Rebecca Rodriguez Carey

Dr. Rebecca Rodriguez Carey is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Emporia State University. She joined the department in 2018 after completing her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Missouri, where she also earned a minor in College Teaching and was a Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program Fellow. Her teaching and research interests include women and crime, women’s incarceration, gender, families and qualitative methods. She regularly teaches courses on introductory sociology, criminology, women and crime, sociology of gender and victimology and employs a range of high-impact learning practices in her teaching. Her current research study relies on in-depth interviews she conducted with women who were once pregnant in prison, in order to better understand how incarceration transforms pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. Her work can be found in Women & Criminal Justice and in Caged Women: Incarceration, Representation, & Media. She is a co-founder of the EAT Initiative, a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort aimed to combat food insecurity at ESU and in the greater Emporia community. She is active on campus and serves as the advisor of the Criminal Justice Student Organization among other initiatives. She was also named a 2022 recipient of the ESU Assessment Champion Award for her contributions to data-driven teaching practices. She received her M.A. in Sociology from the University of Missouri. A native Kansan, she earned her B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Criminal Justice from Wichita State University.