Rate My Professor Deborah Harris

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.