Jennifer Sherman is Professor of Sociology at Washington State University. Her work focuses on rural America, poverty, and inequality. She teaches courses on Social Problems, Sociology of the Family, Poverty and Family, and Qualitative Methods. Her current grant-funded research focuses on rural jails and criminal-legal systems in Washington State. Her co-edited volume, Rural Poverty in the United States (2017), received the Rural Sociological Society’s Frederick H. Buttel Outstanding Scholarly Achievement Award for a Book in 2018. Her two sole-authored books, Those Who Work, Those Who Don't (2009), and Dividing Paradise (2021) explore different outcomes in rural Northwestern communities as they transition from logging and resource extraction to new economic opportunities and realities in the early 21st century. Dividing Paradise received the Rural Sociological Society Frederick H. Buttel Outstanding Scholarly Achievement Award for a Book, 2023, and the CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Title, 2022.
She received her B.A. in Sociology and South Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1995 and her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. She lives in the rural Northwest, where she loves to explore the outdoors through activities including hiking, rock climbing, biking, skiing, and snowboarding. She currently serves as President of the Rural Sociological Society.
