Sociology Welcomes New Faculty

The sociology department is delighted to welcome Michele Tine as an Associate Professor and Shaontá Allen as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology.

Michele conducts lab and school based research that focuses on the income-achievement gap. More specifically, she works to identify specific cultural and contextual aspects of poverty that contribute to the gap, cognitive processes that underlie the gap, and interventions that address the gap. Much of her current work focuses on how these topics differ in rural versus urban poverty.

Shaontá's research examines how Black individuals and groups perceive and respond to social inequality and how this resistance varies across social institutions. She specifically explores Black resistive practices within Religion, Higher Education, and Pop-Culture & Sport to theorize contemporary strategies for navigating racial and gendered hierarchies. Believing in the radical potential of sociology, Shaontá teaches and produces research with the goal of facilitating social change.