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We are a vibrant intellectual community with three undergraduate majors (Sociology, Health and Human Sciences, and NGOs and Social Change) and two PhD programs (Sociology and the multidisciplinary Population, Health, and Place). Many affiliated research centers are led by our faculty.

Our faculty are experts in many fields, and we produce research for scholarly, policy, and public audiences. Our location in Los Angeles means that issues like immigration, inequality, homelessness, politics, and climate change inform our research and teaching. We also look across the U.S. and around the world to investigate global trends and issues.

We invite you to learn more about our faculty and graduate students. To keep up with our events and news, please join our mailing list!

Remembering Andrew Lakoff

The USC Department of Sociology mourns the passing of our colleague Andrew Lakoff, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, who died on July 7 after a brief illness.

Andy was an extraordinary scholar whose work transformed how social scientists understand global health, medicine, expertise, and the politics of preparedness. Trained as a sociocultural anthropologist, his research bridged sociology, anthropology, science and technology studies, and communication, producing influential scholarship that reshaped debates on pharmaceuticals, biosecurity, pandemics, and the governance of uncertainty. His books, including Pharmaceutical Reason: Knowledge and Value in Global Psychiatry; Unprepared: Global Health in a Time of Emergency; The Government of Emergency: Vital Systems, Expertise, and the Politics of Security; and most recently Planning for the Wrong Pandemic: COVID-19 and the Limits of Expert Knowledge, combined historical insight, ethnographic depth, and theoretical imagination to illuminate some of the defining challenges of our time.

Andy joined USC in 2009 and became a central intellectual presence across the university. He held joint appointments in Sociology and Anthropology, served as Divisional Dean for the Social Sciences in USC Dornsife, and in 2020 founded the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life. Through these roles, he brought together scholars from across disciplines to confront urgent public questions with rigor, generosity, and intellectual openness.

We extend our deepest condolences to Andy’s family, friends, students, and colleagues across USC and around the world. His scholarship will continue to shape the social sciences for years to come, and his example as a colleague and mentor will remain an enduring part of our department.

An event celebrating Andy’s life and legacy will be held at USC during the coming academic year. We join the broader USC community in remembering a remarkable scholar, leader, and friend whose contributions to sociology and to interdisciplinary inquiry will not be forgotten.