Margaret Ralston joined the faculty at Mississippi State University in 2014 after receiving her Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her research focuses on understanding patterns of health and wellbeing in relation to social policies, community resources, and social relationships. Dr. Ralston’s past research has examined the intersection of health, the built environment, and social capital in the US context. Her current project explores concepts of health and social wellbeing in aging populations in the Global South. Dr. Ralston uses primarily secondary data sources and survey data in her research, which has been published in journals such as Research on Aging, Social Science & Medicine, and Population Research and Policy Review.