Faculty Associates
Andrew Baer, Ph.D.
Andrew Baer, Ph.D., is an associate professor of History with a secondary appointment in African American Studies. His research focuses on race, policing, and social movements in the United States. He received a PhD in History from Northwestern University and previously served as a doctoral fellow at the American Bar Foundation in downtown Chicago. His first book, Beyond the Usual Beating: The Jon Burge Police Torture Scandal and Social Movements for Police Accountability in Chicago, was published in April 2020. He is now working on a second book project focused on race and missing persons.
Recent Publications:
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Robert G. Blanton, III, Ph.D.
Robert G. Blanton, III, Ph.D., is the Chair of the Political Science and Public Administration Department at UAB. Dr. Blanton specializes in the area of international political economy, particularly the “human face” of the global economy. Broadly put, much of his current work deals with the intersection of human rights and the global economic system. That is, he examines how different facets of the global economy — including the investment decisions of multinational corporations, global trade, or the actions of international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank — either influence or are influenced by different types of human rights, such as personal integrity rights, labor rights, and women’s rights.
Recent Publications:
- Blanton, R. G., & Peksen, D. 2019. Labor Laws and Shadow Economies: A Cross‐National Assessment. Social Science Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12685
- Blanton, R., Blanton, S., & Peksen, D. 2018. The Gendered Consequences of Financial Crises: A Cross-National Analysis. Politics & Gender, 1-30.
- Robert G. Blanton, Shannon Blanton & Dursun Peksen. 2018. “Confronting Human Trafficking: The Role of State Capacity” Conflict Management and Peace Science
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Shannon Blanton, Ph.D.
Shannon Blanton, Ph.D., is the inaugural dean of the UAB Honors College. She specializes in the areas of international relations and foreign policy, with an emphasis on human rights, political violence, and international political economy. Dr. Blanton has published articles on the determinants of U.S. arms transfers, the impact of arms imports on human security in developing countries, human rights as a determinant of U.S. foreign aid, and the role of cognitive images in U.S. foreign policy decision-making. Investigating the significance of human rights concerns in global economic interactions, she has also examined the role that human rights concerns play in shaping foreign direct investment and trade in the global community. Her most recent research examines the impact of international financial institutions, financial crises, and globalization on labor rights and human trafficking in countries around the world.
Recent Publications:
- World Politics: Trend and Transformation, 2016-2017 edition (Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2017)
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Claire Greenstein
Claire Greenstein is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration. She conducts research on reparations for human rights abuses, as well as research on transitional justice more generally. She earned her PhD in December 2018 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and from 2018-2020 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for European Studies, a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, in the Georgia Institute of Technology's Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.
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Jordan Kiper, Ph.D.
Jordan Kiper, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and an affiliate with the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB) Institute for Human Rights. The central theme in his research is human cooperation and conflict. Having specialized in human rights, his current work explores the relationship between anthropology and politics and law, including propaganda, forgiveness, and the role of religion in conflict and reconciliation. To explore these, he has conducted cross-cultural experiments and undertaken post-conflict ethnography in the Balkans.
Before joining UAB, Dr. Kiper was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for the Geography of Philosophy Project. He was also affiliated with the Evolution, Cognitive and Culture Lab as well as the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Kiper holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut and an MA in Philosophy from Colorado State University. He is the author of several publications in anthropology, human rights, and religion and has been recognized for teaching excellence.
Recent Publications:
- Wilson, R. A., & Kiper, J. (2020). Incitement in an Era of Populism: Updating Brandenburg After Charlottesville. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Public Affairs, 5(2), 2.
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Hyeyoung Lim, Ph.D.
Hyeyoung Lim, Ph.D., is an Associate professor in the J. Frank Barefield Jr. Department of Criminal Justice. She specializes in the field of criminal justice, particularly in the areas of policing, police decision-making, and police-community relations. Additionally, she has expanded her research interests to include cybercrime and crimes against humanity, with a specific focus on topics such as child abuse, internet crime against vulnerable populations, cyber ethics, and cyber safety. She holds the position of Chief Editor at the Journal of Applied Security Research as well as serving as a Co-Editor of the International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence and Cybercrime, dedicated to exploring various aspects of applied and empirical security and cybercrime research. She also serves as a member of the ZEPETO Safety Advisory Council and an Academic Advisory Board Director of the Georgia Advocates for Crime Prevention. Her expertise and research contribute to understanding and addressing pressing issues in law enforcement and cybersecurity, ensuring the safety and well-being of individuals and communities.
Recent Publications:
- Lim, H., Lee, C. S., & Kim, C. (2023). “COVID-19 and Anti-Asian Racism & Violence in the 21st Century.” Race and Justice: An International Journal, 13(1), 3-8. DOI: 10.1177/21533687221138963.
- Kim, C., Lee, C. S., & Lim, H. (2023). “Hate-motivated crime/incidents against Asians in the United States of America: A systematic review.” Race and Justice: An International Journal, 13(1), 9-37.
- Lim, H. & Bontcheva, N. B. (2022, onlinefirst) “Perceptions of the U.S. Police Among Latin-American Immigrants: A Bifocal Lens View.” Race and Justice: An International Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687221130277
- Lim, H. (2022). Interpersonal Violence Against Children and Youth. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
- Choi, K. & Lim, H. (2021). The Foundations of Statistics in Criminology and Criminal Justice. San Diego, CA: Cognella Academic Publishing.
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Tondra Loder-Jackson, Ph.D.
Tondra Loder-Jackson, Ph.D., is a professor in the UAB School of Education's Educational Foundations Program, with secondary appointments in the UAB College of Arts & Sciences' African American Studies Program and the Department of History. She is also a founding member and former director of the UAB Center for Urban Education. Her research explores the historiography of African American educators' participation in the long civil rights movement, historical and contemporary perspectives on education in Birmingham, and urban education, specifically related to teacher preparation and school, family, and community relations. She worked previously in nonprofits, schools, and universities in Chicago, IL and Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Loder-Jackson is the author of Schoolhouse Activists: African American Educators and the Long Birmingham Civil Rights Movement (State University of New York Press, December 2015).
Related Publicity and Publications:
- Porter Magee, M. (2020, February 5). The hidden history of teacher advocacy in the Civil Rights Movement. FutureEd McCourt School of Public Policy Georgetown University. Interview with Tondra L. Loder-Jackson.
- Loder-Jackson, T. L. (2019, February 21). Episode 165: Civil rights in our schools. Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon [podcast]. Retrieved from https://scholars.org/podcast/civil-rights-our-schools.
- Loder-Jackson, T. L. (2018, February 28). Civil rights for Blacks, human rights for Whites (and everyone else)? Reclaiming the Black human rights tradition [blog]. Birmingham, AL: UAB Institute for Human Rights. Retrieved from https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2018/02/28/civil-rights-blacks-human-rights-whites-everyone-else-reclaiming-black-human-rights-tradition/
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Sarah MacCarthy, ScD
Dr. MacCarthy is the inaugural holder of the Magic City LGBTQ Health Studies Endowed Chair at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. She has more than 15 years experience in applying systematic mixed-methods research to address LGBTQ health and wellbeing in the US and internationally. Dr. MacCarthy completed her masters and doctoral studies at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and postdoctoral training with the Brown University-affiliated Miriam Hospital Immunology Center. Dr. MacCarthy’s research utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine individual, programmatic and policy related aspects of accessing services across diverse contexts. She has over 70 peer-reviewed articles and has also published her work in high readership venues such as Scientific American, US News & World Report, the The New Yorker.
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Josh May, Ph.D.
Josh May, PhD is an ethicist and cognitive scientist (officially, Professor of Philosophy and Psychology). His research draws on scientific evidence to better understand the development, breakdown and improvement of moral character. In particular, he asks: How can we become more virtuous and better equipped to tackle great societal challenges of the 21st century? The challenges he focuses on are addiction, mental illness, climate change, and the mistreatment of animals.
Recent Publications
Why Bother with Political Arguments? (2023) The Prindle Post
You Don’t Have to be a Vegan to Save the Earth (2022) WBUR’s Cognoscenti
Engaging Charitable Giving: The Motivational Force of Narrative Versus Philosophical Argument (forthcoming) Philosophical Psychology
Which Moral Exemplars Inspire Prosociality? (2022) Philosophical Psychology
Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science (2023) Oxford University Press
Email:Thomeer McBride, Ph.D.
Thomeer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology whose research considers how gender and sexuality intersect with family ties (e.g., intimate relationships, relationships with children) to impact health and health disparities across the life course. Her research approach is grounded in multiple theoretical perspectives, including stress process, life course theory, and intersectional feminism. Each provides needed insight into how health outcomes are embedded within broader social structures, expanding ideas about how gender and sexuality matter for health and calling attention to the roles of life course, racism, and relationship context, among other factors. She teaches several courses at UAB, including Sociology of Sex and Gender, Dentistry & Culture, and Introduction to Aging. She is also the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Marriage and Family.
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Stacy Moak, Ph.D.
Stacy Moak, Ph.D. is a professor in the Political Science and Public Administration Department at UAB. Dr. Moak has spent much of her academic career researching and writing in the area of criminal justice and criminology. Much of her work focuses on juvenile justice, family, and neighborhood issues. She has published articles concerning disproportionate minority contact with the justice system, legal changes in the juvenile justice system, and system changes in reference to Supreme Court cases. Dr. Moak has also published articles related to food insecurity, mental illness in corrections, and Hispanic perceptions of policing practices. More recently, Dr. Moak has led efforts at UAB to provide experiential learning for students through re-entry simulations which mimic the first 4 weeks of a person’s returns to the community after a period of incarceration.
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Keshav Singh, Ph.D.
Keshav Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at UAB. He is interested in both foundational and applied questions about how we ought to live our lives. He has published widely on topics in the foundations of ethics and epistemology, such as the nature of reasons and rationality. On the more applied side, he works on Sikh philosophy, social and political philosophy, and the philosophy of race. He is particularly interested in philosophical questions about racism and discrimination: what they are, what’s wrong with them, and how they should be combated.
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Michelle Wooten, M.S., Ph.D.
Michelle Wooten, M.S., Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy Education in the Department of Physics. In this role, she aims to welcome the world of astronomy, and critically analyze science as a human enterprise, with hundreds of nonscience majors every semester. She also leads the organization Starry Skies South focused on education and action toward safe and healthy illumination of the Southeastern nighttime environment.
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Natasha Zaretsky, Ph.D.
Natasha Zaretsky is Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her first book, No Direction Home: the American Family and the Fear of National Decline, 1968-1980, was published in 2007 by The University of North Carolina Press. Her writings have also appeared in Diplomatic History, The New Republic, The Journal of Women’s History, The Journal of Social History, American Quarterly, and Hedgehog Review. She is also the co-editor of the fourth edition of Major Problems in U.S. History Since 1945. Her most recent book, Radiation Nation: Three Mile Island and the Political Transformation of the 1970s explores how the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island illuminated key transformations in the US political culture of the late 1970s. It was published by Columbia University Press and was selected by Choice as an outstanding academic title for 2018.
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