Spring 2026 Good News - Faculty News

Carolina Bank Muñoz was awarded the 2026 Public Sociology Award from the Eastern Sociological Society.

Felicia Griffin-Fennell received the Dr. John H. Bracy Jr. Emerging Leader Award for empowering students as director of Remedying Inequity through Student Engagement (RISE).

C.N. Le was awarded the 2026 SBS Outstanding Teaching Award.

Jennifer Lundquist, alongside a team of UMass researchers (including emeritus Sociology faculty, Naomi Gerstel), was awarded a $20,000 Strategic Partnerships to Advance Research and Creative activity (SPARC) Grant for "The Living Dead: Revealing Social Connection over Centuries of Obituaries."

Sadiyah Malcolm-Wallace has been selected as a 2026-2027 ISSR Scholar, and collaborated with Bridgette Davis (Public Policy) to organize a cross-over event for the students in their Sociology of Childhood and Policy in an Age of Precarity courses, respectively.

Sancha Medwinter published a new book, Diasporic Womanist Sociology: Introducing Hope and Solidarity through Non-Western and Global South Communities and Diasporas, and received a UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentoring Award.

Joya Misra published an article in Inside Higher Ed, "13 Effective Strategies for Better Faculty Hiring and Retention" and was quoted in a Bloomberg News article about Target Corps' new dress code.

Mark Pachucki published an article in Science Politics, "Academic Freedom Is a Public Good."

Brian Sargent has been selected as a 2026-2027 Lilly Fellow for Teaching Excellence by the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Laurel Smith-Doerr has been recognized by the Office of the Provost with the honorific of Provost Professor, and has also been named a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation for 2026-2027.

Don Tomaskovic-Devey authored an article in The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Blogs, "Let's just face it, big firms got us into this mess - and it's tearing American society apart." He also co-authored an article, alongside UMass colleague Steven Boutcher (ISSR), in the Boston Business Journal, "White men file workplace discrimination claims; less likely to face inequity than others."

Aida Villanueva published an article in Social Science Research, "On the reproduction of gendered and class inequalities: Understanding children's family labor in Brazil," and was awarded the 2026 SBS Outstanding Mentor Award.