Jodi O'Brien, Ph. D.

I am currently a Professor of Sociology, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Seattle University and the Director of SU ADVANCE, a university-wide, National Science Foundation-funded program for the advancement of women and minoritized faculty. I teach and conduct scholarship across a wide range of fields including cultural studies, critical race scholarship, gender/transgender studies, liberation sociology, religion, and social psychology. My current work is focused in three streams: understanding gender and sexuality at the intersection of biology, neuroscience and social science; narratives of self-understanding among LGBTQ Christians and the congregations that support them; and institutional transformation for the realization of full inclusion and equity among diverse students, staff, and faculty.

In addition to teaching and scholarship, I have served in university-level administration for the past decade and am active in national conferences and conversations on justice-focused leadership. I co-edit a Routledge book-series that includes regular workshops in mentoring scholars to write lively critical analyses of complex social issues for general readers. I am and a former editor of the public-facing sociology journal, Contexts. My books and edited volumes include The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings in Social Interaction; Social Prisms: Reflections on Everyday Myths and Paradoxes; Everyday Inequalities; Gender, Sexuality, and Intimacy; and the two-volume SAGE Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, My recent articles include, “Can I Charge My Therapy to the University? Reflections on Doing University Diversity Work,” “Making Sense of Queer Religious Lives,” “Seeing Agnes: Notes on a Transgender Biocultural Ethnomethodology,” and “Stained-Glass Ceilings: Religion, Leadership, and the Cultural Politics of Belonging.”

My current community work includes serving as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Ingersoll Gender Center, the longest continually operating direct service transgender support center in the U.S.