Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Faculty Information

Heidi M. Altman, Ph.D. (University of California-Davis, 2002)
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Dr. Altman has conducted research among Native American communities in Mexico, California, Tennessee and North Carolina . She has engaged in fieldwork in all four fields of anthropology and is especially interested in projects that cross the fields. In 2006 the University of Alabama Press will publish a book based on Dr. Altman's dissertation research on Eastern Cherokee fishing. Dr. Altman consults for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians on language revitalization projects. Dr. Altman also has a current project with the National Park Service documenting the ethnohistory of the Cades Cove area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Ted M. Brimeyer, Ph.D. (Purdue University, 2005)
Assistant Professor of Sociology; Master of Arts in Social Science Program Director
Dr. Brimeyer’s areas of interest include work, organizations, and stratification. He has conducted research examining union organizing, union-management relations, worker-union relations, and the development of college students’ class sentiments. He is currently working on a project focusing on the effects of individual and organizational career stage on worker commitment.

Elizabeth E. Brown, Ph.D. (University of Georgia, 2001)
Associate Professor of Sociology Emeritus
Dr. Brown's research and teaching interests include child welfare and family policy, social services practice, neighborhood cohesion, incarcerated parents and children, health and Hispanics, and homeless issues. 

Danny R. Dixon, Ph.D. (University of Georgia, 1997)
Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Dixon's teaching areas include medical sociology, program evaluation, group dynamics, and practice skills. He has several publications in professional journals, primarily in the areas of evaluation of clinical practice, post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury, bibliotherapy, and coping with loss. Dr. Dixon's current research interests include efforts to develop and test a new model to increase medication adherence among psychiatric patients, and the effects of trauma on married couples and families.

H. Stephen Hale, Ph.D. (University of Florida, 1989)
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Dr. Hale areas of specialty include economic anthropology and the analysis of faunal remains from archaeological sites. He has worked on prehistoric and historic archaeological sites. Areas of geographic specialization include Lowland South America, Central America, and the Southeastern United States. Dr. Hale is currently completing ethnoarchaeological research among the Kuna of Panama.

Peggy G. Hargis, Ph.D. (University of Georgia, 1994)
Professor of Sociology; Department Chair
Professor Hargis’s research is motivated by questions about the past and the impact of history on the present. She publishes widely and is one of the few scholars who span disciplines. Her work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Historical Methods and the Journal of Southern History. Support for her research has come from such diverse entities as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Economic History Association, and the American Sociological Associatio.

Her research investigates the historical underpinnings of persistent racial inequality in America, especially that which is tied to land ownership. Current projects include a number of articles and a future book project entitled, “After the Whip: The Rise and Fall of the Black Yeomanry.” Recently she has been using a set of sources known collectively as the Southern Claims Commission Records to map black/white community relations, reconstruct information networks, expose hierarchies of power within the black community, explore local lifestyles, and to compare the documentary evidence of slaves’ lives to the material evidence uncovered in archeological excavations of Lowcountry plantations. She is tracing a group of former slaves in Liberty County, Georgia from their existence as property to becoming property owners and more specially, land owners.

Barbara Hendry, Ph.D. (University of Florida, 1991)
Associate Professor of Anthropology; B.A. Anthropology Program Coordinator
Dr. Hendry has conducted ethnographic research in Spain and Scotland, focusing on issues of identity and ethnicity. She has also organized and directed oral history projects in the southeastern United States (including Savannah and Bulloch County) and trained and supervised student assistants and community volunteers to work on these projects.

Tina Hook, M.A. (Georgia Southern University, 2009)
Temporary Instructor of Sociology

Abby Johnson, M.A. (Georgia Southern University), M.SW.
Temporary Instructor of Sociology

Barbara King, Ph.D. (Southern Illinois University, in progress)
Temporary Instructor of Sociology
Ms King's current research interests include social movements, specifically the Czech dissident movement between 1968 and 1989, democratization in Eastern Europe, and women in elective office. Her dissertation explores the institutional and representational impact of increased numbers of women serving in the U.S. Senate.

Nancy L. Malcom, Ph.D. (Vanderbilt University, 2000)
Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Malcom's teaching interests include gender, sociology of sports, and sociology of childhood. Her dissertation is entitled, "Constructing Identities on Contested Terrain: How Real Girls Play Softball and Negotiate Female Athleticism."

Sue M. Moore, Ph.D. (University of Florida, 1981)
Professor of Anthropology
Dr. Moore's research interest include historical archeology, particularly southeastern U.S. colonial-postbellum periods. Her research has focused on ethnicity, African American archeology, status, and more recently, on landscape utilization. Her current research project is the Old Town Plantation, where grants have supported survey and excavation of 4000 acres.

Miranda Scott, M.A. (Georgia Southern University, 2004)
Temporary Instructor of Sociology
Ms. Scott's interests include higher education-policies, admission, etc.

Robert Shanafelt, Ph.D. (University of Florida, 1989)
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Dr. Shanafelt's research and teaching interests include general anthropology, folklore, political anthropology, the anthropology of race and ethnicity, and the peoples of Africa. He has conducted fieldwork among various occupational and ethnic groups in the United States and in southern Africa.

William L. Smith, Ph.D. (University of Notre Dame, 1984)
Professor of Sociology; Sociology Undergraduate Programs Coordinator
Dr. Smith's areas of teaching and scholarly interest include family, community, race and ethnicity, and religion. He is the author of Families and Communes: An Examination of Nontraditional Lifestyles (Sage, 1999) and Irish Priests in the United States: A Vanishing Subculture (University Press of America, Inc., 2004).

Linda Tinker, M.A. (Georgia Southern University)
Temporary Instructor of Sociology

Pidi Zhang, Ph.D. (University of South Carolina, 1997)
Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Zhang's teaching areas include research method, quantitative analysis, and social inequality. His research interests include immigration, economic conditions of various ethnic groups, family and education of Asian immigrants, effect of education on self-employment, and the appropriate use of assumptions in theory construction.

Department of Sociology and
Anthropology
Rm 1003 Carroll Buiding
Georgia Southern University
P.O. Box 8051
Statesboro, Georgia 30460-8051

Telephone: 912-478-5443
Fax: 912-478-0703