New Faculty

 

Jacob E. Cheadle is an assistant professor of Sociology with interests in statistical methodology and social stratification. He earned a B.S. from Western Washington University in 2000 and a dual-title Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from Penn State in 2005. For his dissertation research he studied socioeconomic variation in contemporary parenting practices and the relationship between these practices and children’s academic skill development. After completing his Ph.D. he spent two years at the University of Michigan as a Robert Wood Johnson Research Fellow in the Scholars in Health Policy Research program. While a scholar he studied (a) relationship between childhood health and cognitive development, and life chances, and (b) patterns of alcohol use amongst Northern Midwestern Indigenous youth. His current projects cross through childhood education, family life, and childhood and adolescent health, with global emphases on stratification and inequality. In addition to these substantive areas, he is interested in statistical methodologies with an emphasis on latent variable modeling.

 

L. Janelle Dance (Tomni)  has a joint appointment as an associate professor in sociology and the Institute for Ethnic Studies.  She received a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University a M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University. Dance's areas of interest include the sociology of (urban) education, race and ethnic studies, inequality (with a particular interest in intersectionality), international migration, and qualitative methods (with an emphasis on ethnographic research).  Most recently, Dance has been nurturing a new interest in immigration studies. Her most recent research project involved ethnographic work at two Swedish high schools (in Gothenburg and Stockholm) on promising school practices during the Fall of 2006. This project titled, “The Children of Immigrants in Schools,” involves six nations (U.S., Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland, and Sweden), is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and directed by PI Richard Alba. Her most recent U.S. research, funded by a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, was conducted on site at two inner city schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dance has authored several academic papers. She has also published articles and a book titled, Tough Fronts: The Impact of Street Culture on Schooling (Routledge, 2002). Book manuscripts in progress include: At Risk Near Harvard U.: Working Class Teens and the Teachers They Love and Black Strawberries: Teenagers, School Reform, and Urban Change in North Philly. She has been a guest lecturer and speaker at many universities in the United States, as well as at Universities in Germany and Sweden.

 

Bridget J. Goosby has a joint appointment as an assistant professor in Sociology and Ethnic Studies. She earned her BA with a major in Sociology and minor in Women's Studies from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She then earned her MA in Sociology and her dual title Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from Pennsylvania State University in 2003. After receiving her doctorate, Dr. Goosby spent two years as a research analyst in Education and Human Development at the American Institutes for Research in Washington, DC. She recently completed a two year National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellowship in Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Disparities in Mental Health at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (ISR). Her areas of interest include mental health disparities, child and adolescent development, race and ethnicity, family sociology, poverty and economic inequality, and the life course. Dr. Goosby's current research focuses specifically on the mechanisms through which parents' psychological well-being influence adolescent psychological distress and behavioral outcomes with special attention paid to the impact of economic hardship.

 

Lisa Kort-Butler earned her Ph.D. in sociology from North Carolina State University in 2006, her Master’s degree in sociology from the University of Akron, and her Bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology from Bowling Green State University. Currently, her research focuses on sex differences in delinquency and well-being. Specifically, she examines how differences in stress, coping, and personality traits contribute to the observed differences in delinquent behavior and depression. She has recently published, with Stacy De Coster, in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and has presented several papers at national conferences. At UNL, she teaches courses in the sociology of crime and juvenile delinquency.


 

 

 

 

Kristen Olson is a survey methodologist whose research focuses on nonresponse error in surveys. Dr. Olson has a joint appointment as an Assistant Professor of Survey Research and Methodology and Sociology. Her areas of specialization include nonresponse bias, nonresponse adjustments, interrelationships between error sources with a focus on nonresponse and measurement errors, quantitative research methods, causal inference, measurement errors, interviewer effects, and dynamic approaches to surveys. Dr. Olson received her M.S. in Survey Methodology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and received her Ph.D. in Survey Methodology from the University of Michigan.


 

 

 

 

Jolene Smyth is a sociologist with active interests in the areas of Survey Methodology, Gender, and Family. Her current projects in the area of survey methodology are focused on how survey design and implementation procedures can reduce measurement and nonresponse errors. Her past and current projects examine issues such as optimal question construction procedures, the effective visual design of self-administered surveys, mode effects across aural (e.g., telephone) and visual (e.g., web and mail) surveys, and the effects of various survey implementation strategies for web, mail, and telephone surveys.

Her research in the areas of gender focuses on gender processes. In particular, she uses original interview and survey data to explore the interconnections between farm and ranch work and people’s perceptions of theirs’ and others’ masculinity/femininity, the means through which farm and ranch family members “do gender,” and the effects of gender perceptions on health and well-being. Her two strands of research interests are connected through her interests in quality data collection and methods, and particularly through additional research pertaining to ways to better measure concepts such as gender.