Contemporary Sociological Theory

Dr. Simone Pulver is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Environmental Leadership Incubator at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she leads a research and teaching team that investigates patterns in the environmental impacts of business, what drives those patterns, and how those drivers might be transformed. Her interdisciplinary research integrates perspectives from organizational theory, environmental and economic sociology, and global governance. She holds graduate degrees in sociology and energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University. Simone has engaged with SESYNC since 2014 in a range of roles. She served twice as a Distinguished Faculty Mentor for the Postdoctoral Immersion Program, and she was in residence at SESYNC in the Spring of 2016 as a Faculty Sabbatical Fellow. She is also co-leader of a SESYNC-funded book workshop and project, titled Foundations of Socio-Environmental Research: Legacy readings with commentaries, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

External Links:
https://www.es.ucsb.edu/index.php/people/simone-pulver

Dr. Dana R. Fisher is the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity at American University as well as a Professor in the School of International Service. Prior to that she was a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland. During her time with SESYNC, Dana served as a mentor for postdoctoral fellow Lorien Jasny; contributing to the Sociology Immersion Series as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar; leading a synthesis project on non-state actors in environmental governance as a Principal Investigator; and taking a sabbatical from her teaching duties to spend time at SESYNC as a Research Fellow. Dana’s research focuses on democracy, civic participation, activism, protest, and environmental policy making. Her recent studies have looked at the youth climate movement, the movement against systemic racism, and the American Resistance. She has authored over 65 peer-reviewed research papers and book chapters, and she has written 6 books, including Activism, Inc. (Stanford University Press 2006) and American Resistance (Columbia University Press 2019). Dana has also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and PBS Newshour, and she has written for the popular press, including the Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Politico, Business Insider, and the American Prospect. She has presented her work to the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine; federal agencies; foundations; presidential campaigns; and other political organizations. She is currently serving as a Contributing Author for Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6) writing a new section about citizen engagement and civic activism. For more information, see: www.drfisher.umd.edu.

External Links: www.danarfisher.com

Lori Peek is a professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. She studies vulnerable populations in disaster and is author of Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans after 9/11, co-editor of Displaced: Life in the Katrina Diaspora, and co-author of Children of Katrina. Lori has conducted field investigations in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the BP Oil Spill, the Christchurch earthquakes, the Joplin tornado, Superstorm Sandy, and Hurricane Matthew. She is the principal investigator for the NSF-funded CONVERGE facility, which is dedicated to improving research coordination and advancing the ethical conduct and scientific rigor of disaster research.

Dr. Andrew Jorgenson is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology, Professor of Environmental Studies, and coordinator of the Global Environmental Sociology Lab at Boston College. Working in the areas of environmental sociology, global political economy, the sociology of development, and sustainability science more broadly, he conducts research on the human dimensions of global and regional environmental change, with a focus on how development, inequality, and the structure of global production and trade networks contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, industrial pollution, land- cover change, and relationships between environmental conditions and population health. In 2020, Andrew received the Fred Buttel Distinguished Contribution Award from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Environmental Sociology for his innovation, publication, and service in the field of environmental sociology. He was recently appointed by the U.S. Global Change Research Program to serve as an author for the Fifth National Climate Assessment, which is scheduled for completion in 2023. He is the founding co-editor of Sociology of Development, a journal published by University of California Press, and he serves on the editorial board for various journals.
 

Dr. Kristal Jones was a research affiliate at SESYNC from 2018 to 2022 and spent 2015 to 2018 as an assistant research scientist at the Center. At SESYNC, Kristal focused her own research on the socio-environmental dimensions of food systems in both domestic and international contexts. While at SESYNC, Kristal also led the development of the Data to Motivate Synthesis project and the Qualitative Data Initiative, and she co-led the first year of the Postdoctoral Immersion Program. In all of these roles, Kristal focused on integrating social science theories and methods into socio-environmental research and on developing tools and processes that can build individuals’ and teams’ capacity to draw on diverse data sources and methods to enhance socio-environmental research outcomes. Kristal’s work in leading SESYNC initiatives has led to peer-reviewed publications focused on open data and privacy, as well as conceptualization of the food-energy-water nexus. In addition, her participation in research teams has led to papers on a wide range of topics related to food systems and managing natural resources. 

Kristal has a PhD in Rural Sociology and International Agriculture and Development from The Pennsylvania State University. Prior to her time at SESYNC, Kristal spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow working on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Innovation for Agricultural Training and Education project, which supported capacity building in agricultural education and training. Currently, Kristal co-owns an applied research and evaluation consulting firm. Kristal is also a research affiliate at the University of Vermont.

External Links:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=7yjhSIkAAAAJ&scilu=&scisig=AMD79ooAAAAAYNQBpnM9ZhMH377z4lVZ35UL8tRUo4cH&gmla=AJsN-F7LqnplcU-VPMhiVe_zJf2Vy6ypEOeI30i1Cm9R9a3Q-PKGRg-XP8p71YXm96CPEltYPnorz8GdFJlri61NMuiQs3rDKXFADIvZx7h7CNzl4xxgoqc&sciund=1398411731088172505