Faculty and Staff Profile

Leslie Hossfeld

Educational Background

North Carolina State University, PhD, Sociology

University of Mississippi, MSS, Sociology

University of North Carolina Wilmington, BA, History

Courses Taught

Rural Sociology
Community Development
Research Methods
Population
Gender and Society
Sociology of Food

Profile

Leslie Hossfeld is trained in rural sociology from North Carolina State University with experience examining rural poverty and economic restructuring. She has made two presentations to the U.S. Congress and one to the North Carolina legislature on job loss and rural economic decline. Dean Hossfeld has served as co-chair of the American Sociological Association Task Force on Public Sociology, vice president of Sociologists for Women in Society, president of the Southern Sociological Society, chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology, member of the Mississippi Food Policy Council, and on the Executive Council of the North Carolina Sociological Association (NCSA), which awarded her a lifetime achievement award in February 2019. She is a member of the USDA SERA-47 multi-state initiative, Strengthening the Southern Region Extension and Research System to Support Local and Regional Food Needs and Priorities, in 13 states in the southern region. Prior to joining Clemson, Dean Hossfeld was head of the Department of Sociology, Criminology and Social Work at Mississippi State University and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She has developed economic recovery projects for rural North Carolina counties and food sovereignty projects in the Mississippi Delta using health as an economic development strategy. Her current research focuses on multi-disciplinary strategies and collaborative partnerships around local food systems development and nutrition security. She works to bridge U.S. local food systems research to health disparities to develop policy coherence linking health and agriculture policy.

Research Interests

Rural Economic Development
Social Determinants of Health
Health and Agriculture Policy
Food and Nutrition Security

Research Publications

Mobley, C., Luo, Y., Fernandez, M., Hossfeld, L. 2024. “Social Determinants of Health and College Food Insecurity.” May. Nutrients 16(9): 1391. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16091391

Baxter, S., Koob, C., Hossfeld, C., Griffin, S., Mobley, M., Hossfeld, L. 2023. “Food Insecurity, the Food Environment, and COVID-19 in Rural South Carolina,” Family and Community Health. April-June.
DOI: 10.1097/fch.0000000000000355

Koob, C., Luo, Y., Mobley, C., Baxter, S., Griffin, S., Hossfeld, C., Hossfeld, L., 2022. "Food Insecurity and Stress among Rural Residents in South Carolina: The Moderating Influences of Household Characteristics, Neighborhood Social Environment and Food Environment," Journal of Community Health doi: 10.1007/s10900-022-01176-3

Leo, Y., Mobley, C. Hossfeld, L., Koob, C., Hossfeld, C., Baxter, S., Griffin, S., 2022. "The Association Between Food Insecurity and Making Hunger-Coping Trade-Offs During the COVID 19 Pandemic: The Role of Sources of Food and Easiness in Food Access." Nutrients, 14(21) 4616. MDPI. doi.org/10.3390/nu14214616

Hossfeld, L., 2022. “An Engaged Emancipatory Sociology,” Footnotes (50)1. January. American Sociological Association. https://www.asanet.org/engaged-emancipatory-sociology

Russell, K., Hossfeld, L., Rico Mendez, G. 2021. "Not a New Pattern": Black Farmers' Perspectives on Barriers to Participating in Federal Farm Programs. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2021.104.007

Hossfeld, L., Kelly, B., Hossfeld, C. Editors, July 2021, Routledge International Handbook on Public Sociology. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003055594

Pyle, S., Eichinger, M., Garst, B., Mobley, C., Griffin, S., Hossfeld, L., McGirr, M., Saunders, H. 2021. “Diseases and Disaster: Navigating Food Insecurity in a Community Affected by Crises during COVID-19,” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. April. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2021.103.005

Hossfeld, L., Kelly, B., Waity, J. 2021. “Finding Class in Food Justice Efforts,” IN Routledge Handbook of Working-Class Studies, Edited by Fazio, M., Launius, C., Strangelman, T. London: Routledge.

Hossfeld, L. Kelly, B., Waity, J. 2021. "Poverty and Class Inequality". IN, Ed. Trevino, J., Investigating Social Problems. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Thompson, D., Johnson, K., Cistrunk, Leap, A., Nyatta, T., Hossfeld, L., Rico Mendez, G., Jones, C. 2020."Assemblage, food justice, and intersectionality in rural Mississippi: The Oktibbeha Food Policy Council. DOI:10.1080/02732173.2020.1801541. Sociological Spectrum

Cistrunk, K., Oliver, B., Kerr, LJ, Trinh, M., Kobia, C., Hossfeld, L., Johnson, K., Jones, C., 2019. “An Ecological Approach to Understanding Program Management Practices for Food Pantries in Rural Communities,” Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 12(1), 68-76.

Hossfeld, L., Kerr, LJ, Belue, J., 2019. "The Good Food Revolution: Building Community Resiliency in the Mississippi Delta, Social Sciences", MDPI, 8(2) 1-10 February. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8020057

Ralston, M., Johnson, K., Hossfeld, L., Beech, B., 2019. "Examining the Nexus of Obesity, Mental Health and Rural County Level Food Access: Testing the Enduring Role of Persistent Poverty." Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, KLVI (2), June, 101-124.

Hossfeld, L., Rico-Mendez, G., 2018. “Looking for Food: Food Access, Food Insecurity and the Food Environment in Rural Mississippi.” Family and Community Health. DOI: 10.1097/FCH.0000000000000182. March.

Hossfeld, L., Kelly, B., Waity, J., 2018, Food and Poverty: Food Insecurity and Food Sovereignty among America’s Poor. Vanderbilt University Press.

Honors and Awards

Recipient Clemson University Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Award (URSAAA) for annual expenditures exceeding $1 million, 2024.

Excellence in Scholarship Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contributions to Sociology, South Carolina Sociological Association, 2023

Lifetime Achievement Award Outstanding Contributions to the Discipline of Sociology, North Carolina Sociological Association 2019

Mississippi State University President’s Commission on the Status of Women Faculty Award, 2018

Inducted Research Fellow, Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University, 2016

Named Margaret Devereux Lippitt Rorison Faculty Fellow in Community Engagement, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2013

Recipient University of North Carolina Wilmington Faculty Research Award, 2012

Recipient of the University of North Carolina Wilmington Distinguished Faculty Public Service and Scholarly Engagement Award, 2011

25th Anniversary Award, Center for Community Action, Community Engagement, in the area of Economy for Outstanding Leadership and Contribution to the Well-Being of Community Life in North Carolina, 2005

Received the Nancy Pollock Dissertation Award for Outstanding Scholarly Research Benefiting the North Carolina Economy and the Quality of Life for its Citizens North Carolina State University, 2003