Dr. Amy McLaughlin is Sociology Lecturer and Academic Advisor at the University of Maryland. As a part of the Undergraduate Advising team, Dr. McLaughlin serves as the internship and career development specialist and advises sociology majors in course registration, major changes, major benchmarks, and the graduation clearance process.  She enjoys working with undergraduate sociology majors and helping them grow to their full potential.  Dr. McLaughlin teaches courses on Women's Empowerment in Low and Middle Income Countries, the Sociology of Gender, Sociology in Action: Research and Engagement in Prince George's County, Transition from Student to Professional, and various other courses.

Recently Dr. McLaughlin participated in the Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum Project at UMD (CEAC), and remains dedicated to integrating community involvement and everyday activism into her courses.  In addition, she joined the Feller Fellows program which ties curricular outcomes to employment options.  In 2025, Dr. McLaughlin received the Excellence in Advising and Administration Award from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Dr. McLaughlin was a part of the Women's Empowerment: Data for Gender Equality (WEDGE) project.  The WEDGE team focused on improving the measurement of gender empowerment in the developing world. Please see our review paper in the Annual Review of Sociology, "Measuring Women's Empowerment in the Global South."  She worked for the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) from 2015-2021, and was the Associate Director of the Consortium of Race, Gender and Ethnicity at UMD from 2001-2007.  Her research interests include gender, caregiving, and social norms.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland College Park.