Biography: Dr. Melissa F. Lavin is an Associate Professor at the State University of New York at Oneonta. She received her B.A. at the the University of Colorado and her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. Her areas of specialization include deviance and crime, medicalization, social psychology, gender and sexuality, and work and occupation. She serves on the editorial board for the journal Deviant Behavior.
Reflexive Statement: Dr. Lavin is a critical ethnographer and an interactionist sociologist. Her research collaborators have been her co-workers and friends. Melissa is invested in a sociology that explores marginalized practices and advocates for marginalized groups. She strives to create accurate and politically viable representations, and to achieve rich accounts of the life worlds that she studies.