Professor Jodi O’Brien, chair of the Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work Department, joined the advisory board of the United Kingdom’s Economic and Social Research Council for a project on queer-identifying religious youth. “Making Space for Queer-Identifying Religious Youth,” an 18-month research project, will study queer-identifying youth involved in religious communities in England.

O’Brien is also the featured speaker at DePauw University on National Coming Out Day, October 11. She will address the cultural politics of recent decades that suggest that LGBTQ identities and issues are the source of both the promise of gender and sexual justice and also the threat of a nation in decline.

O’Brien, who received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington, focuses here research on gender, sexuality, social inequalities, social theory, and social psychology. A prolific scholar, her most recent publication, edited with David Newman, is Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life: Readings, 9th Edition (Sage Publications, 2011).

In addition to her teaching and administrative responsibilities in the College of Arts and Sciences, O’Brien is the co-editor of Contexts, a journal of the American Sociological Association.

The College of Arts and Sciences, the largest college in Seattle University, offers 42 undergraduate majors, 37 minors, and 6 master's degrees.