Congratulations, Graduating Ducks!
You’ve put in the work and earned the diploma. Now let’s celebrate! On June 15, join your fellow CAS Ducks for this year’s CAS commencement ceremony. Head over to the 2026 CAS Commencement website where you can find ceremony details for each CAS ceremony, logistics and any other answers to all your questions about the big day.
Social sciences provide an analytical approach to society’s problems. As a result, faculty and students in the social sciences often focus on complex and intersectional issues such as racism, international conflict and war, climate change, and poverty. Through an objective and empirical approach to these issues, the goal is to generate genuine passion and equip future leaders with the skills they need to address the world’s challenges. Explore majors, minors, concentrations, and academic programs in the social sciences.
African Studies
Anthropology
Asian Studies
Black Studies
Climate Studies
Commerce and Society
Criminology
Economics
Environmental Science
Environmental Studies
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World-Class Faculty in the Social Sciences
Ashley Cordes
Assistant Professor of Indigenous Media in Environmental Studies and Data Science
Ashely Cordes is an academic expert in Indigenous data sovereignty, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Her research explores how Indigenous communities can leverage technological utilities—such as cryptocurrency and AI—for Tribal economic independence, representational and data sovereignty, and preservation of knowledge systems.
Neil O'Brian
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Neil O’Brian is an academic expert in U.S. politics focusing on public opinion, political parties, and polarization. His recent work has focused on how people’s perceptions of politics and current events affect their political attitudes. He’s recently published the book The Roots of Polarization: From the Racial Realignment to the Culture Wars (University of Chicago Press).
O’Brian is the second UO researcher to receive an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. O’Brian is using the fellowship to further explore what he calls the “doctor’s project.” The start of this research began when he identified a partisan divide in the trust people have in their physicians; those on the political right expressed less trust in their doctors than those on the left. This is a recent phenomenon, as data showed no difference in trust in one’s doctor until a shift in 2020-21, during the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. O’Brian argues the partisan divide over public health measures—such as masking and vaccines—led to less trust in the medicine industry.
Melissa Graboyes
Associate Professor of History, Global Health Program
Melissa Graboyes is a historian of modern Africa and a global health specialist whose research focuses primarily on medicine and science in the East African region.
Graboyes’ current research projects have been supported by major research funds. Her work on the history of malaria elimination on the African continent is funded by a five-year National Science Foundation CAREER award. A three-year collaborative research project on returning research results from social science disciplines to African participants—removing costly barriers to make findings more accessible—is funded with a three-year NSF award. She is also working on global health research at the local Eugene level through her project on aspects of care for people who inject drugs.
As a mentor, Graboyes works with undergraduate students in research groups. She leads the Global Health Research Group, which helps students gain skills and tools for conducting undergraduate research. The group consists of students interested in global health-related topics, as well as students majoring in a STEM field who are interested in ethics, history and the processes of science.
Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages
At the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages, UO students engage with diverse cultures, languages, histories, and lifeways across the world. Students of the social sciences, from Anthropology to Sociology, will broaden and deepen their education in their field by viewing it—and experiencing it—through a global lens. GSL prepares our graduates for life after college with an interdisciplinary curriculum, innovative language teaching, abundant learning opportunities outside the classroom, and paths of study that lead to many options for real-world careers.
Research in the Social Sciences
Research in the social sciences investigates human behavior and the motivations that influence it. Although some of our research occurs in the lab, much of it is conducted out in the field using a variety of methodological approaches, from exploratory to experimental. The results of our research often carry societal-level implications and may point to solutions for addressing local, national, or global challenges.
2024-2025 Sponsored Research in Social Sciences
Between July 2024 and June 2025, researchers in CAS received $83 million to fund 199 research projects, including approximately $6 million for Social Sciences. The research projects, which span divisions and fields of study, represent CAS's commitment to curiosity, discovery, and innovation.
Explore Other Majors and Minors in the College of Arts and Sciences
Meet Our Dean
Welcome to the social sciences division of the College of Arts and Sciences. Within our community, we address some of the world’s problems—big or small—through interdisciplinary research and critical thinking. What drives us is a passion for exploring human behavior and society.
The social sciences provide the necessary foundation for any academic inquiry, from the creative arts to the natural sciences. Inside the classroom, we lead courses that are engaging and thought-provoking, inspiring students to become better citizens of our world and work toward a more inclusive future.
We also believe real-world experience offers some of the most impactful learning opportunities. From internships to study abroad trips that offer new cultural experiences, our students regularly engage in hands-on learning work that reaches across social, disciplinary, and geographic boundaries, allowing them to forge new connections and spark new ideas.
We look forward to changing the world with you.
Bruce McGough
Divisional Associate Dean, Social Sciences
Happening at CAS
1:00 p.m.
Please join us Wednesday afternoons for a free cup of coffee, pastries, and conversation with your history department community! We’re excited to continue this tradition for our history undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff. We hope to see you there!
2:00–5:00 p.m.
All students enrolled in WR 121z, 122z, 123, and/or 199 are invited to the Writing Lab for writing and research help on any stage of your composition projects. We will have writing support specialists and a research librarian available to help as many students as possible.
We will also have snacks, coffee, and prizes! Come get support before your last writing projects are due!
2:00–5:00 p.m.
Drop-In @ the Composition Writing Lab for writing and research help on any project for the first-year Composition course series: WR 121z, WR 122z, or WR 123! We are partnering with UO Libraries for support on research and sources, and will have knowledgeable graduate tutors available for questions about citations, organization, revision, and for feedback in any area that you're working on.
Grab-and-go resources, coffee and candy/snacks, and door prizes will be available for attendees!
5:30 p.m.
The Oregon Humanities Center presents a Wine Chat with Faith Barter: ”Incantation: The Power of Legal Language and Black Feminist Imagination”
Afro-Canadian poet and scholar M. NourbeSe Philip has written that “Law and poetry both share an inexorable concern with language—the ‘right’ use of the ‘right’ words, phrases, or even marks of punctuation; precision of expression is the goal shared by both.” In fact, this shared concern is often incantatory: it has the power to call worlds into being, by using mere words to induce shared beliefs and actions. Historically, legal systems have wielded this power in notoriously violent and anti-Black ways. And yet, Black writers have long experimented with legal writing’s worldmaking potential as a possible site of freedom practice.
At her Wine Chat, Faith Barter will trace the surprising common ground between legal language and Black feminist fiction and poetry, examining its historical roots as well as its contemporary implications in texts like Ketanji Brown Jackson’s recent dissenting opinion in Trump v. CASA.
Barter is an associate professor of Black Studies and English at the University of Oregon. She is author of Black Pro Se: Authorship and the Limits of Law in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature (2025). Organized around four legal forms—appeal, confession, jurisdiction, and precedent—the book demonstrates how Black writers creatively used them to challenge the logics of their oppression. Reading Black writers not merely as witnesses or victims but as visionaries for what the legal system could be, the book excavates the importance of legal thinking in the African American literary tradition.
The Wine Chat is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided. Beverages are available for purchase, and a food cart is on the premises of Capitello Wines. There is ample parking at Banner Bank across the street.