Melissa Milkie received her Ph.D. from Indiana University and is currently Professor Emerita of Sociology at Maryland and Professor of Sociology at University of Toronto. She has served as Deputy Editor at the journals Gender & Society & American Sociological Review.

Professor Milkie's expertise lies in the areas of culture, gender, family, the work-family interface, and health. She has written extensively about time spent in work and family roles and its implications for health and well-being. With Suzanne Bianchi and John Robinson, she is author of "Changing Rhythms of American Family Life," which won two book awards; this work examined changes (some of these surprising ones) in mothers' and fathers' time allocations across four decades, as well as parents' feelings about time. Milkie also examines links among the work-family interface and family dynamics, including how parents’ work-family roles shape children’s health, how spouses' work conflicts affect the other partner, and how children influence parents’ mental health. She has a new project studying Syrian Refugee mothers well-being, stressors and supports in Toronto, Canada.

Professor Milkie is founding director of the Culture Lab at Maryland, http://www.theculturelab.umd.edu/index.html
a resource and training lab for analyzing and assessing culture through content/textual analysis and other methods. She examines cultural models of gender, work and family, for example surrounding “involved fathering” and “intensive mothering.” Recent projects focus on cultural meanings of blame for low father involvement, how parenting time is contested, and "the Mommy Wars."