Global Dimensions
and Social Inequalities

Welcome to the Department of Sociology at Stony Brook University!

Our department focuses on global phenomena, as well as their connection to national dynamics.  We thus hold a leading position in the discipline of sociology and, as such, are integral to the university's global focus. Our faculty expertise is concentrated in Computational Social Science, Environment, Health, International Development, Inequality, and Politics and Culture.  We are a methodologically diverse department that spans both quantitative and qualitative methods. We aim to teach students how to use the best methods available to inform the most pressing policy and social issues of our time.

The Sociology Department at Stony Brook University is committed to advancing equity and justice.  We acknowledge that social justice oriented scholarship has a long tradition in sociology, including contributions from members of historically marginalized groups, such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Jane Addams.  We thus affirm the value of a wide variety of approaches to sociological research, including scholarship that is explicitly oriented toward addressing and dismantling injustice alongside inequalities. We are committed to rigorous research and teaching that seeks to improve both global and local conditions for everyone.

Leadership

Address

Department of Sociology
S401 Social & Behavioral Sciences
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, New York 11794-4356
Telephone: (631) 632-7700
Fax: (631) 632-8203

July 2024

• Daniel Levy has been elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the Memory Studies Association.
• Carrie Shandra has been selected to be a Visiting Professor at the AxPo Observatory of Marked Society Polarization at SciencesPo in Fall 2025.

April 2024

• Cathy Marrone has been selected as a recipient of SBU's 2024 Excellence in Educational Effectiveness Award.  This award recognizes members of the campus community who demonstrate a commitment to best practices in academic assessment and use assessment results to drive programmatic excellence.
• Kelly Haller, Sociology Department Academic Programs Coordinator, has received the "Supervisor of the Year" award at the Student Employee, Intern, and Community Service Awards Ceremony at Stony Brook.  She was nominated by Higher Education Administration Intern Jennie Hauk.
• Christopher Browning (Ohio State University) Sociology Department Colloquium, April 24th, 1:00 - 2:30 PM, SBS N403 "Racial Segregation and Urban Youth Wellbeing:  The Case for a Mobility-Based Approach"

March 2024

• Siwei Cheng, (New York University)  Sociology Department Colloquium, March 20th, 1:00 - 2:30 PM, SBS N403  "Beyond High-Paying Jobs: The Rise of Within-job Skill Diversity and Its Implications for Labor Market Inequality."
• Professor and Chair Tim Liao has been selected as the next editor of the ASA's Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

December 2023

• A review of Nicholas Wilson's new book, "Modernity's Corruption:  Empire and Morality in the Making of British India" has been publishe online in "Sociology of Race and Ethnicity"

November 2023

• Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman (University of South Florida) Sociology Departmental Colloquium, November 8th, 1:00 - 2:30 PM, SBS N403: "Second-Class Daughters:  Black Brazilian Women and Informal Adoption as Modern Slavery"

October 2023

• This video shows the queue of people lining up for our own Oyeronke Oyewumi to sign the Portuguese translation of her classic The Invention of Women

September 2023

• Nicholas Wilson has been interviewed about his new book,"Modernity's Corruption"  in the ASA Theory Section's fall newsletter, Perspectives
• Menisha Desai has been elected Co-President of the International Sociological Association's RC32 Women, Gender, and Society
• Giselle Gerardi, (Stony Brook University School of Nursing, Office of Nursing Research)  Sociology Department Colloquium, September 27th, 1:00 - 2:30 PM, SBS N403  "Achieving Health Equity in Perinatal Populations:  A Call for Collaboration."

August 2023

• Rebekah Burroway's "My Turn" piece on the social construction of beauty featured in Newsweek - "I Was Diagnosed with Skin Cancer.  All I Cared About Was My Looks".

July 2023

• Crystal Fleming and Jennifer Heerwig have accepted invitations to serve as consulting editors for the American Journal of Sociology (AJS).
• Crystal Fleming was recently featured on a number of national and international media outlets discussing her work on racism in France after the police killing of Nahel, a French Arab teenager.  These outlets include:

May 2023

• Jason J. Jones has received a fellowship for the Fall 2023 semester at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in Bochum, Germany

April 2023

• Aldon Morris is the first SBU Sociology PhD to be Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. Morris is the Leon Forrest Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Black Studies, Northwestern University.
• Cathy Marrone's SOC 339, Sociology of Drugs and Alcoholism and Narcan Training Featured in Newsday on April 27th: "Narcan Training to Prevent OD Deaths"
• Xiaogang Wu, (New York University Center for Applied Social and Economic Research) Sociology Departmental Colloquium, April 7th, 12:00 - 1:30 PM, SBS N403: "Social and Political Consequences of the COVID-19 Crisis in the United States: Evidence from a Longitudinal Survey in 2020 and 2021."

December 2022 

• Tim Liao has been elected President of the Sequence Analysis Association

November 2022

• Nicholas Wilson has been elected to the Executive Committee of the Social Science History Association
• Rebecca Johnson, (Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy) Sociology Departmental Colloquium, November 4th, 1:00 - 2:30 PM, SBS N403: "Using Text as Data to Understand Treatments: The Case of an RCT on College Navigators in Public Housing"

October 2022

• Jessica Halliday Hardie, (Hunter College) Sociology Departmental Colloquium , October 19th, 1:00 - 2:30 PM, SBS N403: "Best Laid Plans: Women Coming of Age n Uncertain Times"

May 2022

• Kristen Shorette is the 2022 winner of  the Environmental Sociology's Section of the American Sociological Association  Teaching and Mentorship Award.
• Nicholas H. Wilson has received a $20,000 Stony Brook Foundation Trustees Faculty Award to pursue research, scholarship and creative art.  Recipients are chosen with an emphasis on the quality of research and publications and scholarship, the institutional impact of achievements and potential for continued professional growth, and the clarity, quality and significance of long-term future research, scholarship and creative activity and their probable impact upon SBU and the scholarly community within the discipline.

September 2021

• • Oyeronke Oyewumi has received the Distinguished Africanist Award of the African Studies Association of the United States.  Established in the 1980s, the award recognizes and honors "scholars who have contributed a lifetime record of outstanding scholarship in their respective field of African Studies and service to thr Africanist community."

June 2021

• • In the recent American Sociological Association election,Crystal Fleming was elected to a three year term as an at-large member of Council, which is the governing body of the association.

September 2020

• • Jennifer Heerwig,has received a Piper Foundation Research Grant for her work on democracy vouchers, "Comparing Small Donor Public Financing Systems: The Effects of Matching Funds and Democracy Vouchers on Donor Diversity.
    
    

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Call for Proposals
Movement and Stillness: Navigating the Currents of Bodies, Ideas and Spaces - April 5, 2024

Calling all graduate students! The Stony Brook Sociology Graduate Student Forum is thrilled to announce our spring graduate student colloquia, centering around the theme: “Movement and Stillness: Navigating the Currents of Bodies, Ideas, and Spaces."

Join us on April 5th, 2024, as we seek to untangle the intricacies of movement and stillness across a spectrum of domains. We invite submissions that delve deep into the interplay between physical motion, the evolution of ideas, and the ever-changing spaces we inhabit. Whether it’s historical contexts, contemporary issues, or futuristic perspectives, we welcome your contributions—real-world cases or visionary hypothetical scenarios—all are valuable in painting a comprehensive picture.

Don’t miss this chance to be a part of a vibrant dialogue!  Head over to the full Call for Proposals and submission details.

The Sociology Department Welcomes Two New Faculty Members: Cristine Khan and Nicholas Bascuñan-Wiley.

Cristine Khan joins the Department as a PROTiG Fellow in Fall 2024. Cristine recently received her PhD in Sociology from The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her dissertation examines how racialized colonial legacies and global anti-Blackness impact second-generation Indo-Caribbean identity movements in New York and Toronto. Her research has been funded by the Russell Sage Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Her academic work is embedded in her personal biography growing up in Queens, New York and her work with multiple community organizations centered on Indo-Caribbean communities in South Richmond Hill, Queens. Her most recent publication in the Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies examines intergenerational differences in anti-Black ideologies within the Indo-Caribbean community in New York City. She has also published with Social Identities. Prior to this research, she published within the field of critical linguistic studies in Colombia, underscoring how structures of racism and gender discrimination impact English language teaching.

Cristine is a passionate educator who also worked for five years as the Program Coordinator for the Teaching and Learning Center where she ran a pilot mentorship program to provide support for BIPOC graduate students as they enter their first year of teaching. She has taught at Hunter College and Queens College. Additionally, she was the coordinator and doctoral fellow for the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Collaboration Hub at CUNY Graduate Center. Her passion for teaching and pedagogy stems from her work with immigrant learners at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, where she worked before pursuing her PhD. 

Nicholas Bascuñan-Wiley joins the Department as Assistant Professor of Sociology in Fall 2024. Nicholas received his PhD in Sociology and a certificate in Middle East and North African Studies from Northwestern University. Through ethnographic and interview-based research in restaurants, markets, and home kitchens, Nick’s scholarship examines how migrants' everyday, embodied food practices foster connectivity within local and global communities. His current book project, Sensing the Mahjar, looks at the culinary and gastronomic practices of the Palestinian community in Chile and how mobility, belonging, and power operate within diasporic contexts and through the senses. Nick is also interested in critical interpretive methods and, in March 2024, led the organization of the 25^th Annual Chicago Ethnography Conference on the theme of “Worlds of Culture.” Food, migration, global culture, and qualitative methods are central topics in Nick’s teaching, and he is always keen to implement new hands-on and real-world instruction techniques. Outside of the classroom, you can find Nick watching or playing soccer.