Kyle Crowder

Research overview: My research focuses on the processes of residential differentiation and the effects of physical and social context on individual life conditions.  Most of my recent work deals specifically with processes of neighborhood selection and how racial and ethnic differences in the residential mobility process shape broader patterns of residential segregation.  I am currently involved in three large-scale projects related to this broad endeavor.  First, in collaboration with colleagues at several other universities, I am examining the roles of racial differences in neighborhood experiences, daily activities, and social networks in processes of residential mobility and the perpetuation of racial segregation.  Second, in collaboration with local housing authorities, we are examining factors that affect successful lease-up, residential stability, and access to high-opportunity neighborhoods for low-income families.  Third, with collaborators in the School of Social Work and the Departments of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, I am researching the effects of neighborhood pollution exposure on individual health outcomes.  This project focuses specifically on the ways in which pollution exposure interacts with individual-, family-, and neighborhood-level sources of stress to affect racial differences in a variety of health outcomes. 

Teaching: My teaching efforts have been focused most recently on courses related to urban sociology, demography, research methods, and statistics.  At the University of Washington I regularly teach courses in the graduate-level statistics sequence, a graduate-level course on Urbanism and Urbanization, and service-learning and writing-intensive undergraduate courses on urban dynamics.  In Winter 2019, I will also teach a course on Sports in Society.

Biography: I received my BA in Sociology from the University of Washington in 1990 and, after working for several years as a counselor and caseworker, earned my PhD from the University at Albany in 1997.  Prior to returning to UW in 2011, I held faculty positions at Western Washington University and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.