Julie N. Zimmerman

Video: Get to Know Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Article: UK rural sociologist honored with two career awards

Article: UK rural sociologist helps Kentucky’s communities through data

Listen to Dr. Zimmerman on NPR: Women's Work Is Never Done On The Farm, And Sometimes Never Counted

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My work focuses on rurality, secondary data for Cooperative Extension, and research on the history of rural sociology and social sciences in colleges of agriculture and the USDA.

Over the years, my research has had both an academic and an applied focus. Recent projects include an invited book chapter on rural sociology’s 100-year history which is forthcoming in The Research Handbook of Rural Sociology edited by Ann Tickamyer and Carolyn Sachs.  Other works, such as the book, Opening Windows onto Hidden Lives: Women, Country Life, and Early Rural Sociological Research (with co-author Olaf Larson), explores the unexpected inclusion of rural and farm women in research conducted by the USDA’s Division of Farm Population and Rural Life (1919-1953).  And, a history of the first Department of Rural Sociology in the nation.

Some of my other related publications include: “An Unexpected Legacy: Women, Early Rural Sociological Research, and the Limits of Linearity,” “Mediated Knowledge: Reexamining Six Classic Community Studies from a Woman's Point of View;” the book chapter “I Could Tell Stories ‘til the Cows Come Home Individual Biography meets Collective Biography” (in Johannes Hans Bakker (ed.) Rural Sociologists at Work), and Sociology in Government: The Galpin-Taylor Years in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1919–1953 (with Olaf Larson and assisted by Edward O. Moe).

In 2009, I became the first woman and second youngest to serve as Historian of the Rural Sociological Society (RSS).  In 2025, I became the first woman at the University of Kentucky to receive the highest honor bestowed by the Rural Sociological Society - the Margaret Hagood Distinguished Rural Sociologist award.

Another part of my work includes research with an applied emphasis including work that has examined prices in rural areas (“Meals in Mountains: Examining Longitudinal Changes in Rural/Urban Food Prices," “The Enduring Price of Place: Revisiting the Rural Cost of Living,” and the original study “Does it or Doesn’t it? Geographic Differences and the Costs of Living.”) 

For Cooperative Extension, I work as an Extension demographer in the area of applied population.  I developed and run the Extension program Kentucky: By The Numbers which focuses on providing assistance with using and understanding publicly available secondary data for local and state-level decision-making.  My program includes skill-based training, custom data analyses, direct assistance, resources for accessing and using online secondary data, and web access to resources and commonly used data.  As a result of my Extension program, I also provide multiple guest lectures for courses in CLD and other programs. In 2025, I was honored to receive the M.D. Whitaker award from the Kentucky Association of State Extension Professionals (KASEP).

In addition to being a faculty member in CLD, I hold a joint appointment with the Department of Sociology and am a faculty member in the Sociology Graduate Program.  I am also an affiliate faculty member in the UK Appalachian Center.