Biography

Jennifer Earl is the chairperson and a professor of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Her research, writing, and outreach focuses on understanding levers and barriers to social and political change and activism by blending research on social movement repression, digital and social media usage and impacts, and young people’s political participation. She has published widely, including an MIT Press book entitled Digitally Enabled Social Change, which examines how the use of Internet affordances are reshaping the basic dynamics of protest online.

Professor Earl was a faculty member at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB, from assistant to full, 2002-2011) and the University of Arizona (full, 2012–2023) before joining the University of Delaware. She also directed the Center for Information Technology and Society and the Technology and Society Ph.D. Emphasis at UCSB. She earned her B.S. at Northwestern University and her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Arizona.

With expertise in social movements, the sociology of law, and digital and social media, Professor Earl is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for research from 2006–2011 on web activism, was a member of the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics, and was inducted in 2016 to the Sociological Research Association, an honorary association for sociological researchers. She is also the recipient of a university award for excellence in undergraduate research mentoring in 2010–2011 and another university-wide award for the most outstanding assistant professor on her campus in 2005–2006.​