Pamela Oliver has been at the University of Wisconsin since 1980, where she has been a full professor since 1990 and a Conway-Bascom Professor since 2004.  She is well-known for her work on collective action and social movements, and has published a number of influential articles in the American Sociological Review and the American Journal of Sociology and other sociological journals.  She is the author with Gerald Marwell of The Critical Mass in Collective Action: A Micro-Social Theory.  She has received a number of National Science Foundation grants and has served on the National Science Foundation's Sociology Advisory Committee, and has been elected to terms as chair of the ASA sections on "Collective Behavior and Social Movements," and "Political Sociology."  Her current research is in two streams.  One continues her work on collective action and social movements with an emphasis on the coevolution of protest movements, political institutions, repressive practices, and news media.  The other is an examination of the causes and consequences of the racial disparity in imprisonment in the US 1983-1999, about which she is writing a book that links theories of crime control, repression, and ethnic conflict in understanding the patterns of mass incarceration in the 1980s and 1990s. She serves on the board of several non-profit organizations concerned with criminal justice issues.  Because of her leadership in this area, she was asked to serve on the Governor’s special Commission to Reduce Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System, which met April 2007 – January 2008 and issued its report in February 2008.  She teaches a popular sociology class "Ethnic Movements in the US" which compares American Indian, African American, Mexican American, and Asian American movements and politics.

Email: <oliver@ssc.wisc.edu>