Gary Foster

Gary Foster did graduate work in sociology and folklore at Western Kentucky University. He worked as a field and conservation archaeologist, and as an environmental-health officer before earning a doctorate in sociology from Kansas State University. He joined the faculty at Eastern Illinois University in 1981 where he taught agricultural and rural sociology, environmental sociology, and a sociology of cemeteries. While there, he developed an interdisciplinary, environmental studies minor and chaired the Department of Sociology and Anthropology for ten years. He is now Emeritus Chair and Professor, and continues to research and publish in the areas of environmental sociology and the sociology of cemeteries. Some of his more recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Illness, Crisis, and Loss, the Journal of Aging and Identity, the Florida Journal of Environmental Health, and Markers.