Braden joined the Mississippi State faculty as an assistant professor in 2016 after receiving his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Missouri. He is an environmental and rural sociologist who utilizes primarily qualitative methods to analyze how rural people and communities respond to socio-ecological transformations. His work can be seen in Geoforum; Symbolic Interaction; Journal of Rural Studies; Men & Masculinities; and Gender, Place & Culture.