Kevin T. Leicht is Professor and former Head of the Sociology Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and former Chair of the Department of Sociology and Director of the Iowa Social Science Research Center at The University of Iowa and past Program Officer for the Sociology and Resource Implementations for Data Intensive Research Program at the National Science Foundation. He is the past editor of Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (the official journal of the Social Stratification Section of the International Sociological Association) and The Sociological Quarterly (the official journal of the Midwest Sociological Society). He has written extensively on issues relating to economic development, globalization, and political sociology, his work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Spencer Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, and his published articles have appeared in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, the Academy of Management Journal, Law and Society Review, and other outlets. He is the author or editor of five books including Professional Work (with Mary Fennell, published by Blackwell), and Postindustrial Peasants: The Illusion of Middle-Class Prosperity (with Scott Fitzgerald) winner of the Midwest Sociological Society Best Book Award for 2009, and Middle Class Meltdown in America (2014, also with Scott Fitzgerald). His current research examines the consequences of extreme inequality in developed societies and the social and cultural consequences of male marginalization.