Research

Part of my research interests lie in how society shapes our perceptions of difference and how this impacts actions, motivations and beliefs. I am working on a series of articles examining hate crime victims in Canada. This work stems from my dissertation and examines the routine activities, victimization and help seeking behaviors of hate crime victims compared to victims of violent crime, property crime and non-victims. This is a unique area, as most of the work is either on offenders or focuses on the US.

As a big believer in experiential learning, I am often working with students on their research projects. Last spring, I presented work about views towards Islamic post 9/11 with one of my student, Patrick Pellet, at the North Central Sociological Conference. We hope to publish this paper and complete a comparison using the General Social Survey. I am also working with several others examining the reasons why people choose to leave main stream religion and become practioners of paganism.

I’m part of the humanities fellowship, the Power of Play. My group is looking at the use of humor as a tool for socialization. This group’s focus is on fart jokes as a way to control the body. The best thing about working with this group is the fun we have while completing scholarly research.

Finally, I’m  part of a local consortium, Project Access, who recently received a $375,000 federal grant from the Health Resources and Service Administration to create rural awareness of senior health issues. This is a very exciting opportunity, as this is a unique consortium across county and state lines, brining together the three local hospitals (Whitman, Gritman, and Pullman Regional) and the two area agencies of aging to create a best practices community outreach program.