Andrea Kelley

Andrea  Kelley
  • Assistant Professor
  • Lyman Briggs College
  • Ph.D. University of Delaware

CURRICULUM VITAE

Andrea Kelley

BIOGRAPHY

My research and teaching interests encompass intersections of health and medicine, gender and sexuality, and justice. Although I build my courses and research projects around sociological theory, I incorporate my educational training and professional experience as a social worker, school sexuality educator, and adolescent reproductive health counselor into my research methods and course construction. Using an intersectional framework I incorporate discussion of racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, classism, and xenophobia throughout my courses, and encourage students to both explore personal biases and understand the effects of social structures that privilege some groups and marginalize others. While I was initially interested in social impacts on health, after spending several years primarily teaching sociology to pre-medical and pre-health students, my lens has shifted to focus on the structure of medicine, specifically medical education.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Across my research projects, an overarching goal—particularly as it relates to LGBTQ+ individuals and their families—is to use social scientific data to inform policy and help support programs and practitioners to be more inclusive and affirming. Guided by multidisciplinary queer and feminist methodologies, I engage in rigorous qualitative data collection and analysis to explore the relationships between individuals and cisnormative and heteronormative social structure. Previous projects include: How racism and sexism inform hair loss concealment from trichotillomania; social and environmental impacts on teen sexual decision-making; empathetic self-construction among people with transgender parents. Current projects include: Support networks among people with transgender parents; cisnormativity in medical education.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

  • Kelley, Andrea D. 2024. “Making Yourself Ugly.” Contexts 23(3):32-37.
  • Kelley, Andrea D. 2024. “Medical Schools as Cisgendered Organizations.” Social Science & Medicine 350(116913).
  • Kelley, Andrea D. 2021. “Cisnormative Empathy: A Critical Examination of Love, Support, and Compassion for Transgender People by Their Loved Ones.” Sociological Inquiry 91(3):625-646.
  •  Herrman, Judith, Andrea Kelley, and Katherine Haigh. 2017. “Teen Perceptions of the Promotion of Safe Sexual Practices: A Focus Group Study.” American Journal of Sexuality Education 12(1):83-102.

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMS

  • Sexual and Gender Minority Health Consortium
  • Core Faculty, Center for Gender in a Global Context