Contributing Authors
- Contributing Authors
fabricio e. balcazar, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His primary research interest is developing effective strategies for enhancing empowerment and personal effectiveness among individuals with disabilities. He has conducted research over the past 25 years on several disability-related areas, such as youth transitioning from school, the development and evaluation of a model service delivery approach to increase consumers’ empowerment in the vocational rehabilitation system, the promotion of cultural competence in rehabilitation services, and promoting entrepreneurship for people with disabilities, among many others. He directs the Center on Capacity Building for Minorities with Disabilities Research and has coedited a book titled Race, Culture and Disability: Issues in Rehabilitation Research and Practice. Balcazar is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and is past president of Division 27 of APA—Society for Community Research and Action.
sandra l. barnes is a joint appointed sociology professor in the Department of Human and Organizational Development and the School of Divinity at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Her research and teaching areas include sociology of religion, urban sociology, inequality, statistics, and African American studies. Among her book publications are Live Long and Prosper: How Black Megachurches Address HIV/AIDS and Poverty in the Age of Prosperity Theology (2012); Subverting the Power of Prejudice: Resources for Individual and Social Change (2006); and The Costs of Being Poor: A Comparative Study of Life in Poor Urban Neighborhoods in Gary, Indiana (2005). Her articles have been included in Social Forces, Social Problems, the Journal of African American Studies, and Sociological Spectrum.
juan battle is a professor of sociology, public health, and urban education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is also the coordinator of the Africana Studies Certificate Program. With over 60 grants and [End Page 229] publications—including books, book chapters, academic articles, and encyclopedia entries—his research focuses on race, sexuality, and social justice. Among his current projects, he is heading the Social Justice Sexuality Initiative, a project exploring the lived experiences of black, Latina/o, and Asian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the United States and Puerto Rico.
vernisa m. donaldson is a masters student at Hunter College of The City University of New York in the Graduate Social Research Program. She received a bachelor of arts in psychology from Hunter College in 2012 and has worked as a research assistant and quantitative analyst on the Social Justice Sexuality Project. Her research interests include identity formation in racial/ethnic and sexual minorities, social inequality, and the intersection of race and class (particularly in educational attainment).
meredith r. gringle is a doctoral candidate in public health education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research interests include mothering, gender, and feminist theory.
angelique harris is associate professor of sociology in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences and director of the Women and Gender Studies Program at Marquette University. Her research and teaching interests include the sociology of health and illness, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, sociology of religion, urban studies, media studies, and social movements. Her research examines social problems and issues within minority communities, primarily focusing on the experiences of women, people of color, and LGBTQ communities. Harris’s current research program studies how disadvantaged groups understand, construct, and respond to health issues, as well as how the marginalization and stigmatization they experience impact their access to health care.
f. l. fredrik g. langi, MD, M.Med.Stats., is a graduate student in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as a research assistant in the Department of Disability and Human Development. He is also a faculty member in the College of Medicine at Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia. His research interests are statistical methods for large, population-based data, quantitative evaluation of services among people with disabilities, and determinants of maternal health and infant mortality in developing countries. Since 2009, Langi has authored and coauthored several articles about the determinants of health professional birth attendants, the predictors of infant mortality, and the disparities of rehabilitation outcomes among people...
