Ryan Thombs

Ryan Thombs

  • Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology
  • Social Science Research Institute Co-funded Faculty Member
112F Armsby Building
University Park, PA 16802

Areas of Expertise

  • Climate Change
  • Environmental Health
  • Social Dimensions of Energy
  • Political Economy
  • Quantitative Methods

Education

  • PhD, Boston College, 2023
  • MPP, George Washington University, 2017
  • BA, Otterbein University, 2015

My research focuses on the political economy of the climate crisis, its impacts on health and well-being, and how social inequality affects population health outcomes using advanced statistical methods (mostly using panel, time series, and/or spatial modeling). Currently, I am working on three projects. The first explores the effects of fossil fuel sector decline on a range of environmental and population health measures such as emissions, air pollution, life expectancy, and economic well-being sub-nationally in the U.S. The second analyzes the anthropogenic drivers of greenhouse gas emissions focusing on the relationship between militarization and emissions and evaluating the mitigation effectiveness of current climate policies. My last project is focused on developing new approaches and software packages for panel, time series, and spatial modeling. 

My published research appears in leading sociology journals such as the American Sociological Review, Sociological Methodology, the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Socius, and various high impact interdisciplinary journals, including Global Environmental Change, Energy Research & Social Science, Climatic Change, Environmental Research Letters.

All of my Stata programs can be downloaded from my Github page

Publications

Guns versus Climate: How Militarization Amplifies the Effect of Economic Growth on Carbon Emissions
American Sociological Review, Jorgenson, Andrew K., Clark, Brett, Thombs, Ryan P., Kentor, Jeffrey, Givens, Jennifer E., Huang, Xiaorui, El Tinay, Hassan, Auerbach, Daniel, Mahutga, Matthew C., 2023

What Goes Up Might Not Come Down: Modeling Directional Asymmetry with Large-N, Large-T Data
Sociological Methodology, Thombs, Ryan P., Huang, Xiaorui, Fitzgerald, Jared Berry, 2022

Trade and health: A cross-national study of global economic integration, smoking prevalence, and gender, 2000 to 2015
Sociology of Development, Thombs, Ryan P., Thombs, Dennis L., Mahoney, Colleen A., 2021

Inequality amplifies the negative association between life expectancy and air pollution: A cross-national longitudinal study
Science of the Total Environment, Jorgenson, Andrew K., Thombs, Ryan P., Clark, Brett, Givens, Jennifer E., Hill, Terrence D., Huang, Xiaorui, Kelly, Orla M., Fitzgerald, Jared B., 2021

It's about time: How recent advances in time series analysis techniques can enhance energy and climate research
Energy Research and Social Science, Thombs, Ryan P., Huang, Xiaorui, Jorgenson, Andrew K., 2021

The multiplicative impacts of working hours and fine particulate matter concentration on life expectancy: A longitudinal analysis of US States
Environmental Research, Jorgenson, Andrew K., Fitzgerald, Jared B., Thombs, Ryan P., Hill, Terrence D., Givens, Jennifer E., Clark, Brett, Schor, Juliet B., Huang, Xiaorui, Kelly, Orla M., Ore, Peter, 2020

What Is Driving the Drug Overdose Epidemic in the United States?
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Thombs, Ryan P., Thombs, Dennis L., Jorgenson, Andrew K., Braswell, Taylor Harris, 2020

What Is Driving the Drug Overdose Epidemic in the United States?
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Thombs, Ryan P., Thombs, Dennis L., Jorgenson, Andrew K., Harris Braswell, Taylor, 2020

The political economy of renewable portfolio standards in the United States
Energy Research and Social Science, Thombs, Ryan P., Jorgenson, Andrew K., 2020

Power, proximity, and physiology: Does income inequality and racial composition amplify the impacts of air pollution on life expectancy in the United States?
Environmental Research Letters, Jorgenson, Andrew K., Hill, Terrence D., Clark, Brett, Thombs, Ryan P., Ore, Peter, Balistreri, Kelly S., Givens, Jennifer E., 2020

Ohio LEED schools and academic performance: A panel study, 2006-2016
Sustainability, Thombs, Ryan P., Prindle, Allen, 2018