Sociology

Education

2013 Ph.D. in Sociology, University of California Santa Cruz

Teaching Areas

Environmental Sociology, Environmental Justice, Sociology of Race/Ethnicity, Social Movements, Science & Technology Studies

Research Interests

Environmental Racism, Racial Capitalism, Risk Society, Social Movements, Non-profit Industrial Complex

Biography

Travis Williams, Ph.D., is full-time teaching faculty in the Department of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his doctorate in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2012. He served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Science & Technology in Society at Virginia Tech from 2012 to 2014. He frequently teaches Introduction to Sociology (SOCY-101), Social Movements & Conflict (SOCY-310), and Sociology of Race & Ethnicity (SOCY-322). He also instructs upper-level courses such as Environmental Racism (SOCY-420).

Professor Williams has also been at the forefront of organizing public forums and symposiums in the Richmond area focusing on environmental justice and racialized ecologies:

2019 Racial Ecologies of the South: Intersectional Resistance & Empowerment
2018 Racialized Ecologies and Environmental Justice in Virginia: Symposium & Public Forum

Travis Williams is currently a collaborator on the Race, Space, and Place Initiative (RSPI), which is organizing a non-traditional conference and year-long lecture series at VCU.

Selected Work

“Black Earth: Natural Gas Infrastructure and Environmental Racism in Virginia.” Roundtable Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. New York City, NY, August 10, 2019.

“High Tech Pollution and Anti-Toxics Activism in the Risk Society: A Case Study of Silicon Valley’s Groundwater Disaster.” Paper presented at Annual Meeting for the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), New York, NY August 11, 2019.

"Critical Energy Justice in US Natural Gas Infrastructuring." Energy, Research, & Social Science, Vol 41: 176-190 July 2018.