A rocker with roots: Dallas McCulloch returns to the Midwest to combat the disparities of working class people
Dallas McCulloch hails from a working class, deindustrialized area in Battle Creek “where people live hard lives, work hard jobs, and get sick and die prematurely as a result of that hard living,” he said. Immersing himself in the punk rock scene was his ticket out once he started booking tours. He traveled the globe as a musician and spent time living in Grand Rapids; Austin, TX; Honolulu, HI; Melbourne, Australia; Flint; and New Haven, CT.
The rock scene came with its ups and downs. He struggled with substance abuse until getting sober at the age of 27. He dedicated himself to fitness and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. And then it was on to Melbourne. 
“I was 30 years old and living in Australia,” McCulloch said. “My visa was about to expire, and I knew I needed to do something else back in the U.S.”
He set his sights on higher education, starting with community college in Honolulu. He enrolled at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa for his bachelor's and when it came time to declare a major, McCulloch chose public health.
“I spent much of my life on tour with punk rock bands and got to see how people live in other places. I started to notice that diabetes, heart disease, cancer, alcoholism, suicide, addiction, stroke, etc. were far less common in areas where people have higher socioeconomic status than where I grew up in Battle Creek, so I wanted to explore why that is and how I can help combat the disparities on behalf of working-class people.”
After earning his bachelor's from UH Manoa at the age of 35, McCulloch worked as a research intern at the MSU College of Human Medicine in Flint on a project involving food deserts and availability of health foods under the mentorship of MSU Associate Professor Richard Sadler, Ph.D. MPH. He later enrolled at Yale University where he earned a master’s in public health at the age of 38.
Fully committed to academia, McCulloch wanted to continue his studies, but for his Ph.D., he looked closer to home.
He visited Wayne State University as a part of the Graduate Research Symposium Scholar Visit in February earlier this year where he got a firsthand look at the research being conducted in Metro Detroit.
“I enjoyed meeting with everybody and feeling like the students and professors were approachable and relatable,” he said. “I was homesick for that Midwestern warmth I grew up with, and this visit showed me I could get that while still being in a globally recognized city and at an R1 institute that is putting out some amazing work.”
The trip was enough to persuade him to settle in Detroit and enroll in the sociology program at Wayne State University this past fall.
McCulloch is continuing the food insecurity project in Flint with Sadler under the guidance of WSU Associate Professor Patricia Morton, Ph.D.
“I'm hoping my research can help fund and support food cooperatives as a way for working class and poor areas that have been abandoned by corporate grocery stores to gain access to the things they need in order to be healthy,” McCulloch said.
His ultimate goal is to become a teacher, a passion inspired by working as a teaching fellow at Yale University, and motivate the next generation of students to invest in public health. And he hasn’t given up on touring with punk rock bands on the weekends and summer breaks.
At Wayne State University, he’s discovering the best of both worlds.