Jessie K. Luna

Jessie is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where she teaches classes on the sociology of race and racism, environmental sociology, and global environmental inequality.

She grew up in rural Oregon, and had the fortune to experience a wide range of cultures and places. After finishing BAs in film production and international relations at the University of Southern California, she moved to Paris for a year, and then joined the Peace Corps. As a volunteer, she worked with farmers in Mali, West Africa, and discovered my passion for the puzzles of food, sustainability, and justice.

 This interest took her to Geneva, Switzerland, where she completed a Masters degree in Sustainable Development at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. She spent several summers biking across France as a trip leader for Backroads before returning to the U.S. to pursue a PhD in Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

She has worked with some of the richest and poorest people on the planet, and these experiences have taught her about our shared humanity as well as our staggering inequalities. As a writer and scholar, she wants to shed light on how those inequalities get produced, and how we justify them. Most importantly, her work aims to contribute to building a more just and sustainable world.