Assistant Professor of Sociology

Rayanne Streeter received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Virginia Tech in 2019. Previously, she received her B.A. in Sociology from Pacific Lutheran University and her M.S. in Sociology from Virginia Tech. Dr. Streeter also holds a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies.

Her teaching and research interests include gender, bodies, and popular culture. Specifically, her research focuses on the boundaries women face and how they try to combat these in various arenas, including social media, television and film, and sports. In particular, she has examined women’s flat track roller derby and feminist movies and television. Her current research examines how body positive influencers on Instagram reconstruct ideas of beauty, health, and femininity. See her article, “’Bargaining with the status quo’: Reinforcing and expanding femininities in the #bodypositive movement,” in the journal, Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society, for more on the topic.

Her work has been featured in the Women’s Sport and Physical Activity Journal and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Crime, Media, and Popular Culture. She is also the co-author of Gender in Film and Video which explores the histories and current trends in the production of popular film and video, especially as they relate to gender and other forms of inequality.

Rayanne serves as the minor coordinator for the Gender and Women’s Studies minor and regularly teaches courses related to gender in our society. She also teaches introductory sociology, research methods, and sociology of culture, among others.