Lynn Horton (Ph.D. University of Texas, Austin) is an Associate Professor of Sociology.  Her areas of interest include development, globalization, Latin America, social movements, gender, and qualitative research methods.  Prior to joining the sociology faculty, she worked for non-governmental organizations on issues of human rights, sustainable development, gender equality, and the environment.  She brings a global perspective to her teaching, with a decade of work and research experience in Central America. Her first book, Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, draws on fieldwork carried out in Nicaragua's conflict zones to analyze the origins and outcomes of that country's decade-long civil war.  Her second book, Grassroots Struggles for Sustainability in Central America, explores from a comparative perspective, processes of grassroots empowerment in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and the mobilization or rural and indigenous communities in favor of sustainability.