Rural sociologists have historically struggled to understand community social dynamics at a large scale due to limited data availability and insufficiently granular spatial definitions that obscure place-based variation. In our lab, we are motivated by a broad interest in how administrative microdata can be repurposed for social science research that supports program and service delivery.

Our mission is to use big data to understand better the complex ecological dynamics that shape social change across rural and urban communities. In this way, our research advances conversations around spatial inequalities in resource distribution that lead to resource stratification across social groups (i.e., class, race/ethnicity, and other statuses). To inform this research, we integrate perspectives from qualitative interviews to advise modeling and contextualize findings.