About:

Maria Kefalas joined the faculty of Saint Joseph’s University after completing a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Chicago and teaching at Barnard College. She has written numerous books and articles about the family, communities, and youth including Promises I Can Keep, which was awarded ASA’s William Good Book Award in 2005. As an associate member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Network on the Transition to Adulthood, she and co-author Pat Carr lived in rural Iowa as part of their research for Hollowing Out the Middle. Her writings have appeared in The Root, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Slate. Her current projects include a study of young people finding work in the post Great Recession economy and a memoir, titled Excruciating Joy, about her daughter Calliope’s diagnosis with metachromatic leukodystrophy in 2012, to be published by Beacon Press.