Loka Ashwood is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. She studies corporate and regulatory structures that prompt environmental injustices and animosity toward the state, with a mind toward action-based change in rural communities. She published the book, For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government is Losing the Trust of Rural America (Yale 2018), and is co-author of An Invitation to Environmental Sociology (6th edition, Sage, fall 2020).