between Money and Power or Sociology of Race/Ethnicity - I think I put the most effort into those two (and got the most out of them as a result). I think Soc of Race comes out on top; I got more new information in that class and I enjoyed the assignments a great deal.
What advice would you give current sociology students at UAH, both for their time in college and for life after graduation? Try to do stuff off-campus while in college - volunteering, social events, whatever - that gets you out of the university’s bubble. Meet some people who don’t go here. This might just be my personal experience, but while the campus community is great, it’s important to ground yourself in the outside world too. As for life after college - if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Especially if you’re doing work or further education in the field, I think maintaining the skills you learn here and even keeping up to date with recent research is useful - and fun, hopefully.
Noah Gray, Spring 2023 Graduate
What have you been doing since graduating with your sociology degree? After graduating in Spring of 2023, the non-profit I interned with for my capstone (Global Ties Alabama) nominated me for the Global Ties US (GTUS) Emerging Leaders program of which I had the privilege of being accepted into. As part of the program, I conducted research and held multiple workshops on social media misinformation for Sociology and Political Science classes at UAH, presenting the results of my project at the GTUS National Meeting in Washington DC in Spring of 2024.
In what ways have you used the skills and knowledge you learned in the UAH sociology program? Certainly, for my GTUS Emerging Leaders project, I delved deep into the research toolkit my Sociology degree provided me to make sense of a confusing and often contentious topic, making it digestible and understandable for both myself and participants in my workshops. In my current role doing business development for a small cybersecurity company, the research skills and practices I acquired from the Sociology program have translated well into multiple areas in both my personal and professional life.
How might a minor in Criminology and Intelligence Studies, or even a concentration in these areas within the Sociology major, help someone who wants to work in the intelligence or security field?
Generally speaking, my Sociology studies helped me to make sense of and effectively debate hot topics, arriving at factual conclusions after examining the facts presented. Paired with the research skills and knowledge of society, a concentration or minor in Criminology and Intelligence Studies creates limitless avenues for career growth given not only Huntsville’s growth, but also the expanding presence of the FBI at the Redstone Arsenal.
What have been some of the challenges and rewards of working in your field? Sociology is an extremely vast field, and the challenges and rewards are just as vast. Unlike other fields, topics of Sociology can often be highly contentious. It takes tact and diplomacy to be able to effectively engage in meaningful, sociological discussion. On the bright side, because of the far reaching applicability of Sociology combined with my experience in clubs and societies, I have been blessed with many experiences that have expanded upon my own life experience and the concepts I learned through my degree.
What inspired you to major in sociology? My inspiration arose from my time living abroad in my youth due to my father’s career in the Army. I graduated high school in Brussels, Belgium, having spent 8 years between Norway, Estonia, and Belgium by that point. I had the privilege of experiencing many different cultures and social norms, which ultimately drives my passion for all kinds of people. Sociology has helped me both personally and professionally understand modern issues, make informed decisions, and ultimately give back to those around me.
What advice would you give current sociology students at UAH, both for their time in college and for life after graduation? Not only Sociology students, but for all students, I encourage you to get involved in a club or society while in college. I actually found my current job through a connection from my fraternity, and I am still close to a lot of the people I met while attending UAH. Meeting new people of different backgrounds is really where you get to enact and engage with the Sociology knowledge you’ve acquired, and I firmly believe interacting with people who disagree with you is paramount to developing a balanced, informed world view.
Student Highlights
Bailey Shaffer graduated in December 2024, and her experience at UAH and in the sociology department was highlighted in UAH News.
Congratulations to UAH Students who presented their research at the Southern Sociological Society’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans, April 3-5, 2024:
- Rebekah Faris
- Jess Walter
- Fletcher Wilson
2023-2024 Graduates
May Graduates:
- Erica Arnett
- Macey Butler
- Lindsey Davis
- Alondra Delgado
- Nyla Henry
- Evelyn Jones
- Marin Lehr
- Destiny Miller
- Madeline Moe
- Maria Morales
- Jess Walter
- Margaret Wilson
December Graduates:
- Bailey Crain
- Emil Cucksee
- Ikia Elam
- LaToya Johnson
- Taylor McBride
- Bailey Shaffer
- Fletcher Wilson
- Titus Wortham
Spring 2024 Capstone Presentations
Congratulations to the following students who successfully completed their Sociology Capstone Internship or Research Project. We are proud of your accomplishments and are cheering you on to future success!
- Erica Arnett
- Macey Butler
- Bailey Crain
- Emil Cucksee
- Lindsey Davis
- Alondra Delgado
- Ikia Elam
- Nyla Henry
- LaToya Johnson
- Evelyn Jones
- Marin Lehr
- Taylor McBride
- Destiny Miller
- Madeline Moe
- Maria Morales
- Bailey Shaffer
- Jess Walter
- Fletcher Wilson
- Margaret Wilson
- Titus Wortham
Undergraduate Research Opportunities
Get paid to build your research skills and your resume!
UAH Research and Creative Experience for Undergraduates Program (RCEU) – Now Accepting Applications! Due February 10, 2025
NSF REU Programs
This national program offers students free travel, room and board, and a generous stipend for spending a summer on a research project with faculty at a university with an REU Site. Opportunities differ each year. There are over 40 universities seeking undergraduate participants. Deadlines are specific to each university’s program and are typically around in January or February. Search for REU site opportunities in the social and behavioral sciences here.
Photos of the Sociology Department in Action!