Special Advisor to the Provost on Diversity

Dr. Margaret Abraham is Professor of Sociology and Special Advisor to the Provost for Diversity Initiatives at Hofstra University, New York. She received a B.A. Honours in Sociology from Delhi University, India, in 1982, an M.A. in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, in 1984, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Syracuse University, New York in 1989. She is the President of the International Sociological Association, (ISA 2014-2018). She previously served as ISA Vice President of Research and as the American Sociological Association Representative (ASA) to the ISA (2010-2014). Her teaching and research interests include gender, ethnicity, globalization, migration and domestic violence. 

Courses that she teaches include senior seminars on "Violence Against Women" and "Globalization, Work and Citizenship" (Soc 191); Women, Gender and Development (Soc 32) and Public Sociology (Soc191).  Margaret has published in various journals including Gender & Society, Violence Against Women, Indian Journal of Gender Studies and Social Justice. She is the author of Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence Among South Asian Immigrants in the United States (Rutgers University press 2000), the first book on domestic violence within the South Asian diaspora in the United States and won the American Sociological Association: Section on Asian and Asian America Outstanding Book Award in 2002. She also co-edited, Contours of Citizenship: Women, Diversity and the Practices of Citizenship published by Ashgate (Spring 2010); and Making a Difference: Linking Research and Action (Current Sociology Monograph: SAGE 2012).

Margaret has been involved in research and activism in the field of domestic violence in the South Asian immigrant community for over 20 years. She serves on the editorial boards of journals and has been an advisory board member and consultant on national projects related to issues on violence against women. She served on the Board of Directors of Sakhi for South Asian Women and the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA) and Westbury Friends School in Long Island, New York. Margaret has been honored for her community action research by several organizations including Sakhi for South Asian Women, Apna Ghar in Chicago, Domestic Harmony Foundation, Indus Women Leaders, the Indian American Kerala Cultural and Civic Center, and the Office of the Executive, Nassau County, State of New York. In 2013 she received the Sociologists for Women in Society Feminist Activism Award. Her work has been profiled and quoted in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, India Abroad, Malayalam Pathram, India Today, Indiathink.com, and Rip Rap: The Academic Book Program.

(For more information visit http://margaretabrahamonline.com)