Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice

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News Archives

2006 - 2007

Staff Wins NICHD Mentored Research Scientist Development Award

Jeremy Staff, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology received the Mentored Research Scientist Development Award in Population Research from the National Institute of Child Health and Development. Jeremy's research interests are criminology, life course and stratification. The award supports his project entitled Early Work Experiences and the Transition to Adulthood. In addition to this honor, he has two forthcoming articles. Work and Occupations will publish "Tracing the Timing of 'Career' Acquisition in a Contemporary Youth Cohort" by Jeylan T. Mormer, Michael Vuolo, Jeremy Staff, Sara Wakefield and Wanling Xie. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development will soon publish "Social Class Background and the 'School to Work' Transition" by Jeremy Staff and Jeylan T. Mortimer.

 

 

 

Cassie Dorius Named AAPSS Graduate Fellow

At the American Academy of Political and Social Science eighth induction ceremony in Washington, DC, in April, forty-one graduate fellows were announced. ASPSS Graduate Fellowships recognize students with an outstanding grasp of their discipline, enthusiasm for understanding social issues, and the promise of making substantial contributions to the social sciences in the future. Leading U.S. social science departments are invited to designate one graduate student who has fulfilled requirements for PhD candidacy. Cassie was one of two sociology graduates receiving this honor.

 

 

Wayne Osgood Receives the Howard B. Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award

For his effective mentoring through guiding and nurturing the collegial and professional development of junior faculty and graduate students, Wayne Osgood, Professor of Criminology and Sociology, received the Howard B. Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award. Wayne is one of the most visible scholars in the field of criminology today. He was recently named a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology.

 

 

 

Darrell Steffensmeier Awarded Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Social Sciences

Darrell, a professor of sociology and criminology, is one of the most influential scholars in criminology and a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology. His book, The Fence, won the 1987 Cooley Award (for best book) given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His recent book, Confessions of a Dying Thief (with Jeffrey Ulmer), won the 2006 Michael J. Hindelang Award for the most outstanding contribution to research in criminology by the American Society of Criminology.

 

Grad Student Awards 2008

The First Annual Penn State Department of Sociology Student Paper Awards was held on June 18, 2008, hosted by the Sociology Travel Committee. An departmental luncheon was arranged to recognize graduate students of their awards and accomplishments. Each winner was given a certificate of achievment and a monetary award. The two overall winners were asked to present their papers during the luncheon.

For the Published Paper Award, the winner is ANDREW LINDNER for his Spring 2008 Contexts article entitled "Controlling the media in Irag."

Andrew's primary research interests are sociology of the media, political sociology, and social theory. In particular, he studied the intersection of media, politics, and society. His dissertation examines the privatization of National Public Radio. Beginning in the fall of 2008, he will be an assistant professor of sociology at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN.

The winner of the Working Paper Award is SHAWN DORIUS for his 2008 PAA presentation entitled "Global demographic convergence?". A reconsideration of inequality in national fertility estimates." A revised version of this article is forthcoming in Population and Development Review's September 2008 issue.

Shawn’s research interests broadly fall into the category of social change, with a particular focus on long-run change in global stratification and inequality. He has studied global inequality across a broad range of indicators, including gender, fertility, education, and life expectancy. Shawn’s current research focuses on US health inequality, where he finds that health disparities have been declining for much of the last 35 years across nearly all major sub-populations, including: age, race, sex, income, and occupational status.

The Published Paper Honorable Mention goes to STACY HOSKINS HAYNES (co-authors R.B. Ruback and R.G. Cusick) for their forthcoming article in Crime and Delinquency entitled "Courtroom workgroup and sentencing: The effects of similarity, proximity, and stability".

Stacy's research interests include victimization, sentencing and the courts, and criminal justice policy. Her dissertation focuses on the effects of three victim-related contextual factors (the availability of victim resources, county-level indicators of justice, and victim participation in the criminal justice system) on sentencing outcomes. The paper she submitted was based on my master's thesis, which she worked on with Barry Ruback. She starts her new job as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Mississippi State University in the fall of 2008.