BA, Clemson University

MS, North Carolina State University

Ph.D, University of Minnesota

At St. Thomas since 1990

Marriages and Families, Global Perspectives on Gender, Adolescence, Sociological Theory

Dr. Karraker is the co-author of Families with Futures: A Survey of Family Studies into the 21st Century (the second edition with Routledge to be published in 2012) and author of Global Families (the second edition with Sage to be published in 2012). She is a former Executive Officer of Sociologists for Women in Society.  She is immediate Past-president of Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD, the international sociology honor society) and  has served as faculty sponsor for lota of Minnesota,  the UST chapter of AKD since it was chartered at UST in 1991.  She is also a  member of the American Sociological Association's Department Resources Group which consults with sociology faculty and programs around the country.  She is currently writing results of her research on religious and civil networks around migration (in small city in the upper Midwestern United States and in Rome, Italy).  She recently embarked on a new project  "Family Values, Business Virtues" on family business members' investment in their communities.  Karraker was honored as the Aquinas Scholars Professor of the Year in 2005 and is a 2011-2012 Family Business Center Fellow.