Department of Anthropolgy

Professor Charles W. Nuckolls PhD, University of Chicago

Charles W. Nuckolls (A.B. University of Chicago, 1979; M.A. University of Wisconsin 1980; Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1987) has been appointed Professor in the Department of Anthropology. From 1990 to 1999, he was Associate Professor at Emory University, and from 1999 to 2007 Professor at the University of Alabama. A recipient of the Stirling Award for Contributions to Psychological Anthropology, Professor Nuckolls is the author and/or editor of four books, including studies of psychiatric diagnosis in India, Japan, and the United States. He recently finished a project examining nationalism in contemporary Japan through the medium of comic books. Beginning in February, 2007, Nuckolls will begin fieldwork on the cultural construction of mental health categories in New Zealand as a recipient of a Senior Scholar Fulbright grant.

Charles Nuckolls has been married for twenty-six years to Janis Nuckolls, Associate Professor of Linguistics at BYU, and they are the parents of three children: Will (14), and twin daughters, Margaret and Catherine (4).

Department of Economics

Assistant Professor Scott Condie PhD, Cornell University

Scott Condie joins the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences this fall as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics. Condie grew up in Kirkland, Washington before coming to Brigham Young University to study economics. After a two-year LDS mission to Brazil, he returned to complete his degree in 2002. He then began post-graduate study in economics at Cornell University, where he completed his PhD in 2007.

Condie’s research focuses on theoretical asset pricing. His recent work investigates some of the behavioral determinants of superior long-run market performance and the role of privately held information in determining market prices.

Professor Condie is married to Allyson Braithwaite Condie of Cedar City, Utah and they are the parents of two sons.

Assistant Professor Joseph Price PhD, Cornell University

Joseph Price recently began a teaching position at BYU during the summer of 2007 where he joined the department of economics as an assistant professor. He received his doctorate in economics from Cornell University in August 2007, and earned his Bachelor of Arts in economics from BYU in August 2003. His research interests and points of study include Family Economics, Health Economics and Labor Economics. In January 2007 he was awarded the Benjamin Miller Research Grant, ILR, from Cornell University. He was further awarded the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center Innovative Research Project Grant and the Institute for Social Science Seed Grant also from Cornell in June and July, respectively, of the same year. He is a member of the American Economic Association, APPAM, Econometric Society, Population Association of America, and Society of Labor Economists.

His current publications include "Parent-Child Quality Time: Does Birth Order Matter?” forthcoming in the Journal of Human Resources. Joseph married his wife, Emily, in July 2000. They have four children: Joseph, Benjamin, Kaylana, and Jeffrey. His family enjoys hiking, camping, and reading together.

Department of Geography

Assistant Professor Ryan Jensen PhD, University of Florida

Ryan R. Jensen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Brigham Young University. Before BYU, he was an Assistant and then Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Geology, and Anthropology at Indiana State University. While there he served as the Director of the Center for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems and as the Associate Director for Forest Research in the Center for State Park Research.

Dr. Jensen received his BS (Cartography and Geographic Information Systems) and MS (Geography) from Brigham Young University. He received his PhD from the University of Florida in Geography with a minor in Botany and a concentration in interdisciplinary Geographic Information Systems.

Dr. Jensen’s research interests include using remote sensing and GIS to study biogeography and landscape patterns. He currently has active research programs in urban forestry, fire ecology in the southeastern (United States) coastal plain, and hyperspectral remote sensing.

Professor Dallen Timothy PhD, University of Waterloo

Dallen J. Timothy is joining the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences as a Professor of Geography beginning Fall 2007. Prior to arriving at BYU, Dr. Timothy was a Professor of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University. He received all of his degrees in geography, including a BS from BYU, a MA from the University of Western Ontario (Canada), and a PhD from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Professor Timothy is a human geographer. His primary research interests include the social and environmental impacts of tourism, power relations and empowerment of indigenous people, religious tourism, heritage as a resource in conflict, the economic and tourism implications of political boundaries, genealogy and personal heritage travel, sustainable development in peripheral regions, and contemporary forms of consumption. He has published widely on these subjects in refereed academic journals and edited books, and he has authored/co-authored and edited 11 scholarly books, several of which have been adopted as course textbooks throughout the world. In addition to writing research articles, he is currently working on eight new books at various stages of development.

Dr. Timothy is the Editor of the Journal of Heritage Tourism, an international social sciences journal. He also serves on the editorial boards of 11 national and international scholarly tourism and geography journals, and he is commissioning editor for the Aspects of Tourism book series published by Channel View Publications in the United Kingdom. He currently works as the Secretary of the International Geographical Union’s Sustainable Tourism Group and recently served as the National Chair of the Association of American Geographers Recreation, Tourism and Sport Specialty Group.

Department of History

Assistant Professor Christopher Hodson PhD, Northwestern University

Christopher Hodson joined the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences in June 2007 as an Assistant Professor of History. Professor Hodson is from Logan, Utah and attended Utah State University, where he completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He then went on to study at Northwestern University, earning his PhD in 2004. From 2005 to 2007, Professor Hodson held a postdoctoral fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, an institute affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Hodson’s specialty is colonial American history and he also has a strong secondary interest in early modern France. He is currently turning his dissertation into a book manuscript and beginning work on a second book-length project. Previous articles by Professor Hodson have been published in Early American Studies and Eighteenth-Century Studies; his most recent article is forthcoming in the French journal Outre-mers: revue d’histoire. “Being an active researcher makes you more in tune with the learning process and in turn makes you a better teacher,” said Hodson.

Professor Hodson and his wife Sarah have been married for ten years. They live in Springville with their three children, ages 6, 3, and (at press time) two weeks.

Department of Political Science

Assistant Professor Michael G. Findley PhD, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Mike Findley is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department in the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences. Professor Findley is from Brigham City, Utah and received his bachelor's (Summa Cum Laude) and master's degrees in 2000 and 2002 from Utah State University. In 2007 Professor Findley received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

His research examines the dynamics and outcomes of civil wars and political violence. Findley is the recipient of various fellowships and awards including: a Peace Scholar Fellowship at the United States Institute of Peace, the Scott Dissertation Fellowship, the Rita and Leonard Ogren Award, the Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security Graduate Fellowship, and the Charles Merriam Fellowship at the University of Illinois. He has published articles in the Journal of Politics and International Studies Quarterly on the topics of third-party military interventions into civil wars as well as the escalatory dynamics of asymmetric wars.

Professor Findley and his wife Heather are the parents of three children, Andrea, David and Joshua.

School of Family Life

Assistant Professor Sarah Coynes PhD, University of Central Lancashire

Sarah Marie Coyne is in assistant professor of human development in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. Before accepting the post, she worked for three years as a psychology lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, England.

Dr. Coyne earned a BSc in psychology (minor Family Human Development) from Utah State University in 2001. She then completed a PhD in Psychology from the University of Central Lancashire in early 2004. At that time, Dr. Coyne was both the youngest person to receive a PhD in psychology from this University and had the quickest completion time on record.

Her research interests primarily involve how the media influences aggressive behavior. Although she is interested in media violence, Dr. Coyne primarily researches how relational aggression (e.g. social exclusion, spreading rumors) is portrayed on television and how this influences subsequent aggressive behavior (think of the movie Mean Girls for a good example)!

Dr. Coyne currently lives in Elk Ridge, Utah with her husband Paul (a red-headed Irishman) and her son, Nathan. She is currently expecting her second child (a girl) in December.

Assistant Professor Jenet Jacob PhD, University of Minnesota

Jenet I. Jacob is an Assistant Professor in the School of Family Life in the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences at Brigham Young University. Professor Jacob received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from BYU (BS in Nursing, 1997: MA in Linguistics-TESOL, 2000) and her PhD in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota this June. Her research interests include mothers’ experiences of the work-family interface, maternal influences on children’s emotional and cognitive development, and emotion work in mothering.

Dr. Jacob is originally from Orem, Utah, where she grew up on a small farm with her eight sisters and two brothers. In 1999, she participated as a delegate at the World Congress of Families in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1999 to 2002, she served on the Executive Council for the English Language Center (ELC) at BYU where she taught English as a Second Language and Language Acquisition, and directed a legal English training program for Chinese judges in Beijing, China. During the fall of 2004, Dr. Jacob was awarded a Social Science Research Fellowship at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. She is delighted to join the BYU community and further her research interests in mothering with the bright, committed undergraduate and graduate students at BYU.

Assistant Professor Erin Holmes PhD, University of Texas at Austin

Erin Kramer Holmes is an assistant professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. Before accepting a continuing faculty status position, she enjoyed a one-year visiting faculty appointment in the same School.

Dr. Holmes earned a B.S. in Family Sciences from Brigham Young University in 1998. She then received an M.S. in Individual and Family Sciences from the University of Delaware in 2001 and a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Sciences from The University of Texas at Austin in 2006.

She primarily studies the ways fathers influence their children’s development, the ways children and fathers co-create relationships, the ways that parents navigate the challenges of co-parenting and marital change as they welcome a new baby, and the ways social scientists model and measure change over time in close relationships.

Dr. Holmes now lives in Springville, Utah with her husband Chris and their two delightful daughters Elena and Eva.

Assitant Professor Craig Israelsen PhD, Brigham Young University

Craig L. Israelsen is an associate professor in the school of Family Life at Brigham Young University. Israelsen teaches personal and family finance and holds a doctorate in family resource management from BYU. He received a Bachelor of Science in agribusiness and a Master of Science in agricultural economics from Utah State University. Prior to teaching at BYU, he was on the faculty of the University of Missouri-Columbia for 14 years where he taught personal and family finance in the personal financial planning department. Primary among his research interests is the analysis of mutual funds. He writes monthly for Financial Planning magazine. He is married to Tamara Trimble. They have seven children. Hobbies include running, biking, and woodworking.

 

Department of Psychology

Assistant Professor Sam Hardy PhD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Sam Hardy is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology here at BYU. Sam grew up in a farm town in southern Idaho and served a mission in San Bernardino, California. He completed his B.S. in Human Development at BYU, and his MA and PhD in Developmental Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Following graduate school, Professor Hardy worked for two years as a postdoctoral research fellow in Longitudinal Data Analysis and Lifespan Development at the University of Virginia. His research overlaps developmental and personality psychology, and is specifically focused on investigating the ways in which morality develops and functions in the everyday lives of adolescents and adults.

This fall Professor Hardy will be starting a project that will study the ways in which adolescents think about what it means to be a moral person, and how such conceptions of morality develop and influence adolescents’ behaviors. In addition to his love for research, Hardy really enjoys teaching, and plans to teach courses such as Psychological Statistics, Personality, and Developmental Psychology. Hardy has been married to his wife Lois for 9 years and has a two year old son, Dallin.

Assistant Professor Mikle South PhD, University of Utah

Mikle South is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department in the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences. Professor South received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University and his PhD in Child Clinical Psychology from the University of Utah. He completed his clinical fellowship year at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City. He comes to BYU after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in the Developmental Neuroimaging Program at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut. Professor South was awarded National Research Service Fellowships from the National Institutes of Health for both his doctoral and post-doctoral training, and was a recipient of the University of Utah’s Marriner S. Eccles Graduate Fellowship in Political Economy.

Professor South’s research and clinical practice is related to individuals and families affected by autism spectrum disorders. He studies brain networks related to social and emotional motivation using a variety of techniques including behavioral studies, psychophysiology measures, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). He is especially interested in the role of brain systems (such as amygdala and orbital frontal cortex) which may be related to the frequent occurrence of symptoms of anxiety that affect individuals with autism. He is also interested in how anxiety and emotional learning might contribute to social difficulties in autism.

Dr. South and his wife Kristin Hacken South are the parents of three boys, Samuel, Caleb, and Daniel.

Department of Sociology

Assistant Professor Kristie Rowley Phillips PhD, Vanderbilt University

Dr. Kristie J. R. Phillips is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Sociology at BYU graduating from Vanderbilt University with a PhD in Leadership, Policy, and Organizations with an emphasis in Sociology of Education. Her current research interests include school choice, school desegregation, and the social contexts of education. She also studies teacher quality as well as other factors that influence student achievement. Her current research includes collaborative efforts with three urban school districts (Salt Lake City, Utah; Nashville, Tennessee; and Louisville, Kentucky). Her research combines elements of sociological theory, social geography, and education policy, all of which provide context for the range of social and academic experiences of students, teachers, and administrators within school settings.