Sharlene Janice Nagy Hesse-Biber, a pioneering women’s studies scholar and professor of sociology at Boston College, has announced her intent to retire after 50 years of service.
A faculty member since 1975, Dr. Hesse-Biber is the co-founder of what is now Boston College’s women’s and gender studies program, which she led on two occasions from 1989 to 1992 and 2006 to 2023. As a scholar, she is known for her research on women’s health and body image, women and work, feminist sociology, mixed method inquiry, and hereditary breast cancer. Dr. Hesse-Biber is also the founder and longtime director of the National Association of Women in Catholic Higher Education and co-founder of the software company, HYPEResearch, a program that has significantly advanced qualitative data analysis.
Throughout her career, Dr. Hesse-Biber has authored numerous books, including the award-winning The Cult of Thinness (Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2006) and Waiting for Cancer to Come: Genetic Testing and Women’s Medical Decision Making for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (University of Michigan Press, 2014).
Dr. Hesse-Biber earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of Michigan.