Social Sciences
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Richelle WinklerAssistant Professor of Sociology and Demography Department of Social Sciences Curriculum Vitae |
I am excited to be joining the MTU and Houghton/Hancock community this year. My background is in sociology (especially environmental and community sociology) and demography, and I have several years experience working as an applied demographer. At MTU, I'll be contributing to the Environmental Policy Program, and will be teaching Sociology of the Environment (SS 5400) and Human Dimensions of Natural Resources (SS 3760) this fall 2011.
My research generally focuses on understanding and promoting rural community sustainability. Most of my work examines population change as both a cause and a consequence of community well-being, and I am particularly interested in the relationships between population, environment, and community well-being.
The major research projects that I'm engaging with tend to be either demographic in nature or to focus on community and environmental sociology or both. For instance, I'm working on two demographic projects that include projecting the number of future deer hunters for the state of Wisconsin (its declining and fast in the coming years) with implications for what this means for conservation policy; and creating estimates of net migration by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin for every county in the U.S. 2000-2010. This dataset will inform local and regional planning efforts and provide applied demographers with necessary data for generating small area population estimates and projections.
Other projects are more community-based, including my dissertation work which involved a community-based participatory research project with the Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation and a group of lower income younger adults in central Minnesota and studied how the context of living in a tourism and retirement focused lakes destination area affects the well-being of lower income people and younger adults. I am very interested in community based work, collaborating with communities on sustainability oriented projects, and service learning. This means that I employ both quantitative and qualitative research methods to answer social science questions related to rural communities and the natural world, and I rely on GIS, mapping, and spatial analysis in much of this work.
I enjoy teaching and working with students and look forward to advising graduate students interested in sociology, environment, community, population, and sustainability. In my personal life, I love hiking in the woods with my son (Sam) and my Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever (Strider), travelling with my husband (Andy), playing and coaching volleyball, cross country skiing, canoeing, sports (especially Badger football and basketball), and I am looking forward to a new addition to our family.
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International Association for Society and Natural Resources
Population Association of America
Applied Population Laboratory at University of Wisconsin-Madison