Arizona State University
Connor M. Sheehan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor & Centennial Professor
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
Analyzing how social inequality gets under the pillow.
Associate Professor & Centennial Professor
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
Analyzing how social inequality gets under the pillow.
I study how social inequality gets under the pillow. Sleep is a key pathway linking social conditions to health, and my work uses large-scale population data and advanced quantitative methods to identify how disparities in sleep contribute to broader patterns of disease and mortality. As a social epidemiologist and social demographer at Arizona State University, I document how social forces like education, neighborhoods, and family structure shape who sleeps well and who doesn't, and what that means for population health. I am also interested in unique factors predicting mortality and structural determinants of population health.
My work pursues three overlapping questions: How can enhanced measurement improve our understanding of the sociological determinants of health? What are the sociological determinants of sleep in a world undergoing rapid transformation? And how does social inequality within families influence well-being and sleep?
Before joining ASU, I earned my Ph.D. in Sociology from The University of Texas at Austin (specializing in Demography) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at USC's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, supported by the National Institute on Aging.
I also like to lift weights, eat Japanese food, take naps, and have my heart broken by the Texas Longhorns.
I co-founded Data Devils with Dr. Aaron Flores, a community analytics initiative that pairs ASU students with Arizona nonprofits to provide data-driven insights. The program trains students in applied research while delivering real, actionable analytical support to organizations working on the front lines of social issues across the state.
Our work has achieved statewide visibility and external funding, with projects spanning food insecurity mapping, pet adoption outcomes, foster children services, and basic needs assessment. We have partnered with all four of Arizona's major food bank networks, the Arizona Board of Regents, and municipal agencies including Maricopa County Animal Control. Our food insecurity dashboard training workshop, funded by ABOR and hosted at St. Mary's Food Bank, produced a 96% increase in participant confidence navigating the tool.
Data Devils has been featured by ASU News, Arizona PBS, KJZZ, the Arizona Board of Regents, Route Fifty, GovTech, and StateScoop.
An interdisciplinary survey of quantitative methods, from regression to neural net packages, taught entirely in R. Students build coding portfolios and model real data on everything from candy preferences to the Bechdel test.
How social factors get "under the skin" during epidemics. Covers COVID-19, Ebola, and the opioid epidemic through the lens of social inequality.
Intro statistics with a hands-on twist. Students learn Excel, R, and how to be informed consumers of data. Final projects use real World Values Survey data.
Prestigious student-selected award for teaching excellence and leadership. Also received multiple Professor of Impact Awards and SUN Awards, and multiple nominations for the College Teaching Award.
Interested in collaboration, graduate study, or Data Devils partnerships?
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