My academic interests lie in the areas of social stratification, labor market studies, development issues, and gender studies. I have published in the areas of occupational prestige, gender and status attainment, employment and poverty among Latinas, the social impact of household technology, and most recently on women’s work at the turn of the century and on gender and development in Latin America and the Caribbean. I am professionally active in the gender studies area, and have been Chair of the Sex and Gender Section of the American Sociological Association (1989-90) and Editor of the journal Gender & Society (1999-2003). I was the founding Director of University at Albany’s Institute for Research on Women (1987-91) and currently chair the Department of Women Studies (2004-07).  I directed our U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for a consortium with Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico (1993-95) in which each campus expanded its curriculum in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. With Dr. Edna Acosta-Belén I currently co-directed a Ford Foundation funded project on Gender Studies in Global Perspective, which provided MA assistantships for students combining gender and area studies. I have also served as Vice President of the Eastern Sociological Society.

I have published six books related to women and employment. The first is on women and occupational prestige scales; the second volume, based on a conference, is on women’s employment policy; the third is on hidden aspects of women’s work; and the fourth and fifth volumes review the literature on Latin American women, the most recent with a special emphasis on employment in the formal and informal economies (Women in the Latin American Development Process, with E. Acosta-Belén). My most recent book is (Temple University Press, 2001) entitled Gateway to the Twentieth Century: Women and the U.S. Political Economy in 1900.