KINSEY INSTITUTE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Anita Aldrich Endowed Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Pam Meyer Yttri Director, Kinsey - Kelley Center for Gender Equity in Business / Clinical Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Kelley School of Business
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Distinguished University Scientist
- Professor
Dr. Sue Carter is a Distinguished University Scientist and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University. A career biologist, Carter has studied the endocrinology of love and social bonds for more than three decades. She was the first person to detect and define the physiology of monogamy through her research on the prairie vole. These findings helped lay the foundation for the studies of behavioral and developmental effects of oxytocin and vasopressin in humans.
Dr. Carter served as Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute from 2014-2019.
Job Titles:
- Library Services Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Clinical Psychologist
- Senior Scientist
- Editor - in - Chief of the Journal of Sex Research
- Senior Scientist / Professor of Gender Studies / Editor - in - Chief, Journal of Sex Research
Dr. Graham is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sex Research, a consulting editor of the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, a Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexology, and a past President of the International Academy for Sex Research. In 2023 Dr. Graham was the recipient of the Masters & Johnson award from the Society for Sex Therapy and Research.
Dr. Graham, a clinical psychologist by training, has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Graham is a founding member of the Kinsey Institute's Condom Use Research Team (KI-CURT), an internationally recognized, multidisciplinary team researching the behavioral aspects of condom use which has produced over 50 articles and two book chapters on condom-use associated variables, including identifying race-specific barriers to condom use, and has worked with industry partners on the development of more effective condom designs.
Dr. Graham's research interests include sexual health in older adults, sexual problems in women, gender and clinical sexology, the design and implementation of interventions to improve the uptake and experience of condom use, and innovative sex education interventions for adolescents. One of her most recent projects evaluates the use of video gamification as an intervention in sex education among adolescents and young adults.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr. Jessica Campbell is a social psychologist who completed her PhD at the University of Florida in 2021. Her research interests focus on better understanding both implicit and explicit attitudes toward marginalized populations with a special focus on racial groups and women. She is also interested in the role of intersectionality in the realm of psychological research.
Dr. Campbell's more recent work focused on the internalization and attribution of ambivalent sexism among heterosexual, U.S. American women, particularly in the context of romantic relationships.
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Job Titles:
- Special Collections Manager
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Research Scientist
- Assistant Research Scientist / Member, Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium / Assistant Professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering
Dr. Lewis uses traditional and novel signal processing techniques to measure the nervous system's regulation of peripheral physiological processes. His research involves building statistical models of dynamic neurophysiological systems in order to explain complex processes including cognitive, developmental, and psychological changes. One avenue of research uses traditional contact sensors, including modern wearable devices, to collect signals in the laboratory and in the field from human subjects. A second avenue of research is focused on developing novel, noncontact sensors to extend the research into new environments such as the classroom or the home.
As part of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium, Dr. Lewis will be applying the methods and sensors developed at ISE to enable the Consortium's efforts to quantify the interaction between physical and sexual trauma, physiological and behavioral regulation, social functioning, and mental wellbeing.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Senior Scientist / Professor, Maurer School of Law
Dr. Thusi's research examines racial and sexual hierarchies as they relate to policing, race, gender, and sexual behavior. Her articles and essays have been published or are forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, NYU Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review Online, and Utah Law Review. Her first book, Policing Bodies: Law, Sex Work, and Desire in Johannesburg is forthcoming with Stanford University Press.
Thusi earned a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in New York, and Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and Law & Society from University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Thusi's research is inextricably connected to her previous legal experience at organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and-most recently-The Opportunity Agenda, a social justice communication lab that collaborates to effect lasting policy and culture change. She has clerked for two federal judges, and for a justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the country's highest court.
Thusi's many acknowledgements have marked her as a rising star investigating the intersection of race, gender, and law. Thusi received a W.E.B. Dubois Fellowship at Harvard University, the Andrew W. Mellon Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, was named a Next Generation African Scholar by the Social Science Research Council, and most recently was selected as a Fulbright U.S. Global Scholar for 2020-2022.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Professor of Sociology
- Senior Scientist / Professor of Sociology
Jennifer Barber is a Professor of Sociology and a Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute. Barber's research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of family sociology, demography, and social psychology, with a focus on young pregnancy, intimate relationships, reproductive control, and intimate partner violence.
From 2008-2012, she directed the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) project, which was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. It included weekly surveys from 1,000 18- and 19-year-old women for 2.5 years, along with 75+ semi-structured interviews. Ongoing work with the RDSL dataset integrates statistical and qualitative analyses, and focuses on the types of attitudes, intimate relationships, and contraceptive practices that lead to young pregnancy and to women's control over reproductive processes.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director for Education Assistant Clinical Professor
- Education & Outreach
Dr. Hille is a gender and sexuality scholar and the Assistant Director for Education at the Kinsey Institute. She also serves as a Co-director for the Scholarly Concentration in Human Sexuality and Health with the Indiana University-Bloomington School of Medicine, and as a researcher with the Kinsey-Kelley Center for Gender Equity in Business.
Her research focuses on asexuality and ace spectrum identities, LGBTQ+ healthcare, gender equity, and relationships. Her work has been published in a number of leading journals, including the Journal of Sex Research and Transgender Health. She has also presented her research at national conferences, including the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, and the American Public Health Association. Her current research projects focus on ace spectrum identities, consensual non-monogamy, and gender in business.
Dr. Hille completed her PhD in Gender Studies under Dr. Stephanie Sanders with a PhD minor in Human Sexuality from the Kinsey Institute under Dr. Justin Garcia. Before coming to IU, she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago, a JD from Washington University in St. Louis, and an LLM in Health Law and Policy from the University of Washington - Seattle.
Job Titles:
- Historian
- Senior Research Fellow
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Scientist
- Professor
- Scientific Advisor to Match.Com
Dr. Justin Garcia is an evolutionary biologist and sex researcher. He trained under Dr. David Sloan Wilson (SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology, Binghamton University) and then conducted a National Institutes of Health T32 postdoctoral research fellowship under former Kinsey Institute Director Dr. Julia Heiman (Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences & Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Indiana University). His research program focuses on the evolutionary and biocultural foundations of romantic and sexual relationships across the life course.
Garcia and colleagues have conducted research on a variety of topics related to social and sexual behaviors and intimate relationships, including variation in monogamy, intimacy, gender, courtship, dating, desire, satisfaction, and reproductive strategies. A specialist in interdisciplinary collaboration, Garcia's research draws from and cuts across multiple fields of study. This approach aids his lab's exploration of the relationship context of sexuality, including the meaning, expression, and impact of romantic and sexual attitudes and behaviors.
Professor Garcia has a dual faculty appointment with the Kinsey Institute and Department of Gender Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also Co-Chair of the Interdepartmental Graduate Committee on Human Sexuality, which directs the PhD minor in Human Sexuality. In addition, he is adjunct faculty with the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, and holds affiliate faculty appointments with the IU Network Science Institute and the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he is also a Research Fellow with the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention in the School of Public Health - Bloomington.
Since 2010, Garcia serves as Scientific Advisor to Match.com. In this role, Garcia provides expertise to Singles in America (SIA), the online dating company's annual study on the attitudes and behaviors of single people in the United States.
Garcia has appeared in a wide variety of news outlets and documentaries, including CNN, MSNBC, HBO, "The Dr. Oz Show," Netflix and National Geographic, and his research and expertise have been featured in venues such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair.
Dr. Garcia has served as the Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute since 2019.
Job Titles:
- Associate Vice President
- Senior Scientist
- Professor
- Senior Scientist / Provost Professor of Education / Associate Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs
Lemuel W. Watson is Associate Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs and Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. His immediate past position was Dean of the School of Education and Provost Professor at Indiana University Bloomington. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus of the College of Education at the University of South Carolina where he was also Founding Executive Director for the Center of Innovation in Higher Education. Dr. Watson was also the former Executive Director of the Center for P-20 Engagement and Dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University.
Throughout his career, Professor Watson has emphasized the need to value diversity as a means of understanding our world and for enhancing our understanding of ourselves. Attracting and retaining personnel and a leadership team that represents our diversity as a nation takes commitment from the top leadership to lead and hold others accountable. Lemuel W. Watson has also been recognized as a scholar and researcher on issues of underrepresented groups through speaking invitations and through publications over the last three decades. He has worked as a consultant on public policy and talent management issues around the world.
As Associate Vice President in OVPDEMA, Watson coordinates, manages, and supports efforts related to the office's anti-racist agenda for all IU campuses. He also assists with and provides strategic direction for supporting a university culture that values diversity, equity, and inclusion; supports IU leadership in developing a framework for transformative actions that help eliminate inequalities across the university; and helps coordinate assessment, program reviews, research and audits related to OVPDEMA initiatives across IU's campuses.
As Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute, he helps oversee Kinsey's efforts to generate collaborative education, research, and fundraising related to LGBTQ+ lives and topics. This includes research on LGBTQ+ youth mental health as part of the partnership between Kinsey and the Trevor Project, the world's most significant suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth.
Watson is also a faculty affiliate in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. He has authored or co-authored seven books and monographs and many articles and has been granted $13 million in research funding by an array of organizations. He has been asked to share his expertise on systemic educational policy, talent management, and leadership issues both domestically and in countries all over the world. He has been deeply engaged with the community as a personal and professional advocate through membership on numerous arts, community, educational, and professional boards.
Job Titles:
- Director, Library & Special Collections
Liana Zhou is responsible for the direction of the Kinsey Institute's library and collections, which chronicle more than 2,000 years of human history. These materials include:
Rare books
Records
Manuscripts
Correspondence
Fine art and artifacts
Photography media
Scholarly publications
Job Titles:
- Communications Media Specialist
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Research Scientist
- Associate Research Scientist / Associate Professor, School of Education
Dr. Price (she/they) is an Associate Professor in the Human Development program within the Department of Counseling & Educational Psychology and an Associate Research Scientist with the Kinsey Institute. Their primary research interest areas include gender and sexual development. Her current area of research focuses on the rich experiences of LGBTQ youth in the U.S., including risk and protective factors for suicidality. Dr. Price's research further explores experiences at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, such as LGBTQ youth of color and the specific experiences of transgender and nonbinary young people. Their work and op-eds have been featured in popular press including Time magazine, Scientific American, The Grio, CNN, NBC, PopSugar, Forbes, Out, and Axios among others. She is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sex Research and served as Treasurer for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality from 2019-2022.
Job Titles:
- Pam Meyer Yttri Director, Kinsey - Kelley Center for Gender Equity in Business / Clinical Professor of Business Law & Ethics, Kelley School of Business
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Associate Director for Operations and Finance
Job Titles:
- Professor of Gender Studies
Dr. Justin Garcia is an evolutionary biologist and sex researcher. He trained under Dr. David Sloan Wilson (SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology, Binghamton University) and then conducted a National Institutes of Health T32 postdoctoral research fellowship under former Kinsey Institute Director Dr. Julia Heiman (Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences & Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Indiana University). His research program focuses on the evolutionary and biocultural foundations of romantic and sexual relationships across the life course.
Garcia and colleagues have conducted research on a variety of topics related to social and sexual behaviors and intimate relationships, including variation in monogamy, intimacy, gender, courtship, dating, desire, satisfaction, and reproductive strategies. A specialist in interdisciplinary collaboration, Garcia's research draws from and cuts across multiple fields of study. This approach aids his lab's exploration of the relationship context of sexuality, including the meaning, expression, and impact of romantic and sexual attitudes and behaviors.
Professor Garcia has a dual faculty appointment with the Kinsey Institute and Department of Gender Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also Co-Chair of the Interdepartmental Graduate Committee on Human Sexuality, which directs the PhD minor in Human Sexuality. In addition, he is adjunct faculty with the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, and holds affiliate faculty appointments with the IU Network Science Institute and the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he is also a Research Fellow with the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention in the School of Public Health - Bloomington.
Since 2010, Garcia serves as Scientific Advisor to Match.com. In this role, Garcia provides expertise to Singles in America (SIA), the online dating company's annual study on the attitudes and behaviors of single people in the United States.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director, Library & Special Collections
Job Titles:
- Research Director
- Senior Scientist
- Research Director / Senior Scientist / Provost Professor of Gender Studies
Sanders was twice appointed interim director of the Kinsey Institute-first from 1993-95 and again in 2014-and also held the position of associate director. Recently, Sanders recently served as President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, and has been a co-principal investigator on research grants from such agencies as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Dr. Sanders is the research lead on the Marriage Equality Project, which is collecting video and audio interviews with same-sex couples in Indiana who married in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex unions. This project is being conducted with partnerships from IU Media School, community organizations (including Bloomington Pride and Spencer Pride), and the Kinsey Institute.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium
- Distinguished University Scientist
- Distinguished University Scientist / Founding Director, Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium
Dr. Stephen Porges' research intersects psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology. Through his development of the Polyvagal Theory, Porges is discovering how the autonomic nervous system controls the reactions and behaviors of individuals affected by a wide-range of traumatic experiences, including sexual assault and partner violence, bullying, and the trauma associated with diagnoses and treatment of the reproductive system.
Currently, Porges is also the director of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium, founded to address the life-changing affects and treatments around trauma. He is leading a team of collaborative researchers and clinicians from the Kinsey Institute and other partner institutions to document both the effects of trauma on people's ability to form intimate relationships and the development of novel treatments to reverse its effects.
Job Titles:
- Senior Scientist
- Member of the the Kinsey Institute Condom Use Research Team
Dr. Yarber is a member of the the Kinsey Institute Condom Use Research Team (CURT) comprised of researchers from Indiana University, University of Kentucky, University of Guelph (Canada), and University of Southampton (United Kingdom). For over 16 years, with federal and institutional research support, CURT has investigated male condom use errors and problems and has developed behavioral interventions designed to improve correct and consistent condom use.
Dr. Yarber is the lead author of the human sexuality textbook, Yarber, W. L., Sayad, B. (2016). Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America, (9th ed., 63 pp.), New York: McGraw-Hill. This text is used in over 300 colleges and universities in the US and has been published in China and Korea.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Psychologist
- Senior Scientist
- Senior Scientist / Director, Kinsey Institute Sexual Assault Research Initiative / Professor of Counseling and Educational Psychology
Dr. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and maintains a dual appointment with the Kinsey Institute and the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology. She also is Director of the Kinsey Institute's Sexual Assault Initiative.
Dr. Peterson researches sexual consent, sexual assault, sexual coercion, and unwanted sex. She has studied men's and women's experiences as both victims and perpetrators of sexual aggression. Dr. Peterson's most recent research has focused on sexual assault victims' cognitive appraisals of their nonconsensual sexual experiences, on improving self-report measurement of sexual aggression, and on developing and evaluating a sex-positive sexual assault prevention intervention.
Dr. Peterson also is a Licensed Psychologist with a particular interest in sex therapy, and she recently edited the Wiley Handbook of Sex Therapy. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sex Research and was elected President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality for 2019-2021.