After graduating from UW with a MA in Sociology in May, 1992, Jill Jacobsen Ashman was accepted into the Sociology Ph.D. program at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. She received her Ph.D. in May 1998. Her dissertation research focused on the effect of timing of first birth on young adult outcomes for at-risk African American women. One of her major findings was that having a child between the ages of 18-22 was almost no different, in terms of negative outcomes a decade later, than having a child before age 18. Both groups had more negative outcomes at age 32 in terms of income, educational attainment, marital status, and health status than did women who postponed motherhood until their mid-twenties or later. In June, 1998, Jill started her career as a federal employee in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). She spent 10 years at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), working as a statistician for the HIV/AIDS Bureau. She was responsible for managing and operating the budget allocation formulas related to the funding and eligibility criteria for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, a $2 Billion Federal Program. She was also the project manager for the HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB) Data Support Contract, providing oversight of all work that was performed and facilitating communication between HAB task leaders and contractors. She wrote a few articles and gave or contributed to over 30 presentations at professional meetings around the country. Jill is now the Dissemination Team Leader for the Ambulatory and Hospital Care Statistics Branch in the Division of Health Care Statistics at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) DHHS/CDC/NCHS/DHCS/AHCSB-the federal government loves acronyms! This branch is responsible for several national surveys including the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), and the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS). Her team is in charge of producing public use files for these surveys, as well as writing reports and articles using these data and maintaining the website http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhcs.htm.
Elizabeth Bennett Atwood (MA, 2011) is currently Assistant to the Associate Provost for Educational Attainment at Colorado State University. One half of her job is supporting student success initiatives at CSU in order to improve retention and graduation rates. She is researching High Impact Practices and their effectiveness at improving graduation rates. She also focuses on First Generation Students more specifically, how they perceive interactions with faculty members and how those perceptions affect their persistence and graduation rates. The other half of her job is supporting the Reinvention Center at CSU, which is a network of research universities committed to improving undergraduate education. Most members of the Center are vice presidents or vice provosts of undergraduate education at their institutions. Liz handles everything on the administrative/logistical side of things. She functions as an office manager, budget manager, conference planner, web developer, grant writer, and researcher. Needless to say, she is never bored!
Jeffrey Jacquet received a Master's Degree in Sociology from the University of Wyoming in 2005. His
Master's thesis, "A Geography of Second Homes in Wyoming," documented the growth
of amenity-led development in Wyoming between 1990 and 2000. During and after graduate
school Jeffrey worked as a correspondent for the Casper Star-Tribune. In 2005, he
took a position working with a coalition of local governments to provide socioeconomic
impact assessment from natural gas drilling operations occurring in Sublette County,
Wyoming. In interviews collected for the “Energy Boom” oral history collection at
UW’s American Heritage Center’s, county officials referred to him as “an unsung hero”
and praised the insight that he provided local government officials on collecting
data to assess the social impact of the oil field boom on communities. He has provided
impact assessment of energy development professionally since that time and has worked
in Wyoming, Colorado, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. In addition to consulting
work, he was an Adjunct Professor of Sociology at SUNY - Corning Community College
in New York. He also pursued a PhD in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell
University, which he completed in 2012. He is now an assistant professor at The Ohio
State University in the Department of Rural Sociology.
Janis Johnston was a graduate student in our program in the mid-to-late 1990s. She concurrently earned
a minor in Environment and Natural Resources. Subsequently, she earned a PhD in Sociology
from Colorado State University. After a one-year adjunct professorship at CSU she
was chosen as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow for the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is part of the EPA National Homeland
Security Research Center. After the fellowship ended, she obtained a position as
senior data analyst for the National Institute of Health. She now works, however,
as a social science analyst with USDA Food and Nutrition Service. The branch that
she works for focuses on the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program, school breakfast/lunch
programs, and food distribution on Native American reservations. It also does some
data analysis for the Medicaid, Food Stamp, and TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families) programs. She really enjoying the work because the mission of the programs
on which she focuses is near and dear to her heart, and she really likes the people
with whom she works.
After graduating with her M.A. in 2002, Janel Kasper-Wolfe moved to Washington, D.C. to work at the American Chemical Society. As a research
analyst at one of the country's largest professional associations, she was part of
a team responsible for conducting and analyzing the society's member surveys. She
provided subject matter and technical expertise to ACS staff, governance, and members
in the areas of survey research and methodology, workforce characteristics, globalization,
gender and diversity issues, and member satisfaction. In her current position, as
a member of a contractor team providing support to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
Office of Strategic Analysis and Communications, she is recognized as an expert on
communications measurement and survey research and design. The other components of
her position involve developing recommendations, strategies, and products that integrate
strategic research and analysis into MSFC's decision-making processes. She also provides
expedited intelligence and analysis briefs for executive leadership, front-line supervisors,
and middle management in order to improve strategic planning, business literacy, and
environmental awareness at MSFC. 
Chuck Koeber graduated from our Master's program in 1993. He then earned his doctorate in sociology
from the State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University). He is
now an associate dean and associate professor of sociology at Wichita State University.
His duties as associate dean include oversight of state budget accounts including
OOE, capital equipment, and travel. He also coordinates college class schedules and
oversees graduate teaching assistantships, lecturer, and summer budgets. He is the
dean's office liaison to the curriculum committee and coordinates the college's certificate
programs. As associate professor of Sociology, he teaches courses such as Introduction
to Sociology, Sociology of Work, Sociology of Globalization, and Sociology of Consumer
Life. He conducts research on job loss, consumer self-service, and teaching with new
technology. He also recently served as Director of the Center for Teaching and Research
Excellence. He is the husband of Jerri Koeber, a special education teacher in the
Wichita school district who directs a program for middle school students with Aspergers
Syndrome. He is also the father of two young children, a son and daughter. He enjoys
spending time with his family. His other interests include waterskiing, lap swimming,
and playing with his three dogs (two chocolate Labrador Retrievers and one Golden
Retriever).
Doug Mau was a graduate student in our Master's Program in the early-to mid 1980s. His career
has been financial services. Recently, he was Vice President of New Business Development
for ICA, which is a Broker/Dealer that is part of Jackson National Life. It works
with financial institutions and independent financial advisors in the U.S. Doug was
in charge of its expansion all over the country. While ICA is based in Bismarck,
ND, Doug worked out of Walton, KY, which is near Cincinnati, OH. Doug has been an
asset as an alumnus. In the 1990s, having already found success in the world of financial
services, he returned to UW to talk to our majors about the flexible options that
they have with a B.A. or M.A. in sociology. He has stayed in touch and has assisted
the department in raising donation for its Flittie Scholarship fund.
Candace May began our graduate program in Fall, 2004, and hit the ground running. She finished
her M.A. in two years and did such a quality M.A. thesis that she was able to publish
an article from it [May, C.K. 2008. "Drug Courts: A Social Capital Perspective."
Sociological Inquiry. 78(4):513-35]. She completed our program in 2006 and then joined the PhD program
at Colorado State University (CSU) that Fall. She completed her dissertation, "Visibility,
Legitimacy, and Power: A North Carolina Fishing Community and Governance of the Commons,"
in August 2011. She has worked as a research assistant on a K-12 science education
enhancement project funded by the National Science Foundation as well as for the International
Food Policy Research Institute under contract for the production of two papers on
violent conflict and natural resources. She also was a sociology instructor at CSU
and served as a sabbatical-replacement instructor for our department in Spring 2013.
She now has a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Child and Family Studies at the University
of Louisiana-Lafayette. In addition to teaching, she is conducting research on coastal
restoration in the Gulf following the BP disaster, with a focus on how the disaster
affected local livelihoods.
Carissa Moffat Miller earned an M.A. in Sociology with a minor in statistics from the University of Wyoming in 1999. She then went on earn her doctorate in education from the University of Idaho (Ph.D, 2009).Since graduation she has served in numerous positions that form and implement education policy. She worked for the Idaho State Board of Education administering the state assessment program for K-12 and then as a research associate for Boise State University conducting grant-funded research focused on aging issues and nursing shortages. She returned to the Idaho Department of Education in 2009 as the Deputy Superintendent of the 21st Century Classroom Division. In this role she oversaw all assessment, accountability, content, and school choice programs. As the Deputy, she led the writing and negotiating regarding Idaho's Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver and deployment of a statewide growth model. In February 2013 she joined the Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington, DC, as the Deputy Executive Director. In her new role, she manages all major membership events and ensures all activities are aligned with state education chiefs’ priorities, oversees the advocacy strategy regarding laws and policies as they affect states including advocating with Congress and the U.S. Department of Education, and provides guidance and direction on policy strategies and positions. Carissa lives with her husband Clark and two daughters, Sydney and Kendley, in Bethesda, Maryland.
Nancy Muecke moved to Wyoming after earning her undergraduate degree in Social Science Secondary
Education from the University of Northern Iowa. Her first Masters degree from the
University of Wyoming was in Counseling, and she worked in student services at several
colleges. While working in the Career Services office at UW, she decided to complete
a Masters degree in Sociology her real love. She used the knowledge gained through
her studies in the department to help her better understand the world of work and
organizations. In the Fall of 2003, while working full-time, she began another formal
academic journey in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with an emphasis in
Community College Leadership at Iowa State University and received her Ph.D. in May
of 2008. She is now happily serving students, faculty and staff as the Campus Dean
at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, IA, and is still reading sociological
works for work and for pleasure!
Ana McCormick Myers (MA, 2014) worked in her first post-graduation job for Association Acumen. This organization
serves non-profit organizations and helps them manage membership recruitment, as well
as retention, marketing, and public relations. She traveled a lot in this job and
gained valuable experience. She now works for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
in the Office for Development and Alumni Relations. She is the Associate Director
of Annual Giving and works primarily with the student development officers, managing
tele-fundraising operations and helping with social media development for the university.