Loyola University Chicago

The faculty includes 13 active full-time sociologists. Current research project topics include: racial, ethnic and economic diversity in urban communities; flexible employment for professionals; the non-profit sector; violent crime; population changes in non-metropolitan regions; the changing commitment of women to work and family roles; the role of experts in advanced industrial societies; religion and social change; community-centered models of public policy development; women and family violence; the geographical development of evangelicalism; and women and unemployment. In the last five years the department has received over $3 million in external research funding.

It is indicative of the esteem in which the faculty members of the department are held by their peers outside Loyola that a large proportion have held or are holding office in professional associations. The department counts among its numbers past presidents of the Society for Study of Social Problems, the Midwest Sociological Society, the Illinois sociological Association, Sociologists for Women in Society, and the Religious Research Association. The combined faculty have published more than twenty-five books. They have published articles in The American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, Social Forces, Contemporary Sociology, Human Organization, Qualitative Sociology, and Sociological Quarterly, and in many specialized journals such as Criminology, American Demographics, Rural Sociology, The Journal of Marriage and the Family, Politics and Society, Theory and Society, and Science, Technology & Human Values.

Jennifer Barrett
Assistant Professor
Health, religion, demography, post-Soviet studies, quantitative and qualitative research methods.
Damen Hall 933
773.508.3460
Email: jbarrett@luc.edu

Japonica Brown-Saracino
Assistant Professor
Urban and community sociology, cultural sociology, sexuality, race and ethnicity, ethnography
Damen Hall 926
773.508.3667
E-mail: jbrownsaracino@luc.edu

Mary Byrnes
Instructor
Aging, race, class, gender, sexuality inequalities, visual methodologies
Damen Hall 933
773.508.3488
E-mail: mbyrnes@luc.edu

David G. Embrick [Curriculum Vita]
Assistant Professor
Race and ethnic Relations, racial attitudes, stratification/diversity in the workplace, social inequalities.
Damen Hall 936
773.508.3424
E-mail: dembric@luc.edu

Anne Figert
Associate Professor
Graduate Program Director
Health, medicine, sociology of science, gender.
Damen Hall 923
773.508.3431
E-mail: afigert@luc.edu

Marcel Fredericks
Professor
Health care, medical sociology, theory, stratification, family.
Damen Hall 934
773.508.3467
E-mail: mfreder@luc.edu

Fred Kniss
Associate Professor
Department Chair
Religion/culture, social movements, social change, comparative historical methods.
Damen Hall 919
773.508.3459
E-mail: fkniss@luc.edu

Marilyn Krogh
Associate Professor
Urban sociology, poverty, quantitative methods.
Damen Hall 938
773.508.3471
E-mail: mkrogh@luc.edu

Lauren Langman
Professor
Social psychology, critical theory.
Damen Hall 959
773.508.3463
E-mail: llangma@luc.edu

Jon Norman
Assistant Professor
Urban sociology, inequality and political economy, research methods.
Damen Hall 931
773.508.3439
Email: jnorman@luc.edu

Philip Nyden
Professor
Director of Center for Urban Research and Learning
Urban sociology, applied sociology, qualitative methods.
Lewis Towers 1000,
312.915.7761
E-mail: pnyden@luc.edu

Elfriede Wedam
Instructor
Urban and community, religion, American culture, race and ethnicity, German sociology.
Damen Hall 937
773.508.3669
E-mail: Ewedam@luc.edu

Judith Wittner
Professor
Families, gender, qualitative methods, popular culture, social theory.
Damen Hall 922
773.508.3473
E-mail: jwittne@luc.edu

J. Talmadge Wright
Associate Professor
Homelessness, social inequality, critical social, cultural theory, social-physical space, gender, mass media and popular culture.
Damen Hall 946
773.508.3451
E-mail: twright@luc.edu

Affiliated, Part-time, Emeritus Faculty

Kathleen M. Adams
Professor Affiliated
(Ph.D. Washington 1988)
Race/Ethnic/Minority Relations, Social Change, Art/Music.
E-mail: kadams@luc.edu

Richard Block
Professor Affiliated
Criminology, violence and victimization, geographic information systems.
Damen Hall 931
773.508.3454
E-mail: rblock@luc.edu

Paul Breidenbach
Associate Professor Affiliated
(Ph.D. Northwestern 1973)
Anthropology, History of Sociology/Social Thought, Mass Communication/Public Opinion, Religion.
E-mail: pbreide@luc.edu

Kenneth Johnson
Affiliate Research Professor
Demography, urban sociology, statistics. 
Damen Hall 933
773.508.3461
E-mail: kjohnso@luc.edu

Ayana Karanja
Associate Professor Affiliated
(Ph.D. Union 1981)
Race/Performance/Ethnicity and Public Representation.
E-mail: akaranj@luc.edu

Kathleen McCourt
Professor Emerita
(Ph.D. Chicago 1975)
Urban Sociology, Race/Class/Gender, Policy Analysis/Public Policy..
E-mail: kmccour@luc.edu

Laura Miller
Professor Affiliated
(Ph.D. California-Los Angeles 1988)
Anthropology, Language/Social Linguistics, Race/Ethnic/Minority Relations.
E-mail: lmille2@luc.edu

Mary Sparks
Professor Emerita
(Ph.D. Northwestern 1984)
Applied Sociology, Race/Ethnic/Minority Relations, Sex and Gender.