THERESA SELFA
Assistant Professor of Sociology, has expertise in rural development, and environmental, agricultural and development sociology, with research experience in Brazil, Philippines, Europe and the US. She was a post-doctoral associate in Washington State on a project examining alternative agriculture and food systems. Recently she has conducted survey, focus group and in-depth interview research examining farmers’ environmental attitudes and behaviors toward land management in Devon, England and in Kansas. She is currently working as the lead social scientist on an interdisciplinary water quality project, funded by CSREES/USDA Conservation Effects Assessment Program, assessing impacts of farmers’ management behavior on water quality in an agricultural watershed in Central Kansas. Her work has been published in Society and Natural Resources, Environment and Planning A, and Agriculture and Human Values.
RICHARD GOE
Professor of Sociology at Kansas State University, has expertise in research methodology for social science research and extensive experience in conducting research on rural communities and labor markets. The latter has involved the use of survey research and case studies of rural communities involving focus groups and personal interviews with government and business leaders. Goe will be the primary PI responsible for survey development, in addition to collaborating on all other aspects of the project.
LÁSZLÓ KULCSÁR
is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Kansas Population Center. His field of expertise is social demography and regional development, with a particular emphasis on migration and spatial inequalities. He does research on population dynamics and social change in rural areas, including aging and the impact of natural resource extraction on rural demography. Dr. Kulcsár participates in the NSF EPSCOR eco-forecasting research program which ties population projections to system-level ecological and land use change and the transforming rural landscape in the Great Plains. He also studies the social and demographic transformation of Eastern Europe from a historical perspective, but with a particular emphasis on the post-socialist period. Dr. Kulcsár teaches courses on social and spatial inequalities, population dynamics, immigration and sociological methodology.
GERAD MIDDENDORF
is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Kansas State University. His research interests are in the areas of rural and environmental studies, the sociology of agriculture and food, international development, and science and technology studies. He and colleagues recently published / The Fight Over Food / , a book on how producers, consumers and activists are challenging the global food system (Penn State University Press, 2008). Other recent work has included a study of information needs of organic growers and retailers, and a study of agrarian landscape transition in eastern Kansas. He has also published a number of articles and chapters on the implications of agricultural biotechnologies and on agricultural science and technology policy. Middendorf is currently engaged in projects on the role of Latinos in agriculture in the Great Plains, and on biofuels development in the Midwest.
ALBERT IAROI
is a graduate student. He received his undergraduate degree in Journalism and his M.A. in Contemporary Eastern-European History from the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania. An ethnic Hungarian, he grew up in the multicultural environment of Transylvania where he witnessed both the collapse of communism and the post-socialist transformations, including the EU accession of his country. His research interests are comparative rural development in the U.S. and Europe, social change in Eastern Europe, sociology of agriculture and food, international development, and migration.
ANA LUIZA DE CAMPOS PAULA
is a current graduate student in sociology at K-State. She received a B.S. degree in Forestry/ Forest Engineering from University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and a M.S. degree in Rural Sociology from Auburn University, Alabama. Her research interests include environmental sociology, sociology of agriculture/ forestry/ natural resources, and rural and community development.