Deborah Tolman

I have always been curious about adolescent girls' sexuality and how gender dynamics inform their experience. I have been studying sexuality since I was an undergrad at Harvard, which raised eyebrows back then. Now I am a professor of critical social psychology and have been doing innovative research on the topic for over 20 years using an array of research methods (interviews, focus groups, surveys and statistical analysis, often "mixing" them for stronger results). My book, Dilemmas of Desire, was an early example of bringing girls' voices to how we understand their experiences. I have a Masters in sex education from Penn and a PhD in developmental psychology, with a focus on adolescence, from Harvard. I have been working in public higher education most of my career; I have been a professor at San Francisco State and now at CUNY. I publish widely and speak in public venues frequently. As co-founder of SPARK Movement, my commitment to girls has grown to supporting them in being activists to fuel social change about how their bodies are treated and to recognize their strengths beyond how they look. These two ways of working come together in PAR and the creation of SPARK Research! Having done a successful PAR project with a group of girls and their teacher who wanted to know about slut-shaming in their school, I am working now with my students on various efforts to do critical research on gender and sexuality and ensuring that our work and that of our colleagues around the country, and eventually the globe, goes "beyond the academy" to inform what the public knows about gender and sexuality and policies that affect the lives of so many (SexGenLab).

October 2016