My name is Jonathan Coley, and I am Associate Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University and Editor-in-Chief of The Sociological Quarterly. I completed my PhD in sociology at Vanderbilt University.

My research examines social movements, politics, religion, education, work, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. My current lines of research focus on LGBTQ activism and policies at Christian colleges and universities, student organizations and centers at U.S. colleges and universities, occupational activism among professional workers in the United States, and local-level religion-state relations in the United States.

My past collaborative work explored biography and history in the Nashville civil rights movement, culture and the early U.S. labor movement, and environmental movements and policymaking in the United States.

My work regularly appears in leading peer-reviewed journals such as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Mobilization, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Education, and Work and Occupations. I am also author of Gay on God’s Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities, published by The University of North Carolina Press in 2018, and co-editor of LGBTQ Religious Activism: Rethinking Identity, Faith, and Social Change, published by The University of North Carolina Press in 2026.

My research has been recognized through awards from the American Sociological Association, Society for the Study of Social Problems, and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, among others. My research is funded through grants from the National Science Foundation, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Association for the Sociology of Religion, and more.

Interested readers can learn more about my research and teaching at the links above. For a full list of my published work, please see my CV. Finally, click here to view my department webpage.