Rate My Professor Deborah Harris

Deborah A. Harris is Professor of Sociology at Texas State University, having joined the Department of Sociology in 2007 as Assistant Professor, promoted to Associate Professor in 2013, and to full Professor in 2019. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Mississippi State University in 2007, an M.S. in Sociology in 2002, and a B.A. in Sociology in 2000, all from the same institution. Throughout her career, Harris has earned numerous accolades, including the Alpha Chi Honor Society Favorite Professor award in 2024, the Dean’s Excellence Award in Service from the College of Liberal Arts in 2023, the Presidential Distinction Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020, Outstanding Faculty Scholar awards from Texas State University’s Office of Diversity and Gender Studies in 2016 (co-recipient with Patti Giuffre) and 2013, and Dean’s Excellence Awards in Scholarly/Creative Activities in 2012 and 2008.

Harris’s research addresses social inequality, gender dynamics, food studies, and qualitative methods. Her landmark book, Taking the Heat: Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen (Rutgers University Press, 2015, co-authored with Patti A. Giuffre), has been reviewed in journals including American Journal of Sociology, Gender & Society, and Qualitative Sociology. Prominent articles include “Women, Work, and Opportunities: From Neoliberal to Feminist Mentoring” (Sociology Compass, 2022), “#MeToo in the Kitchen” (Contexts, 2020, with Patti Giuffre), “Race, Four Farms, and a City: Color Blindness and the Austin, TX Commercial Farm Debate” (Humanity and Society, 2019, with Rachel Romero), “Just the ‘Typical College Diet’: How College Students Use Life Stages to Neutralize Stigma from Unhealthy Eating” (Symbolic Interaction, 2017), and “Everybody Eats: Using Hunger Banquets to Teach about Issues of Global Hunger and Inequality” (Teaching Sociology, 2015, with Whitney M. Harris and Kristi M. Fondren). She has obtained grants such as a $16,000 Research Enhancement Program Grant in 2015 and a $5,000 subvention grant for Taking the Heat in 2014. Harris contributes to departmental service as a member of the Graduate Studies Committee since 2009 and the Graduate Steering Committee since 2020.