L. Susan Williams is an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Kansas State University, specializing in violence and inequality, with an emphasis on the effects of place. Her ground-breaking research for the National Science Foundation empirically documented the independent effect of local community on the life decisions of individual adolescent girls. Her research into rural youth and gendered violence resulted in two studies - Bad Girls from Rural Places and Rural Outlaws. Dr. Williams' recent interests include prison ethnography, women and crime, violence and survivors, and gender construction.