Esther Sullivan

Esther Sullivan photo
Associate Professor • Ph.D. • Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Sociology Department

Education & Degrees

Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin
M.A. University of Texas at Austin
B.A. University of Chicago

Expertise Areas: Poverty and Inequality, Urban Sociology, Ethnography

Bio

Esther Sullivan is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver. She is currently a Nonresident Fellow in the Housing Policy Finance Center at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on poverty, environmental inequality, legal regulation, and the built environment, with a special interest in housing. A large portion of her research investigates the intersecting environmental, financial, and legal inequalities that impact residents of manufactured housing and manufactured home communities. Her book Manufactured Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans' Tenuous Right to Place (winner of the 2019 Robert Park Award) examines the sociolegal, geospatial, and market forces that create housing insecurity for residents in U.S. manufactured home parks. She was named a University of Colorado Denver Chancellor’s Urban Engaged Scholar for her community-engaged scholarship.

Courses Taught 

SOCY 2023 Poverty & Inequality
SOCY 3001 Urban Sociology
SOCY 3140 Sociological Theory
SOCY 4440 Poverty & Inequality Seminar
SOCY 5016 Social Theory