Welcome to Sociology at UAlbany

The Department of Sociology at UAlbany is very proud of the accomplishments of our faculty and students. Many of our faculty have received University awards and other recognition for their teaching, research, and academic service. It is our faculty’s strong record of scholarly accomplishment that has led to increasing national recognition and stature for the Department. The U.S. News & World Report ranking of sociology graduate programs in 2005 ranked the Department tied for 25th. The Department is also one of the largest undergraduate majors at UAlbany, offering a broad and diverse range of options for students. We invite you to learn more about us by exploring our links.

Recent News

Reese Kelly is one of seven 2009 Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellows in Women’s Studies selected from a nationwide competition.   Reese was also the winner of 2009 Allen E. Liska Dissertation Research Award and co-chair of the Queer UAlbany Graduate Students organization. A section from his thesis entitled "Border-Crossing: Transgender Identity Management" won the 2008 New York State Sociological Association Graduate Student Paper Award.

Congratulations to Christine E. Bose who was elected as the Eastern Sociological Society 2011 President/President-elect. Her new book "Global Gender Research" has recently been released by Routledge. ...

Samantha Friedman has received an NIH grant entitled, "Cybersegregation: Is Neil a More Desirable Tenant than Tyrone or Jorge?." From 2008 through 2010, she and Gregory D. Squires (George Washington University) will conduct audits of the electronic housing markets in Boston, MA and Dallas, TX.

Angie Y. Chung has been appointed to serve on the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Sociology for the American Sociological Association. Her book "Legacies of Struggle" will also be featured at an Author-Meets-Critic session at the 2009 ASA conference.

Congratulations to Kelly McGeever, who was one of approximately 20 people selected to participate in the Advanced Spatial Analysis Workshop in Spatial Pattern Analysis sponsored by the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science. The 2008 workshop was held at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Additional details can be found here.

David Chunyu received a one-year Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (USA).

Please join the department in congratulating winners of the University at Albany's 2008 Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award: Randy Hohle, Jr. "Symbolic Citizenship, Ethical Practice, and the Body: Competing Political Projects in the Black Civil Rights Movement 1954-1968" and Shannon M. Monnat - "The Color of Welfare Sanctioning: A Multilevel of Benefit Reductions and Case Closures Under Welfare Reform" This prize is award to the best dissertations in any field in the College.

Congratulations to Karen Tejada for receiving the Jackie McLean Fellowship, a competitive 1-year visiting faculty fellowship at the University at Hartford.

The Department's 38th Annual Theodore G. Standing Lecture presented by Dr. Gary LaFree was a success. Congratulations to the winners of the sociology departments 2008 Paul Meadows Excellence in Teaching Award (Carolyn Corrado ), 2008 Paul Meadows Excellence in Research Award (Erica Hunter & Bryan Robinson ), and the 2008 Allen E. Liska Dissertation Award (Karen Tejada ).

Hayward Derrick Horton received the 2008 Outstanding Community Service Award from the Black Caucus of the Public Employee Federation for his research on 'Diversity in the New York State Government Workforce.

Jeff Napierala has been accepted as one of about 20 graduate students to participate this summer in the Harvard Manchester Summer Workshop at the University of Manchster on Immigration and Social Change in Britain and the US.

Angie Y. Chung is spending the 2008 fall semester as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology at Yonsei University, Korea.

Steve Messner is spending the 2008 spring semester at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, Germany. He is a member of a research group studying the control of violence.

Research by Donald Hernandez on Racial-Ethnic Inequality in Child Well-Being from 1985-2004 was featured in a front page story by USA TODAY.

Hayward Derrick Horton was promoted to Associate Dean of Graduate Studies for the University at Albany. He is the first individual in the history of the institution to hold this post. He also continues his responsibility as Professor of Sociology.