Sharon Preves

Sharon Preves is a professor of sociology in the Social Justice and Social Change Department. She is also director of the Public Health Sciences program and co-directed Hamline's Collaborative Research programs for six years. She teaches and conducts research on gender, medicine, sexuality, identity, and social research methods.

Her research on intersex has been published widely, including in her first book, Intersex and Identity: the Contested Self (Rutgers University Press, 2003), which she is currently expanding and updating for a second edition. Professor Preves has also co-authored publications on collaborative teaching and female genital cutting. In addition, she and co-editor Jeylan Mortimer published a social psychology anthology with Oxford University Press (2011). Her current research studies the socialization of medical students with respect to providing care for intersex and transgender patients and families.

Professor Preves was first introduced to sociology as an eighteen-year-old Hamline undergraduate student. Her plan at that time was to study psychology, become a therapist, and do a little singing on the side. Instead, she took an Introduction to Sociological Thinking course—a course she has since taught many times. This sociology course, and many others, challenged her to think in new and exciting ways. She was drawn to the concept of studying not only individuals, but to pay attention to larger social structures and social contexts in her desire to understand and act against social inequality. In addition to her academic pursuits, she continues to sing, take long walks, and travel to Minnesota's North Shore whenever she gets the chance.