The Earl Babbie Research Center at Chapman University is dedicated to empowering students and faculty to conduct studies that address critical social, behavioral, economic, and environmental problems. The Center’s mission is to provide research support and instruction to students, faculty and the broader community, and to produce research that addresses global concerns including health disparities, human rights, social justice, peaceful solutions to social conflicts, and environmental sustainability. The Babbie Center includes four major research divisions: the Study of Population Health, the Study of Violence and Radicalization, the Study of American Fears, and the Study of Social Justice.
» The Earl Babbie Research Center
- About Earl Babbie
- Babbie Center Faculty
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Due to the decades-long, world-wide popularity of his textbooks in social research, Dr. Earl Babbie is one of the most famous living sociologists today. He holds the position of Campbell Professor Emeritus in Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University. He is best known for his book The Practice of Social Research (first published in 1975), currently in its 14th English edition, with numerous non-English editions. The text has been widely adopted in colleges throughout the United States and throughout other parts of the world. He is also an author of research articles and monographs. Throughout his career he has been active in the American Sociological Association and served on the ASA’s executive committee. He is also past president of the Pacific Sociological Association and California Sociological Association.
Check out Dr. Earl Babbie's research, Solutions Without Problems.
Dr. Christopher Bader
Christopher Bader is a Professor of Sociology at Chapman University and affiliated with the Institute for Religion, Economics and Society (IRES). He was principal investigator of the first two waves of the Baylor Religion Survey, a nationwide survey of US religious beliefs and the principal investigator of the the first three waves of the Chapman Survey of American Fears. He is associate director of the Association of Religion Data Archives (www.theArda.com), the world's largest archive of religion survey data funded by the Templeton Foundation and Lilly Foundation and supported by Penn State University and Chapman.Dr. Edward Day
Associate Professor, Department of SociologyDr. Justin de Leon
Dr. Justin de Leon is the director of the Ethnic Studies program. His research focuses on Indigenous sovereignty and ontological security through storytelling and filmmaking. De Leon’s creative scholarship includes community-based filmmaking programming and a podcast focused on decolonial pedagogy.Dr. Ann Gordon
Dr. Ann Gordon is an associate professor of political science. She is also the director of the Ludie and David C. Henley Social Sciences Research Laboratory. Dr. Gordon has published four books and numerous articles. She is Co-PI of the ongoing Chapman Survey of American Fears (CSAF), leading the team studying disasters and preparedness. The CSAF has been featured in over 800 print and broadcast media including the New York Times, The Huffington Post, CBS This Morning, Yahoo News, Good Housekeeping, the Washington Post, USA Today and TIME. Dr. Gordon works with emergency managers in Southern California on communicating preparedness to the public.Dr. Ashley Kranjac
Dr. Ashley Wendell Kranjac is the Director of the Babbie Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of New York, Buffalo. She then completed her postdoctoral training in the Sociology Department and Kinder Institute Urban Health Program at Rice University. Her research focuses on health inequalities and population studies, with an emphasis on obesity. She investigates the role of familial, social, economic, and environmental contexts that lead to disparate health outcomes. Her research has been published in leading health, sociology, and demography journals.Dr. Minju Kwon
Dr. Minju Kwon is an Assistant Professor of Political Science. She also serves as a faculty member for the Master of Arts in International Studies Program as well as an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Peace Studies. She specializes in international relations, comparative politics, and gender studies, with a regional focus on Asia. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science with a minor in Gender Studies from the University of Notre Dame and served as a postdoctoral fellow of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at Notre Dame.Dr. Crystal Murphy
Dr. Crystal Murphy (department of Political Science and Director of the MA in International Studies program) researches the lived realities of foreign assistance in conflict and post-conflict zones. Striving to understand the recipient views, together with Babbie Center student fellows, she studies the effects microcredit and cash transfer program provision in South Sudan. These projects include field interviews, qualitative and quantitative data sorting and analysis.Dr. Hannah Ridge
Dr. Hannah Ridge (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Her research focuses on public opinion on democracy, ethnic and religious politics, and the Middle East. She is the author of Defining Democracy: Democratic Commitment in the Arab World. She completed her PhD in Political Science at Duke University.Dr. Nancy Rios-Contreras
Dr. Nancy Rios-Contreras is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. She earned her PhD in Criminology from the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on borders and migration, community adaptations to disasters, race and ethnicity, criminalization, social movement organizing, culture-specific programming, and qualitative methods. Dr. Peter Simi
Pete Simi is a Professor of Sociology at Chapman University and member of the Executive Committee for the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. His studies rely on a developmental framework along with cognitive and cultural sociology to examine extremist movements and political violence. Much of his research has been funded by the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.
Working Papers
- Crafting Effective Public Safety Messages for Wildfire and Subsequent Debris Flow Risks
By Roxy Amiraziz ('21), Santina Busalacchi ('21), Markos Buhler ('23), Paige Goedderz ('21), Christian Grevin ('22), and Sarah Kashani ('22) - Proliferating a Culture of Fear
By Setareh Motamedi - Disaster Preparedness in Orange County, CA
By Shreya Sheth ('21), Claire Norman ('19), Paige Goedderz ('21), and Syd Kotar ('19) - The Chapman Survey of American Fears: Preventing Terrorism, Preparing for Disasters
By Dr. Ann Gordon
Babbie Center Annual Report
Advisory Board
Hamid Abdollahyan
Professor of Communications, University of Tehran, Iran
Editor of Global Media Journal-Persian Edition
Ron Anderson
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Minnesota
Founder, Foundation for Compassionate Societies
Aaron Babbie
Director of Engagement, Spoon Foundation
Petras Barsauskas
Rector, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Jennifer Bevan
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Chapman University
Solveiga Buoziute-Rafanaviciene
Quality Director, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Yuet-wah Cheung
Professor of Sociology, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Mick Couper
Research Professor, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
James Dannemiller
President, SMS Research, Honolulu, HI
Rosalind Edwards
Professor of Sociology, University of Southampton
Co-editor, International Journal of Social Research Methods, England
Weida Fan
President, Chinese Survey Research Association
Professor, Fudan University, Shanghai
Mark Francisco
Executive Sales Representative, Cengage
Ann Gordon
Founding Director (ex officio)
Sally T. Hillsman
Former Executive Officer of the American Sociological Association
Charles Hohm
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, San Diego State University
Raymond Lee
Professor Emeritus of Social Research Methods, Royal Holloway University of London, UK
Jack Levin
Professor and Co-Director, Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence, Northeastern University
Peter Marsden
Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of Sociology, Harvard University
Mike Maxfield
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
Esteban Montilla
Associate Professor of Counseling and Coordinator of Counseling Internship, St. Mary's University, San Antonio, TX
Jodi O'Brien
Professor of Sociology, Seattle University
John Robbins
Author, social activist, and humanitarian
Ocean Robbins
Author, speaker and movement builder
Dennis Rome
Dean of Arts and Sciences, Columbus State University, Georgia
Allen Rubin
Bert Kruger Smith Centennial Professor in Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin
Steve Rutter
Former Publisher, Routledge / Taylor and Francis
William Ryerson
President of Population Media Center and Population Institute
Dietram Scheufele
John E. Ross Professor of Communications, University of Wisconsin
Arvind Singhal
Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Endowed Professor, University of Texas at El Paso
William J. Clinton Distinguished Fellow, Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock, AR
Metta Spencer
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada
Teresa Sullivan
Former President of the University of Virginia
Jiaming Sun
Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Texas A&M (Commerce)
Negussie Teffera
Country Representative Population Media Center, Ethiopia
Thomas Van Valey
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Western Michigan University
Jennifer Waldeck
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Chapman University
Theodore Wagenaar
Professor of Sociology and Gerontology, Miami University of Oxford, Ohio, Carnegie Scholar
Jerry Westby
Former Publisher, Pine Forge Press/SAGE Publications
We would like to honor and thank the following people for serving on the Advisory Board
James Davis, (1929 - 2016)
Co-founder, General Social Survey, Principal Investigator Emeritus, National Opinion Research Center
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, UC Berkeley
Former Founding Director, Survey Research Center, UC Berkeley
Former Director, Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia
Workshops
- Host conferences with internationally acclaimed scholars and practitioners.
- Provide seed grant money to encourage student and faculty research.
- Provide travel funds to students and faculty who need to do field work.
- Host visiting scholars and post-doctoral fellows.
- Develop Courses that support the goals of the Center.
Past Fellows
Past Fellows
(2016-2017)
Setareh Motamedi is a Chapman Alumna with dual degrees in Political Science and Philosophy. During her time as an undergraduate, she conducted research on the fear of terrorism as it relates to public perceptions of Islam. She presented this research at the 2017 Babbie Center Symposium “Understanding Violent Extremism in the 21st Century,” and eventually made it the subject of her thesis: Proliferating a Culture of Fear: Islam in a Post 9/11 America. Since graduating from Chapman, she has moved to Washington D.C. to pursue a Master of Arts in International Affairs from The American University School of International Service. There she will be studying US Foreign Policy and National Security with a concentration in Counterterrorism. After graduating from American University, she plans to pursue a career in national security.
Contact Us
The Babbie Center is located at 417 E. Walnut Street! Drop in and say hi!
Director
Ashley W. Kranjac, Ph.D.
417 E. Walnut St.
(714) 744-7652
babbiecenter@chapman.edu