Dr. Krista E. Paulsen started at Boise State University in 2019 and is currently a professor and program lead with the Urban Studies and Community Development Program. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology both from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Paulsen’s research is within urban and community sociology; centering primarily around place. Her current research examines how places come to be distinct from one another; how facets of culture, including cultural institutions, leisure, and consumption, shape urban development; how meanings associated with places inform what is built or preserved; and how urban sociologists can effectively study qualities of place and culture that often go unnoticed.