Rachel G McKane

I received my B.A. (Honors) in Global Studies and Political Science from the University of Tennessee Knoxville in 2012 and my M.A. in Sociology from Vanderbilt University in 2016. My research interests include Environmental Justice, Environmental Sociology, Stratification and Intersectionality, and Quantitative Methods. 

In my current research, I use a variety of quantitative methods to examine how social, economic, and political inequalities manifest within, and are shaped by both the built and natural environment. I am primarily interested in exploring how decision making concerning the distribution of environmental goods and bads, and by extension technological innovations, can be used as tools of oppression that diminish the agency of marginalized groups. Thus, as a scholar, I am driven by questions such as: how do multiple reinforcing categories of social difference relate to the environment? how can we center inequality within the bounds of manufactured geographic space? and how can environmental problems be examined at multiple levels of analysis within socio-political decision-making?

More information can be found at my personal website: www.rachelmckane.com