Dr. Matthew H. McLeskey is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York at Oswego. Broadly speaking, Dr. McLeskey studies the relationship between the affordability housing crisis and the criminalization of poverty. He currently focuses on how America’s lead poisoning epidemic caused by dilapidated housing in disinvested, often segregated neighborhoods(re)produces racial health disparities, hinders neighborhood community well-being and housing security, and ultimately contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline.
Dr. McLeskey finished his Ph.D. in sociology with expertise in critical criminology, urban studies, and intersectional inequalities at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2022, where he was also an Advanced Dissertation Fellow at the Humanities Institute and a Research Assistant in the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy in the School of Law.
Research
Research Interests: urban inequalities, green criminology, environmental justice, housing policy and housing inequality, deviant behavior, social and social theory & criminological theory
Selected Publications
2026 McLeskey, Matthew H., and Roger Guy. “Defended Neighborhoods, Urban Renewal
and ‘Hillbilly Removal’ in Uptown, Chicago, 1955-1970.” Humanity & Society.
[Forthcoming]
2025 McLeskey, Matthew H. “Embedded and Embodied: How State Neglect of Lead
Poisoning Contributes to Women’s Green Victimization and Perpetuates Intersectional Inequalities.” Race and Justice: An International Journal 15(3): 382-407.
[DOI: 10.1177/21533687251332246.]
2024 McLeskey, Matthew H., and Laura M. Obernesser. “Strategies for the Unequal Distribution of Emotional Labor in Graduate Student and Contingent Teaching.” Sociological Focus 57(1): 46-50. [DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2293980]
- Special Issue on Engaged Pedagogy
2023 McLeskey, Matthew H. “Affordable Housing is Public Health: How Landlords Struggle
to Contain America’s Lead Poisoning Crisis.” Pp. 79-91 in The Sociology of Housing:
How Homes Shape our Social Lives, edited by Brian McCabe and Eva Rosen. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
2022 Welch, Ayrila, Matthew H. McLeskey, Kenya Goods, Laura Brashears, Joanna Dressel,
and Sarah ‘Frankie’ Frank. “Resources for Teaching Awkward/Difficult Topics.” Graduate Student Concerns Committee, Teaching & Learning Section, American Sociological Association. [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UBt7MCPj6JkgrxO-0hS9tOcbfawoMLMY8EqbWn5ux14/edit]
2021 McLeskey, Matthew H. Film Review of Flint: Poisoning of an American City by David
Barhart, Teaching Sociology 49(1): 107-109. [DOI: 10.1177/0092055X20983322]
2020 Hammond, Jake, Megan Nanney, and Matthew H. McLeskey. “Resources
for Graduate Students during COVID-19.” Graduate Student Concerns Committee, Teaching & Learning Section, American Sociological Association.
2019 McLeskey, Matthew H. “The Unpredictability of the Land beneath Your Feet.” Book
Review of Manufactured Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans’ Tenuous Right
to Place by Esther Sullivan, City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action 23(6):
803-807. [DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2020.1721156]
2018 Mele, Christopher, and Matthew H. McLeskey. “Pro-Growth Urban Politics and the
Inner Workings of Public-Private Partnerships.” Pp. 62-69 in in The Routledge Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics, edited by Kevin Ward, Andrew E.G. Jonas, Byron Miller, and David Wilson. New York: Routledge.
Selected Awards & Honors
2026 Faculty Accessibility Fellowship Program
Campus Technology Services, State University of New York at Oswego ($4,000)
2025 Civic Engagement Min-Grant
Project Pericles, Mellon Foundation, and Eugene M. Lang Foundation ($1,000)
2025 University Impact Collections Grant
Penfield Library, State University of New York at Oswego ($500)
2024-25 Individual Development Award Program
United University Professions, State University of New York at Oswego
($2,100 cumulatively)
2024 Course Redesign Grant
College of Liberal Arts, Sciences & Engineering, State University of New York at Oswego ($1,000)
2024 Civic Lesson Plan Faculty Mini-Grant
Civic Engagement Coalition, State University of New York at Oswego ($200)
2024 Nominee, President’s Award for Excellence in Academic Advisement,
State University of New York at Oswego
2023-24 Publishing Fellows Program, Urban Affairs Association ($500)
2023 Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Rust Belt: Co-Creating Regional Humanities Ecosystems, Rust Belt Humanities Lab, Ursuline College, Cleveland, OH, Summer Institute, National Endowment for the Humanities ($2,200)
2022-23 Early Start Program Fellowship
Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, State University of New York at Oswego ($5,000)
Selected Invited Talks
2025 “The Ongoing Threat of Lead Exposure in the Era of Climate Change."
Social Science Seminar Distinguished Speaker
Department of Anthropology, Criminology, & Sociology
Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY
2025 “Climate Change and the Environment.”
Spring Civic Discourse Series, with Lisa Glidden (Dept. of Politics), J.R. Slosson (Dept. of Atmospheric and Geological Sciences), and Jarrod Hagadorn (Dept. of Cinema and Screen Studies), State University of New York at Oswego
2024 “Merging the Humanities and Social Sciences: Using Oral Life History Methods
to Understand Women’s Lived Experience with Lead Exposure.”
The Seminar Approach to General Education and Scholarship Spring Guest
Lecture, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
Alpha Kappa Delta Sociology Mentoring and Student Award Reception.
Department of Sociology and Center for Conflict Management
University of Akron, Akron, OH
2024 “Affordable Housing is Public Health.”
SOC 215: Introduction to Public Health, Dr. Randolph Hohle
Department of Sociocultural & Justice Studies
State University of New York at Fredonia, Fredonia, NY [Virtual].
Selected Conference Presentations
2026 “Embedded and Embodied: How State Neglect of Lead Poisoning Contributes to
Women’s Green Victimization and Perpetuates Intersectional Inequalities.”
Author-Meets-Critics Panel: North Central Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA.
2025 “Defended Neighborhoods, Urban Renewal and ‘Hillbilly Removal’ in Uptown,
Chicago, 1955-1970.” Paper Presentation: Association for Humanist Sociology Annual Meeting, Columbus, OH.
2024 “The Environmental Hazards of the Affordable Housing Crisis.” Paper
Presentation: Urban Affairs Association Annual Meeting, New York City, NY.
2023 “The Punishment of Toxic Neighborhoods: Environmental Harms and
Community Stigma.” Paper Presentation: American Society for Criminology Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.
Education
2022 Ph.D., Sociology
Department of Sociology & Criminology, State University of New York at Buffalo (UB)
2020 Graduate Certificate, Center for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL@UB)
2015 M.A., Sociology, State University of New York at Buffalo
2011 M.A., English Literature, James Madison University
2009 B.A., Honors Program, Davis & Elkins College
Courses Taught
CRJ 302: Introduction to Courts & Judicial Process
CRJ 302: Environmental Justice
CRJ 333: Crime Theories & Victimization
CRJ 347: Crime & Society
CRJ 365: Criminal Law
CRJ 385: Drugs & Crime
CRJ 401: Senior Seminar in Criminal Justice