Meet the Keynote Speaker

Karen Christopher is a professor of sociology at the University of Louisville.  She earned her BA in Sociology and Spanish from Emory University and her MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of Arizona. Her main research interests include the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, and class in families and workplaces.  She teaches courses on families, gender and work, and diversity and inequality. She is the recipient of two distinguished teaching awards from her university. Additionally, she is an expert in qualitative research methods.

 Dr. Christopher's research projects explore women's employment trajectories during the pandemic, work/life conflict among nurses, and parenthood in academia. Titles of recent articles and chapters include “Working as if One Has Children, Mothering as if One Has a Job,” “A Double Bind of Relational Care: Nurses’ Narratives of Caregiving at Work and at Home,” and “’Parenting Like a White Person:’ Race and Maternal Support among Marginalized Mothers.” As an innovative teacher, she has also published “Analyzing Masculinities with Digital Media: A Podcast Assignment” in the Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology sponsored by the American Sociological Association. Her publications can be found in journals such as Gender & Society, Advances in Gender Research, and Race, Class, & Gender. 

She lives in Louisville with her spouse and two children. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, playing tennis, and traveling.