Rate My Professor Keith Bentele

Keith Bentele is an Associate Research Professor with the Southwest Institute for Research on Women (SIROW) in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona, a position he has held since August 2019. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Arizona in 2009 with a dissertation titled "Rising Earnings Inequality in the United States: Determinants, Divergent Paths, and State Experiences," an M.A. in Sociology from the same university in 2003, and a B.A. in Sociology from New College of Florida in 2000. Previously, Bentele was Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston from 2015 to 2019 and Assistant Professor there from 2009 to 2015. He also served as a Graduate Instructor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Arizona from 2003 to 2009.

Bentele's research interests encompass homelessness, evaluation research methods, quantitative methods, race and ethnicity, gender, public policy, inequality, and political sociology. His key publications include "Jim Crow 2.0?: Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies" (Perspectives on Politics, 2013), "Rewinding Roe v. Wade: Understanding the Accelerated Adoption of State-Level Restrictive Abortion Legislation, 2008-2014" (Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 2018), and more recent works such as "Access to Syringes at Pharmacies (ASAP): Preliminary Impact of a Pharmacy-Level Intervention" (Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, 2025) and "“I Don’t Want to Pass Away Like This”: A Qualitative Study of the Goals and Needs of People Experiencing Homelessness in Tucson, Arizona" (Community Health Equity Research & Policy, 2025). He has received the University of Arizona College of Social & Behavioral Sciences Outstanding Public Scholar Award (2015-2016), National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award (2006), and William K. Bunis Graduate Student Teaching Award (2007). As principal investigator or co-investigator on multiple grants, including from the Garcia Family Foundation and HUD, Bentele has produced over 50 reports on housing insecurity in Arizona and Pima County, influencing local homelessness prevention policies. He chairs the System Performance and Monitoring Committee for the Tucson Pima Continuum of Care.