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Assistant Professor (1994 – 2000)
Associate Professor (2000 – 2014)
Graduate Coordinator, Department of Sociology (2013 – 2016)
Professor (2014 – present)
Graduate Coordinator; Department of Sociology (present – 2025)

Research Interests

My work has focused on various questions within the general framework of stress process theory; understanding gender and race/ethnicity differences in mental health, how experiences in roles (e.g., employment, parenthood) influence mental health, and how work and family balance contributes to variation in mental health and job satisfaction.  The way that the experience of time (e.g., time pressure) accounts for variation in mental health has also been a long-term interest.  Recently, I have become interested in the sociology of food and have published and/or am working on papers about the experience of being a vegan and/or a vegetarian, the representation of food and gender in TV ‘working woman’ sitcoms, and an analysis of college student diets based on six years of food diaries collected in the course I teach on the sociology of food. 

Editorial Boards and Editorships:

Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Editorial Board, 2002-2004, 2007-2009, 2023-26 
Journal of Family Issues, Editorial Board, 2011-Current
Society and Mental Health, Co-Editor, 2018-2020
Society and Mental Health, Editor, 2020-2021

Courses Taught

Undergraduate:

• Sociological Theories
• Sociology of Families
• Sociology of Food

Graduate:

• Classical Sociological Theory/Contemporary Social Theory
• Health and Health Care

Current University Service:

• Institutional Review Board Prisoner Advocate, (2001-Current)
• Faculty Senate, 8-terms, (2022-2025)
• Faculty Ethics Committee, (2008-2009, 2014-16, Chair, 2020-2022)
• AAUP Grievance Committee, (2018-Current)
• Joint Appeals Board (2015-2018, Chair, 2021-2023)

Community Service:

Board Member, City of Kent Fair Housing Board: 2010-2020
Board Member, City of Kent Board of Health, 2002-2013
Executive Board Member: Akron Community Health Resources Advisory Board (ACHR), a Federally 
Qualified Health Center): 2008-2012 Board Vice President, 2012.  Committee Member, Quality of Care 
Committee, Personnel Committee, Hospital Relations Ad Hoc Committee. 

Recent Presentations

Social Support and Perceived Mental Health by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Socio-Economic
Status (with Kelly Rhea MacArthur).  Paper presented August 12, 2018, at the American Sociological 
Meetings, Philadelphia, PA.    

Fishing and Foraging among Southeast Asian Refugees in the Summit County Parks (with Megan Shaeffer and Theresa Mata). Roundtable Presentation at the Cuyahoga Areas of Concern Symposium, October 26, 2018, Cuyahoga Falls, OH. 

Foodways, Parks, and Engaging New Americans: Storytelling and Applied Sociology (with Megan Shaeffer and Theresa Mata).  Paper presented by Megan Shaeffer and Theresa Mata at the annual North Central Sociological Association Meeting, March 29, 2019.

Is this Lady-like? Portrayals of Single, Working Women’s Relationship with Food in American Sitcoms between 1966 and 2017 (with Tristan Davies).  Paper presented by Mr. Davies at the annual Northeast Ohio Undergraduate Sociology Symposium, April 21, 2019.

Gender and Race/Ethnicity Differences in Childhood Adversity and Adult Anger among the Incarcerated Paper presented August 10, 2019 at the American Sociological Meetings, New York, NY.

Food and the Single Gal: Depictions of Eating, Commensality, and Domestic Roles in TV Sitcoms about Single Working Women from 1966 – 2017  Paper accepted for the Sociology of Culture Roundtables, August 2022, American Sociological Meetings, Los Angeles, CA.