Social Sciences

Faculty and Staff Directory

Faculty

Melissa Baird

Melissa F. Baird

  • Associate Professor of Anthropology
  • Graduate Director, Social Sciences

Links

Research Interests

  • Extractive zones
  • Critical heritage
  • Forensic heritage
  • Expert knowledge
  • Ethnographic methods
  • Politics of archaeology
Carl Blair

Carl Blair

  • Principal Lecturer in History and Archaeology

Links of Interest

Research Interests

  • Experimental Archaeology
  • Early Large scale iron production
  • Roman and Anglo-Saxon England
  • Rise of socially complex societies
  • International program development
Angie Carter

Angie Carter

  • Assistant Professor, Environmental/Energy Justice

Areas of Expertise

  • Environmental & rural sociology
  • Community-based and participatory research
  • Social movements and social change
  • Gender & ecofeminism
  • Agrifood systems
Kathy Halvorsen

Kathy Halvorsen

  • Associate Vice President for Research Development
  • University Professor of Natural Resource Policy
  • Joint Appointment in Social Sciences and CFRES

Links of Interest

Areas of Expertise

  • Climate change mitigation policy
  • Arctic climate change impacts
  • Energy conservation policy
  • Renewable energy policy
  • Indigeneity and climate policy
Kari Henquinet

Kari B. Henquinet

  • Director, Peace Corps Master's International Programs
  • Director, Peace Corps Prep Program
  • Principal Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences

Links of Interest

Areas of Expertise

  • International/transnational development
  • Faith-based development
  • Gender
  • Human rights
  • Global service learning
  • African studies (Niger)
  • Disaster risk reduction and vulnerability
Don Lafreniere

Don Lafreniere

  • Department Chair, Social Sciences
  • Director, Geospatial Research Facility
  • Associate Professor of Geography and GIS

Links of Interest

Research Interests

  • Environmental Change and Life Course Epidemiology
  • Urban Environments and Population Health
  • Public Participatory GIS
  • Historical GIS & Deep Mapping
  • Spatial Humanities 
  • Deindustrialization and Shrinking Cities
  • Time-Space Integration and Modeling in GIS
  • Demography and Historical Record Linkage
  • Sense of Place and Neighborhood Construction
Nancy Langston

Nancy Langston

  • Distinguished Professor of Environmental History, Social Sciences
  • Affiliated Professor, CFRES

Links of Interest

Areas of Interest

  • Toxics, forested watersheds, and northern lakes
  • Environmental history
  • Watershed change and water quality
  • Mining history
Susanna Peters

Susanna D. Peters

  • Lecturer in Law and Society

Areas of Interest

  • Resource Economics
  • Cyberlaw
  • Intellectual Property
  • Constitutional Law
  • Orientation to Legal Careers
  • American Government
Mark Rhodes II
"Every artist, every scientist, must decide NOW where they stand. They have no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction-in certain countries-of the greatest of human literary heritages, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our univers

Mark Alan Rhodes II

  • Assistant Professor of Geography

Research Interests

  • Post-Industrial Geographies & Heritage
  • National Identity in the 21st Century
  • Digital Heritage & Social Media
  • Political Ecology, Place, & Memory
  • Black Geographies & Memorial Landscape

Areas of Expertise

  • Memory and Heritage
  • Cultural Landscape
  • British Studies
  • Historical and Cultural Geography
  • Sense of Place
  • Performativity & Performance
Jonathan Robins

Jonathan E. Robins

  • Associate Professor of History
  • Social Sciences Undergraduate Studies Director

Links of Interest

Areas of Expertise

  • History of Globalization
  • Economic History
  • History of Imperialism and Colonialism
  • International Business Organization
  • Commodity Studies
  • History of Food
Laura Rouleau

Laura Walikainen Rouleau

  • Lecturer, Social Sciences
Mark Rouleau

Mark D. Rouleau

  • Associate Professor, Social Sciences

Research Interests

  • Social simulation
  • Agent-based modeling
  • Land-use modeling
  • Norm evolution
  • Survey design
  • International relations
Sarah Scarlett

Sarah Fayen Scarlett

  • Associate Professor of History

Links of Interest

Research Interests

  • Spatial, material, and experiential aspects of social power in industrial communities
  • Historical GIS for Community-Engaged Scholarship
  • American Vernacular Architecture and Material Culture Studies
  • Public History, Historic Preservation, and Museums
  • History of Design, Craft, and Production in the United States
  • Cultural Landscapes and Historic Architecture of the Keweenaw
Timothy Scarlett
"Whereas innovation, in the backwards reading of creativity, lies outside of time, improvisation, in a forward reading, is inherently temporal."
—Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold (2007) Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Berg, New York.

Timothy J. Scarlett

  • Associate Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology

Links of Interest

Research Interests

  • Historical and Industrial Archaeologies
  • Creativity and Work Process
  • Archaeometry and Conservation Sciences
  • Remote Sensing, Survey, and Geospatial Sciences
  • Community-based scholarship, public science/humanities
  • Heritage, Placemaking, and Culture Building
Chelsea Schelly

Chelsea Schelly

  • Associate Professor of Sociology
  • Affiliated Associate Professor, CFRES

Links of Interest

Research Interests

  • Alternative technology adoption
  • Renewable energy technologies
  • Renewable and alternative technology policy
  • Sustainable communities
  • Energy conservation and consumption practices
  • Self-provisioning
  • Environmental education
Roman Sidortsov

Roman Sidortsov

  • Associate Professor, Energy Policy

Research Interests

  • Sustainable Energy Systems
  • Energy Security and Justice
  • Risk Governance of the Energy Sector
  • Arctic Energy Development
  • Russian Energy Policy
  • U.S. Energy Policy

Areas of Expertise

  • Energy and Environmental Policy
  • Comparative and International Energy Law
  • U.S. Energy Law
  • U.S. Environmental Law
  • Russian Energy and Environmental Law
  • Energy Geopolitics
Sam Sweitz
"All this information, this material, must be taken up and reconsidered in the light of man himself, and one must try if possible, to rediscover, beyond all the details, life itself... Everything must be recaptured and relocated in the general framework of history, so that...we may respect the unity of history which is also the unity of life."
—Fernand Braudel, On History, 1980.

Sam R. Sweitz

  • Associate Professor of Anthropology & Archaeology

Research Interests

  • Historical and Industrial Archaeology
  • Social, Economic, and Political Dimensions of Haciendas, Plantations, and Industrial Communities in the American West, Latin America, and the Caribbean
  • Issues Related to Colonialism, World-Systems Analysis, post-Colonialism, and Globalization
  • Relevance of Archaeology and Heritage to Identity Formation and Contemporary Social Systems
Steven Walton
"I find it astonishing that any man can regard fine machinery without admiration."
—John William Stone (in Stones Fall, by Iain Pears)

Steven A. Walton

  • Associate Professor of History

Links of Interest

Areas of Expertise

  • history of technology
  • history of science
  • artillery, fortification, ordnance
  • history of engineering
  • military history
  • Early Modern European history
Adam Wellstead
"Academics are the only people I can think of for whom this sentence makes sense: 'I'm hoping to get some time off so that I can get some work done.'"
—Sidney Verba

Adam M. Wellstead

  • Professor of Public Policy, Social Sciences

Links of Interest

Areas of Expertise

  • Policy advisory systems
  • Governance and political mechanisms
  • Survey research
  • Policy process frameworks

Areas of Interest

  • Canadian Energy and Environmental Issues
  • Climate Change Adaptation
  • Oil Sands Development
  • Forest Policy
  • Canadian Studies
  • Policy Innovation Labs
  • Policy Design
Richelle Winkler

Richelle L. Winkler

  • Professor of Sociology and Demography, Social Sciences

Links of Interest

Areas of Expertise

  • Rural Sociology
  • Population and Environment
  • Environmental Sociology
  • Community Engaged Scholarship
  • Internal Migration
  • GIS and spatial analysis
LouAnn Wurst

LouAnn Wurst

  • Professor of Archaeology

Research Interests

  • Historical and Industrial Archaeology
  • Archaeology of Capitalism
  • Class and Inequality
  • Marxist Theory
  • Historic Preservation and Cultural Resource Management
Shan Zhou

Shan Zhou

  • Assistant Professor, Environmental and Energy Policy

Fields

Environmental and Energy Policy

Links of interest

Shan's published articles

Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Georgia Tech Climate and Energy Policy Lab

Public Service Careers

Research Interests

  • Environmental & Energy Policy
  • Smart Grids, Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency & Green Buildings
  • Sustainable Technology Adoption & Diffusion
  • Environmental and Energy Justice
  • Urban and Local Sustainability
  • Policy Processes
  • Policy Analysis

Adjunct and Affiliated Faculty

Valoree Gagnon

Valoree Gagnon

  • Director, University-Indigenous Community Partnerships, Great Lakes Research Center
  • Assistant Professor, College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science

Links of Interest

Research Interests

  • University-Community Partnerships, research engagement, and equitable practice and design
  • Environmental Justice and Policy, toxic substances, risk management, and promoting holistic health
  • Indigenous / Native American Studies, treaties and the government-to-government relationship, food sovereignty, and Indigenous wisdom in the Great Lakes region
  • Environmental Stewardship and the Seven Generations Philosophy
Kathryn Hannum

Kathryn L. Hannum

  • Instructor, Social Sciences
  • Director of Student Programs

Research Interests

  •  National Identity
  • Migration and Diaspora
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Memorial Landscapes
  • Geographies of Sport

Regional Focus

  •  The Hispanic World
  • Spain
  • Argentina
Todd Holmstrom

Todd Holmstrom

  • Instructor, Social Sciences

Research Interests

  • Expanding the Benefits of Globalization and Addressing its Deleterious Effects
  • Facilitating Inclusive Economic Growth and Development
  • Empowering Agents of Positive Change and Innovation
  • Energy Independence
  • Resolving Intractable Problems and Conflict

Areas of Professional Expertise

  • International Relations
  • Foreign Policy
  • National Security Strategy
  • International Economic Policy 
Chipo Hungwe

Chipo Hungwe

  • Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cognitive and Learning Sciences
  • Instructor, Social Sciences

Staff

Christine Flood

Christine Flood

  • Office Assistant
Daniel Schneider

Daniel Schneider

  • Society of Industrial Archeology (SIA) Headquarters Manager
  • Asst. to the President of The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH)

Links of Interest

Amy Spahn

Amy Spahn

  • Department Administrator