Don Earl Albrecht (born December 8, 1952) is director of the Western Rural Development Center, before which he was a faculty member in the Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M University for 27 years ^[1] He received both his B.S. (forestry and outdoor recreation, 1976) and his M.S. (sociology, 1978) at Utah State University. In 1982 he received his Ph.D. in rural sociology at Iowa State University.

Albrecht has researched agricultural resource management, community development, rural poverty and family structure, demographic trends, education, and economic restructuring.^[1] Although most of his work is specific to the United States, Albrecht has also done research in Eastern Europe and South America.

Albrecht has served as president of the Southern Rural Sociological Society (1997) and as vice-president of the Rural Sociological Society (2001–2002). For the latter society's peer-reviewed journal, Rural Sociology, he has served twice as an associate editor (1988–1991 and 1995–1999) and as book review editor (1994–1997).

In 2000, Albrecht received the Southern Rural Sociological Society's Excellence in Research Award.^[2]

• Small Town in Global Society. 2007. The 2007 Southern Rural Sociological Society Presidential Address, Southern Rural Sociology, 2007, 22(1): 1-14.
• Income inequality: the implications of economic structure and social conditions. Sociological Spectrum, 2007, 27, 165-181. (with C.M. Albrecht)
• Minority concentration, disadvantage, and inequality in the nonmetropolitan United States. Sociological Quarterly, 2005, 46, 503-523. (with others)
• Amenities, natural resources, economic restructuring and socioeconomic outcomes in nonmetropolitan America. Journal of the Community Development Society, 2004, 35(2), 36-52.
• Rural Environments and Agriculture. Chapter 7 in Riley E. Dunlap and William Michelson (eds.) Handbook of Environmental Sociology, 2002. (with S.H. Murdock))
• Poverty in nonmetropolitan America: impacts of industrial, employment and family structure variables. Rural Sociology, 2000, 65(1), 87-103.(with others)
• Recreational and Tourism Development vs. the Decline of Agriculture in Southern Utah. Chapter 14 in Peter V. Schaeffer and Scott Loveridge (eds.) Small Town and Rural Economic Development: A Case Study Approach, 2000.
• Agricultural Development and Sustainability. Chapter 5 in Raymond C. Telfair, II (ed.) Texas Wildlife Resources and Land Uses, 1999.
• Family structure among urban, rural and farm populations: classic sociological theory revisited. 1996. Rural Sociology, 1996, 61(3),446-463.
• The Sociology of US Agriculture: An Ecological Perspective, 1990.