Richelle L. Winkler

Biography

My research aims to understand and promote rural community sustainability. Most of my work examines population change as both a cause and a consequence of community well-being, and I am particularly interested in the relationships between population, environment, and community well-being. I employ both quantitative and qualitative research methods to answer social science questions related to human interactions with the natural world.

The research projects I engage with tend to be either demographic in nature or to focus on community and environmental sociology or both. For example, my research team recently released a dataset of net migration by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin for every county in the U.S. 2000-2010. The data can be downloaded from a public website that allows for interactive mapping and chart-making. See www.netmigration.wisc.edu. The data inform local and regional planning efforts and provide applied demographers with necessary data for generating small area population estimates and projections. Another demographic project I'm working on involves analyzing how numbers of hunters and anglers are changing over time and how they will change in the future with important implications for conservation policy.

Other projects are more community-based, including my dissertation work which involved a community-based participatory research project with the Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation and a group of lower income younger adults in central Minnesota and studied how the context of living in a tourism and retirement focused lakes destination area affects the well-being of lower income people and younger adults. I am very interested in community based work, collaborating with communities on sustainability oriented projects, and service learning. My Communities and Research course includes a community-based research project in collaboration with Main Street Calumet (a community organization), and my Introduction to Sociology course includes a community-based project with Copper Country Mental Health.

In my personal life, I love hiking in the woods with my kids and my Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, brewing beer with my husband, playing and coaching volleyball, cross country skiing, canoeing, and watching sports (especially Badger football and basketball).