Research Interests: Environmental Inequality, Residential Segregation, Stratification, Social Movements, Demography, Mixed Methods

Major Eason is a PhD student in Sociology. His research interests are broadly centered around environmental justice and sustainable development. Namely, he looks to garner a place based understanding of how environmental racism – racial inequality in the environmental quality and sustainable infrastructure of communities –  manifests through the analysis of a space’s land development and cultural patterns.

Major earned his BA from Swarthmore College, where he double majored in Sociology and Economics and was a Mellon Mays Fellow. As a fellow, he embarked on a project that built off of Robert Bullard’s landmark case study of environmental racism in the East Little York section of Northeast Houston. Drawing off the 1983 study, which originated from community protests against the Whispering Pines Landfill, Major used historic census tract data and interview data to understand demographic shifts,  community relationships, and residents’ sense making around the environmental hazard in their neighborhood.

Previous Degrees:
BA in Sociology and Economics, Swarthmore College