Amy Stone Wins Inaugural Danny J. Anderson Faculty Prize

There are times when Trinity University sociology and anthropology professor Amy Stone, Ph.D., feels like they are completing invisible work. 

An intrepid researcher of LGBTQIA+ topics and a dedicated mentor for Trinity undergraduates, Stone spends their semesters—and summers—asking research questions that have never been asked and investigating issues affecting marginalized communities. Now, as the first-ever recipient of Trinity’s newly created Danny J. Anderson Faculty Prize, Stone’s passion for guiding undergraduate researchers is coming into sharp focus.

“It’s really exciting to be recognized for this kind of ‘invisible work’ that we do in the summer and throughout the year working with students on grant-funded, publishable research,” Stone says. “Supervising undergraduate research is a really important part of our work at Trinity.”

The award, created to honor the presidency of Danny Anderson, Ph.D., who retired in May 2022, was established by the Trinity University Board of Trustees and made possible by gifts from the Board and from Trustee Emeritus Paul H. Smith and his wife, Anne. The award serves to recognize exceptional contributions by Trinity faculty members in the mentorship of research students.

Stone has a long history of community-based research in the LGBTQIA+ community of San Antonio, including work with the Pride Center San Antonio on the Strengthening Colors of Pride research project since 2017. They also served on the advisory council of the TransForward Texas transgender health initiative as the coordinator for the San Antonio region and were a member of the advisory board for the TransAmerican exhibit at the McNay Art Museum. 

During their time at Trinity, Stone has served as co-chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies faculty advisory committee, as a faculty adviser for the LGBTQIA+ student group PRIDE, and as a mentor in the McNair Scholars Program.

Deeply involved in mentoring undergraduate research students, Stone has spent the past decade supervising 38 undergraduate research assistants and four post-baccalaureate research students (and counting), and have organized two major team research projects—the aforementioned Strengthening Colors of Pride project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Family Housing and Me, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

Stone is pleased to announce that their housing research, which examines the effect of non-parental family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the like) on housing instability among LGBTQIA+ youth, has just been granted a year’s extension by the NSF, elevating it to a million-dollar project.

“This is going to create all kinds of opportunities for Trinity students,” Stone says. “We recruited 16-to 19-year-olds into the project last summer, and we’ve been interviewing them in the summer, but now we get to follow them as they become adults. That's really exciting.”

For high-impact, community-driven work like this, Stone says they lean heavily on the unique skills of their Trinity undergraduates. 

“My projects involve a lot of community engagements, whether that’s going out to community events, recruiting people over social media, or talking to people face-to-face. And for me, undergrads excel at these things,” Stone says. “They bring a lot of ideas to the table, and they bring enthusiasm and commitment to a project.”

For Stone, their approach to mentorship starts with the simple act of giving their students the space to use these gifts.

“I try to really bring students into the decision making of a project,” Stone explains.  “If my students are doing a [sociology research] interview, they’re helping make the interview guide. You’re giving them the space to show up to the project with their unique skills and to contribute that way. They’re finding papers they find interesting, and they’re asking questions they find important.”

For Stone and their researchers, LGBTQIA+ research matters more now than ever.

“Trinity students just get naturally excited at the thought that they're doing something that ends up really mattering in people's lives,” Stone says. “Our work has been used by [mayor Ron Nirenberg ’99]. It's been used by Metro Health in San Antonio to get more grant money, and it's been used by several different major organizations in town to actually improve healthcare for LGBTQIA+ people, particularly mental health care.”

And as the visibility of Stone’s work grows on Trinity’s campus—and within the San Antonio community—they’ll be offering future undergraduate researchers more chances to make a difference.

“The type of research we do can lead to correcting some of the injustices that we see. Having data just gives people the capacity to identify where the needs are,” Stone says. “Simple things like knowing who's in our LGBTQIA+ community, how young our community is, knowing about the really high rates of homelessness, this helps us make things happen that need to happen.”