People

Faculty & Staff

The Project on Public Leadership and Action is co-directed by Laura Grattan, Soo Hong and Jennifer Musto.  Faculty participating in the project include:

  • Associate Professor of Psychology

    B.A., Pomona College; M.A., Ph.D., University of Kansas

    Social psychologist doing research on the dynamics of prejudice and friendship formation.

    More about Angela Bahns

  • Professor of Peace and Justice Studies

    B.S., Università degli Studi di Firenze; M.A., University of Notre Dame; Ph.D., University of Southern California

    Scholar and activist around issues of peace and gender.

    More about Catia Confortini

  • Camilla Chandler Frost Professor of Environmental Studies

    B.A., Oberlin College; Ph.D., Harvard University

    Focuses on environmental politics, international environmental law, ocean and atmospheric issues, and protection of the global commons.

    More about Elizabeth R. DeSombre

  • Jane Bishop '51 Associate Professor of Political Science

    B.A., College of William and Mary; M.A., Ph.D., Duke University

    Researches and teaches political theory, with a focus on grassroots organizing and the politics of race, ethnicity, and culture.

    More about Laura Grattan

  • Associate Professor of History

    B.A., Beloit College; M.A., Ph.D., University of Wisconsin (Madison)

    Historian of race, gender, and culture in 20th century U.S. with focus on African American business and visual culture.

    More about Brenna W. Greer

  • Associate Professor of History

    A.B., Harvard University; M.Phil., Cambridge University; M.A., Ph.D., University of California (Berkeley)

    Intellectual and cultural historian of early modern Europe.

    More about Simon Grote

  • Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Education

    B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ed.M., Ed.D., Harvard University

    Study of educational philosophy, policy, and practice, and the social sciences, humanities, and other studies relevant to them. 

    More about Kenneth S. Hawes

  • Class of 1919 – 50th Reunion Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies

    B.A., Brandeis University; M.A., Ph.D., Northwestern University

    Contemporary Reproduction, Families and Social Inequalities, New Family Forms, Feminist Methodologies and Internet Use for Social Learning and Connectivity.

    More about Rosanna Hertz

  • Professor of Education

    B.A., M.T., University of Virginia; Ed.D., Harvard University

    Explores school-community relationships in K-12 urban schools with an emphasis on race, immigration, and culture.

    More about Soo Hong

  • Jean Glasscock Professor of Sociology

    B.A., Brandeis University; M.A., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

    More about Jonathan B. Imber

  • Class of 1949 Chair in Ethics; Professor of American Studies; Dean of Academic Affairs

    A.B., Swarthmore College; Ph.D., Harvard University

    Qualitative sociologist focusing on race, class, gender, and cultural production.

    More about Michael Jeffries

  • Anne Pierce Rogers Professor in American Literature; Professor of English

    A.B., Harvard College; Ph.D., Yale University

    My research and teaching span two areas, British eighteenth and nineteenth century prose fiction, and Asian American literature.

    More about Yoon Sun Lee

  • Mildred Lane Kemper Professor of Sociology

    B.A., Brandeis University; M.S., Columbia University; Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Cultural and intellectual inequality, museums, decentered knowledge production and pedagogy, sociology of art and literature, migration, transnational social protection.

    More about Peggy Levitt

  • Katherine Stone Kaufmann '67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Professor of Africana Studies

    B.A., Spelman College; M.S., Pennsylvania State University; Ph.D., Temple University

    Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women; expert on the womanist worldview and activist methodology.

    More about Layli Maparyan

  • Senior Research Scientist, Wellesley Centers for Women; Adjunct Associate Professor Emerita of Women’s and Gender Studies

    B.A., Oberlin College; M.A., University of Connecticut (Storrs); Ed.D., Harvard University

    Studies women and employment, with a focus on working conditions and health and on work-family systems, as well as child care policy and early care and education.

    More about Nancy Marshall

  • Associate Professor of Philosophy

    B.A., Yale University; Ph.D., University of California (Berkeley)

    Researches and teaches the ethics, politics, and aesthetics of cultural heritage, art, and the environment.

    More about Erich Hatala Matthes

  • Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies

    B.A., DePaul University; M.A., Ph.D., University of California (Los Angeles)

    Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Director of the Knapp Social Science Center (KSSC), and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Anti-Carceral Co+Laboratory

    More about Jennifer Musto

  • Marion Butler McLean Professor in the History of Ideas; Professor of Sociology

    A.B., M.A., Ph.D., University of California (Berkeley)

    A feminist qualitative sociologist interested in finance, development and globalization in India, the U.S. and South Africa.

    More about Smitha Radhakrishnan

  • Gordon P. Lang and Althea P. Lang ‘26 Professor of Biological Sciences

    M.S., Ph.D., University of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

    Evolutionary biologist with interest in conservation genetics.

    More about Andrea S. Sequeira

  • Professor of Environmental Studies

    B.S., Washington and Lee University; A.M., Brown University; Ph.D., Princeton University

    Researcher on the recent history of U.S. environmental politics and policy, including climate change, the clean energy transition, and public lands management.

    More about James Morton Turner