About Me

Dylan Sears was born in Northern California in 1994 and spent the first 10 years of his life living in Redding. In 2004, his family moved to Northeastern Oklahoma in search of something new, a change of scenery, and perhaps most important: a lower cost of living. It can really be said then that while born in California, Dylan was raised in Oklahoma, which brought quite the culture shock when he first moved there. Homeschooled until he finished high school, Dylan enrolled in Tulsa Community College on a whim and took two courses: Introductory Sociology and English Composition I. He quickly took a liking to sociology and took all the courses he could while finishing his associates degree at TCC, after which he transferred to Oklahoma State University where he majored in sociology while working full time in warehousing. During his time at OSU, Dylan began to consider social work and education as potential avenues for his future career, and after graduating he served for a year with the education non-profit City Year near his hometown in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Here, Dylan taught 7th grade math in an under resourced school in North Tulsa, which served both rural and urban students who were predominately Black and Latinx. During his time with City Year, he developed a teaching and mentoring skillset as he worked with students on their coursework, attendance, and social-emotional learning. After a year with City Year (which was partially disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dylan enrolled at Kansas State University to pursue his master's degree in Sociology. Here, he began working with Dr. Travis Linnemann, a cultural criminologist with a similar sociological perspective on race and class. Informed by his experience working while attending school full time and completing a service year, Dylan’s research places emphasis on examining racial and class stratification, the nature of crime in society, and often employs comparative-historical methods in his research. Dylan achieved ABD status in fall of 2024 and is currently completing his dissertation while applying to faculty positions in social science programs across the United States. He aims to continue his research on race and class, crime and violence, while employing a historical and critical lens going forward. He loves teaching and sees each course as an opportunity to expand his own teaching and research skillset, while developing in students the critical thinking skills that can help them evaluate and solve todays social problems.