Faculty

E.M. BECK is Professor of Emeritus of Sociology and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia. His research focuses on the political economy of racial violence, in particular the relationship between economic change in the American South and violence against blacks. He has authored over 60 papers published in sociological and social science journals, and is co-author of A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of…

E. M. Beck
Dr. William Finlay is a Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Georgia, where he taught at the University of Georgia from 1988 until 2022. Prior to that he taught at the University of Iowa. He received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town. His research areas include the workplace, organizations, and economic sociology.and he has…

William Finlay
Dr. Patricia Richards, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, has been at the University of Georgia since 2002. She currently serves as the director of the Institute for Women's Studies. She also serves (with Sharmila Rudrappa of the University of Texas at Austin) as co-editor of Gender & Society.  Dr. Richards is an affiliated faculty member with the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute and the Institute of…

Patricia Richards
Dr. Leslie Gordon Simons, Meigs Professor of Sociology and Distinguished Scholar with the Owen's Institute of Social and Behavioral Research, joined the University of Georgia faculty in 2002. Leslie's primary areas of expertise are Family and Criminology. Her program of research focuses on the socio-contextual predictors and consequences of various family processes as well as the mediators and moderators of the relationship between…

Leslie Gordon Simons
Dr. Jody Clay-Warner, Meigs Professor of Sociology (view Dr. Clay-Warner's Meigs video) and Director of the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, has been at the University of Georgia since 1998. She received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Emory University, and her specialty areas include social psychology, criminology, and gender.  She is the co-editor of Social Psychology Quarterly and the co-director of the Laboratory for the Study of…

Jody Clay-Warner
Dr. Linda Grant, Professor of Sociology, has been at the University of Georgia since 1985. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan in 1981. Her specialty areas include sociology of gender, sociology of education, qualitative methods, social psychology, women and science. Dr. Grant's most recent work examines mentoring and gender and careers in the social, biological, and physical sciences, race and gender issues in…

Linda Grant
Dr. James E. Coverdill, Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Sociology (view Dr. Coverdill's Meigs video) has been at the University of Georgia since receiving a Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University.  One main prong of his research explores the ways culture, social organization, and place (especially the rural/urban divide) intertwine to shape the work and training of surgeons.  This research is grounded in…

James E. Coverdill
Dr. Thomas McNulty, Associate Professor of Sociology, has been at the University of Georgia since 1996. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University at Albany (SUNY) in 1996. His specialty areas include criminology and urban sociology.  Dr. McNulty's recent work focuses on testing multilevel theoretical models of racial and ethnic disparities in neighborhood violence, with emphasis on racialized income segregation across…

Thomas McNulty
Dr. James J. Dowd, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, has been at the University of Georgia since 1977. He received a doctoral degree in Sociology from the University of Southern California in 1976. Dr. Dowd's specialty areas include the sociology of aging, social theory, sociology in film, and military sociology.   Dr. Dowd's most recent work examines the intersection of sociology, life-span human development, and the humanities. His…

James J. Dowd

James Hearn
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