As an environmental sociologist working in the field of engineering, Chien-fei Chen thrives on unique, multidisciplinary research questions. In 2018, she became interested in pursuing a multidisciplinary, multi-cultural research project that would explore issues surrounding the equality of renewable energy, specifically the differences between Western and Chinese cultures, and how new energy solutions can impact vulnerable areas.

Chen is director of education and diversity programs at the Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT), a National Science Foundation-funded engineering research center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; a research associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS); and adjunct faculty in the Department of Sociology.

Why do we do what we do as human beings? Social scientists across a broad field of disciplines pose this and other questions aimed at understanding the ways individuals live in relation to their surroundings.

At UT, the social sciences are spread across five departments—anthropology, geography, political science, psychology, and sociology—in the College of Arts and Sciences, the largest and most diverse of UT’s colleges.

Students engage with the social sciences to learn how to collect and evaluate knowledge, as well to better understand the complex individual, political, and social dynamics of the world around them.