Brittany Presson

Dr. Brittany Presson is an instructor of Sociology at Virginia Tech, faculty co-advisor for the Sociology/Criminology club, and an incoming faculty co-advisor for AKD. After earning her bachelor’s at Bethel University, Dr. Presson worked alongside DCS in Tennessee while serving as a family advocate for a non-profit aimed at child abuse prevention. She then earned her Master’s in Sociology from the University of Memphis where she worked on a research team analyzing suicide ideation in online spaces and conducted independent qualitative research on former self-injurers. Dr. Presson earned her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 2021 and conducted ethnographic research on an organization of Gold Star Mother’s, investigating how the emotional, bureaucratic, familial, and national identities were constructed and maintained on both the individual and organizational levels. Broadly, Dr. Presson’s research centers on sense making, identity construction, and how emotions are managed in emotionally expressive sites.  Inside the classroom, Dr. Presson works to cultivate an energetic, interactive, and creative space to learn; encouraging intellectual risk taking and challenging students to think sociologically within their everyday lives and social spaces.