Biography of Kristin Luker

Kristin Luker is currently a professor of Sociology as well as a professor in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley where she has been teaching since 1986. In addition to the University of California Berkeley, her resume boats faculty positions both from Princeton University and University of California San Diego as Doris Stevens Chair of Women’s Studies (Princeton) and Assistant, Associate and Full Professor (University of California, San Diego) She is clearly ambitious and has shown a proclivity for higher education, a fact that is all too obvious through her acquisition of a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1968 as well as a Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University in 1974.
She currently holds the esteemed position of the Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt Chair at the University of California, Berkeley in acknowledgment of her works in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, law and public policy.
Dr. Luker has written and published five books as well as numerous scholarly articles regarding the aforementioned disciplines. Her books accurately depict her interests which include sexual and reproductive behavior, gender and the relationship between gender and morality, psychology, law and public policy. Her first book Taking Chances: Abortion and the Decision Not to Contracept was published in 1975 with a second edition published with a new introduction in 1991; this book has led to her receipt of the Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Association. Her second book titled Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood was published in 1984 and received the Charles Horton Cooley Award from the Society from the Study of Symbolic Interaction. She published her third book Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of the Teenage Pregnancy Crisis in 1995 which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1996. In 2004 she published her fourth book When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex—and Sex Education—Since the Sixties and finally her most recent book Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences: Research in an Age of Info-glut was recently published in August 2008.

The Way Kristin Luker Became an Academic

Challenges That You Have Faced in Your Career? Life?

Teaching Philosophy

Community Action

Research

Accomplishments

Although her career is far from over, Kristin Luker’s resume already possesses numerous prestigious awards, honors and positions. In 1979, she was a recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Jessie Bernard Award for her first book Taking Chances: Abortion and the Decision Not to Contracept. This award is given “in recognition of scholarly work that has enlarged the horizons of sociology to encompass fully the role of women in society.” In 1984, she was given a Distinguished Teaching Award of Warren College in the University of California, San Diego, where she was teaching at the time; additionally, her second book Abortion and the politics of Motherhood was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the same year. The following year, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood was awarded a Charles Horton Cooley Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Dr. Luker has also received a John Guggenheim Fellowship, which are fellowships given to both men and women who “have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.” She has been invited to the Center for Advanced Study for the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto California (coincidentally where I happen to live.) She has obtained a variety of grants from the Ford and Spencer Foundation, and the Commonwealth Fund. She was also chosen as one of three sociologists invited to meet with President Bill Clinton to discuss topics affecting the country in 1993. Two years later, Dr. Luker was elected to the Sociological Research Association, which limits its memberships to 150 active members, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a recipient of both the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship as well as the Open Society Institute Project Fellowship. Lastly in 2004, she was honored with the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award which annually acknowledges outstanding faculty members in one of the eight Northern California universities and colleges that have Phi Beta Kappa chapters.