Chair's note

Greetings from Texas Sociology! As the school year comes to an end, I wanted to take a minute and update you on life here at the 40 Acres.

First off, Jordan Conwell and Michael Sierra-Arevalo were promoted to Associate Professor of Sociology in Fall 2025, an overview of them and their newest collaboration is described below.  Our faculty continue to excel in their scholarship and in the classroom. We publish a lot. Starting with books, colleagues  have written about the relationship between illegal organizations and state power, coming of age in uncertain times, women, politics, and power around the world, the development and evolution of colorism in the US, and the work lives of women of color during the pandemic. Others have published articles in top journal such as the American Sociological Review (times two), Science Advances, Annual Review of Sociology, Social Forces, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences plus many other places.

Our graduate students also continue to be incredibly research active, publishing in the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Health and Social Behavior (twice), and Contraception plus many other place. This work has led to honors in both the discipline and the University. For example, Alexander Holt was awarded the American Sociological Association's 2025-2026 Minority Fellowship, Carly Young received the Graduate Archer Fellowship for this summer in Washington D.C. and was awarded the AAUW Doctoral Fellowship, and Shania Montufar was selected for the 2026 Latino Social Science Pipeline Initiative (LSSPI) Junior Scholars Symposium at UC Berkeley. Closer to home, Charlotte Perez was selected as a 2025 Social Impact Challenge Award winner by the Moritz Center for Societal Impact at UT Austin, Kylie Yim received an Outstanding Graduate Research Fellowship from the Graduate School, and a Dean's Office Academic Excellence in Research Fellowship from the College of Liberal Arts, María Ximena Davila received a COLA Outstanding Graduate Research Fellowship, and Iani Sam’s paper was awarded the 2026 Norval Glenn Prize; Asya Saydam’s was awarded an honorable mention.

The list below gives a fuller overview of the breadth and depth of the published work and awards from our faculty and graduate students this year. Truly an impressive contribution to the sociological understanding of social life.

Our colleagues continue to bring in substantial grant funding to do their cutting-edge scholarship. Deb Umberson, Director of the Center on Aging and Population Sciences (CAPS), received a competitive six-year renewal of the P30 Center Grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Kim Pernell also received a research grant from the Russell Sage Foundation for her new project on childcare centers.

Our teaching also remains top-notch, as evidenced by Maya Charrad’s recent award of the Mahendru Endowed Professorship by the Plan II Honors Program at The University of Texas at Austin. 

Our undergraduate program is also thriving. We have nearly 550 majors and more than 200 minors, taking a range of substantive courses like Fertility and Reproduction, Criminology, and Economic Sociology to methodological ones like Introduction to Social Networks, Qualitative Methods in Social Research, and Applied Social Statistics, reflecting the strengths of our highly ranked faculty. Our honors program students are also producing excellent original research on a wide array of topics. This year, five students completed our honors program, where they wrote theses on issues ranging from perceptions of drug testing in the workplace to ongoing stigma against trans people. Two Sociology majors, Audry Fife and Hannah Garza, received COLA Dean’s Distinguished Graduates Honorable Mentions.

Sociology is also home to Health & Society, an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that began in 2014 with two students and has grown rapidly to serve more than 700 majors. Students complete core coursework in Health & Society and draw on a cross-section of offerings from across the University. The program emphasizes strong career pathways, supported by a growing network of community partners. During the spring semester, Health & Society launched the Health Professions Fellowship program, a collaboration with Dell Medical School, and ran a competitive application process admitting 16 students to the first cohort, set to begin in fall 2026. In April, the program hosted its second annual undergraduate research poster session, featuring 19 thesis students who presented original work on topics including vaccine uptake, patient and provider perspectives on AI in medicine, and opioid mortality in Texas to an audience of more than 100 attendees. This year, two Health & Society graduates, Juslyn Dhingra and Ellie Monday, were named COLA Dean’s Distinguished Graduates for their exceptional academic achievement, leadership, and service.

While we have much to celebrate, this year has also presented significant challenges that tested our resolve and require thoughtful navigation. At the federal and state level, threats to research funding and debates on academic freedom continue. We have also experienced changes here at UT, with a new leadership at the University and College, including the consolidation of many departments in the College. Still, as a community, our commitment to asking important questions and doing cutting edge scholarship, teaching thoughtful and rigorous courses, training the next generation of scholars -- at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and highlighting open intellectual discourse remains unchanged.

Remaining connected to you, our alumni and friends, can help us continue to do this important work. Please feel free to reach out to me and share updates about your life since leaving UT.