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Denise A. Copelton, PHD

(She/Her/Hers)

Interim Dean

(585) 395-5668
dcopelto@brockport.edu
Office: Fannie Barrier Williams Bldg 133

Recipient of the Chancellor's Award for

Faculty Service

Education

PhD, Sociology, Binghamton University
MA, Sociology, Binghamton University
BA, Sociology, SUNY Geneseo

Areas of Specialty

Sociology of Health & Illness
Sociology of Food & Nutrition
Sociology of Families

Courses Taught

UNDERGRADUATE

Health, Medicine & Society
Social Disparities in Health
Aging & Society
Deviant Behavior
Sociology of Families
Introduction to Sociology
Research Methods
Sociology of Food

GRADUATE: (FOR MA IN LIBERAL STUDIES)

Families & Society
Social Science Perspectives on Health & Medicine

Research Interests

My current research centers on the social experience of illness. I am interested in the social experience of living with celiac disease, an auto-immune disorder triggered by ingesting gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye. The only remedy is lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet. I examine the challenges persons with celiac face as they attempt to obtain a diagnosis and, once diagnosed, how they negotiate the diet within the context of families, friends, and a social landscape of food not conducive to gluten-free eating.

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service, 2019
SUNY Brockport Scholarly Incentive Grant, Fall 2015.
SUNY Brockport Office for Students with Disabilities, Outstanding Faculty Award, Grand Prize Winner, 2009-2010.
United University Professions Individual Development Grant for “Feeding the Celiac Family,” Fall 2009.
SUNY Brockport Scholarly Incentive Grant for “Feeding the Celiac Family,” Fall 2009.
SUNY Brockport Outstanding Academic Advising Award, 2008-2009.
New York State United University Professions, Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Affirmative Action/Diversity Leave Grant for “The Social Experience of Celiac Disease,” Spring 2009.
Mentor of the Year. SUNY Brockport, Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, 2007-2008.
United University Professions Individual Development Grant for “The Social Experience of Celiac Disease,” Fall 2008.
SUNY Brockport Scholarly Incentive Grant for “The Social Experience of Celiac Disease,” Fall 2008.

Copelton, Denise A. and Gregory Weiss. 2023. Sociology of Health, Healing & Illness (11th ed.). NY: Routledge. (Prior editions as second author: 10th edition, 2020)

Guptill, Amy, Denise A. Copelton and Betsy Lucal. 2022. Food & Society: Principles & Paradoxes (3rd ed). Polity Press. (1st edition, 2013; 2nd edition, 2016)

Copelton, Denise A. 2020. “Bothersome Bowels & Fetid Flatulence: Managing Stigmatizing Gastrointestinal Symptoms of Celiac Disease.” In Deviance Today (2nd ed.), edited by Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, & Addrain Conyers.

Copelton, Denise A. 2016. “Gluten-free Eating and Gendered Feeding Work in Families Affected by Celiac Disease.” Advances in Gender Research. 22: 143-164.

Copelton, Denise A. 2013. “Diagnosis as Stigma Management: The Case of Highly Stigmatized Gastrointestinal Symptoms of Celiac Disease.” Article #20 in Deviance Today, edited by Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, & Addrain Conyers. Pearson.

Copelton, Denise A. 2011. “Advocacy and Everyday Health Activism among Persons with Celiac Disease: A Comparison of Eager, Reluctant, and Non-Activists.” Pp. 561-575 in Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World, edited by Carole Counihan and Psyche Williams-Forson. NY: Routledge.

Copelton, Denise A., Rebecca McGee, Andrew Coco, Isis Shanbaky, and Timothy Riley. 2010. “The Ideological Work of Infant Feeding.” In Giving Breast Milk, edited by Rhonda Shaw and Alison Bartlett. Toronto: Demeter Press.

Copelton, Denise A. 2010. “Output that Counts: Pedometers, Sociability & the Contested Terrain of Older Adult Fitness Walking.” Sociology of Health & Illness, 32(2): 304-18.

Reprinted in: Joyce, Kelly and Meika Loe (Ed.s). (2010). Technogenarians: Studying Health and Illness Through an Ageing, Science, and Technology Lens (Sociology of Health & Illness Monograph Series). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Copelton, Denise A. 2010. “Eating for Two: How Pregnant Women Neutralize Nutritional Deviance.” Pp. 281-5 in Readings in Deviant Behavior (6th ed.), edited by Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, & Addrain Conyers. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Copelton, Denise A. and Giuseppina Valle. 2009. “‘You Don’t Need a Prescription to Go Gluten-Free’: The Scientific Self-Diagnosis of Celiac Disease.” Social Science & Medicine, 69(4): 623-31.

Copelton, Denise A. 2009. “Neutralization and Emotion Work in Women’s Accounts of Light Drinking in Pregnancy.” Pp. 13-24 in Mother Knows Best, edited by Jessica Nathanson and Laura Tuley. Toronto: Demeter Press.

Copelton, Denise A. 2007. “You Are What You Eat: Nutritional Norms, Maternal Deviance and Neutralization of Women’s Prenatal Diets.” Deviant Behavior, 28: 467-494.

Copelton, Denise A. 2004. “Menstrual Extraction, Abortion, and the Political Context of Feminist Self-Help.” Advances in Gender Research, 8: 129-164.

Copelton, Denise A. 2002. “Assessing the Social Impact of Mifepristone in the United States – A Pro-Choice Perspective,” and “On Myth Making and Prediction: A Response to Morris.” Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, 11(2): 333-362.