Source: Travis Linnemann, twl@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Beth Bohn, 785-532-6415, bbohn@k-state.edu

Monday, Feb. 15, 2010

K-STATE GRADUATE STUDENT RECEIVES GRANT FROM NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION FOR HIS DISSERTATION RESEARCH

MANHATTAN -- An $8,500 grant from the National Science Foundation will help Kansas State University's Travis Linnemann, doctoral student in sociology, with his dissertation research.

Linnemann, Manhattan, is receiving the grant through the foundation's Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant Program. The title of his dissertation is "Pushed to the Margins: Methamphetamine, Crime and Inequality in Rural Kansas." His major professor and the principal investigator for the grant is L. Susan Williams, professor of sociology and criminology.

Williams said Linnemann's dissertation improvement grant is the first received by a graduate student from K-State's sociology program in at least 20 years.

"My adviser at the University of Connecticut sponsored me when I received the same NSF award as a graduate student, so I know and value the importance of mentorship," Williams said. "It is especially rewarding that I can pass it forward; it is a nice second-generation moment. Travis is most deserving of this award."

The National Science Foundation's sociology program dissertation improvement grants are awarded to support high quality doctoral dissertation research in sociology. The suitability of a research idea is based on the extent to which the research contributes to sociological theory and knowledge, not on specific topics. Grants are for direct research costs associated with either original data collection or the analysis of existing datasets.

"The NSF panel reviewed roughly 50 proposals," Linnemann said. "According to the NSF Web site, I was one of six recipients of the grant this cycle, earning an award along with students from such schools as the University of California at Los Angeles, University of California-Berkeley, Cornell and Duke."

Linnemann's research has already earned him several honors. The American Society of Criminology's Division of People of Color and Crime presented him with its Outstanding Graduate Student Award in November 2008 for his research on the connection between race, gender and incarceration. His paper "Mad Men, Meth Moms, Moral Panic: Gendering Meth Crimes in the Midwest," a content analysis of newspaper coverage of people in the Midwest arrested for methamphetamine-related offenses, will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Critical Criminology. The paper received the American Society of Criminology's Critical Criminology Graduate Student Paper Award in 2008 and Linnemann was invited to present it at the first Crime and Popular Culture Studies Conference at Indiana State University in October 2009.

Linnemann earned his master's from K-State in 2006 and plans to finish up his doctoral degree this year. He would then like to teach and do research at the university level. Linnemann, originally from Marysville, has 10 years of experience working in the U.S. justice system, including as a prison guard, child welfare worker and probation officer.