Rate My Professor Sara Lopus

Her fields of interest include population studies, marriage, parenthood and families, food and water security, quantitative methods, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She teaches courses such as Sociology of the Environment (SOC 308), Migration (SOC 321), Quantitative Research Methods (SOC 355), World Population: Processes and Problems (SOC 431), and Professional Development for Sociologists (SOC 464). Lopus has received the Article of the Year Award from the American Sociological Association Family Section in 2019 (with Margaret Frye) for "From privilege to prevalence: Contextual effects of women’s schooling on African marital timing" (Demography, 2018), the Eugene A. and Joan S. Hammel Dissertation Prize in Demographic Studies from UC Berkeley (2015), the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award from UC Berkeley (2012), and a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award for demographic research in Brazil. Additional funding includes Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities Grants from Cal Poly (2019, 2023) and College of Liberal Arts Summer Research Grants (2018, 2020). Key publications comprise "No end to hypergamy when considering the full married population" (Population and Development Review, 2024, with Daniela R. Urbina and Margaret Frye), "The demographic transition, with data from Brazil" (Socius, 2024), "COVID-19 lockdowns: Employment disruptions, water access, and hygiene practices in informal settlements in Nairobi" (Social Science & Medicine, 2022, with Nupur Joshi et al.), "Perceived links between climate change and weather forecast accuracy: New barriers to tools for agricultural decision-making" (Climatic Change, 2021, with Zack Guido et al.), and "Intra-marital status differences across Africa’s educational expansion" (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2020, with Margaret Frye). Her scholarship advances understandings of demographic processes, family dynamics, and environmental factors influencing populations in developing contexts.