Maria Charles is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UCSB (Chair 2012-2016) and a founding member of the Broom Advisory Board (Director 2016-21; Area Director for Sex and Gender Research 2010-24). Her research explores how gender inequalities and gender beliefs vary within and across countries, with particular attention to the cultural and structural forces that sustain gender segregation in families, educational systems, and labor markets. Recent projects, with graduate students and other collaborators, include analyses of gender-related beliefs in Europe, United States, Africa, and the Middle East, and cross-national differences in the gender gap in engineering, computing, and other STEM fields. Professor Charles is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Sociological Research Association.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:

US-Israel Binational Science Foundation. 2019-2023. Why Do More Palestinian than Jewish Girls Study STEM? Assessing Effects of Material Insecurity and Self-expressive Culture on Curricular Paths in Israel.”With Yariv Feniger and Halleli Pinson. $171,000.

UCSB Academic Senate. 2021-2022. Sex, Gender, and Islam: An Online Survey of Women and Men in Eight MENASA Societies. With Janet Afary and Roger Friedland. $8,000.

US-Israel Binational Science Foundation. 2019-2022. Why Do More Arab than Jewish Girls Study STEM? Assessing Effects of Material Insecurity and Self-expressive Culture on Curricular Paths in Israel. With Yariv Feniger and Halleli Pinson. $171,000.

Carsey-Wolf Center, UCSB. 2019-2020. Private Lives-Public Politics: Gender Relations and Gender Ideologies in Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian Countries. With Janet Afary and Roger Friedland. $8,000.

Carsey-Wolf Center Faculty Research Support Grant, UCSB. 2019. Private Lives-Public Politics: Gender Relations and Gender Ideologies in Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian Countries. Afary, Charles, Friedland. $5,000.

Collaborative Research Initiative Grant (C-RIG), UCSB 2019. Private Lives-Public Politics: Gender Relations and Gender Ideologies in Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian Countries. Afary, Charles, Friedland. $8,000

US-Israel Binational Science Foundation. 2019. Why Do More Arab than Jewish Girls Study STEM? Assessing Effects of Material Insecurity and Self-expressive Culture on Curricular Paths in Israel. Feniger, Charles, Pinson. $171,000

Kelly Bedard’s research focuses largely on the economics of education and health, including influential studies of the effects of military service on health, determinants of gender test score gaps among children in OECD countries, and the determinants of obesity in populations of immigrants to the U.S. Probably her best known paper studied the effects of a student’s age relative to his/her classmates in kindergarten on success later in life; this research was featured prominently in the popular press and in a recent bestselling book by Malcolm Gladwell. Prof. Bedard’s research has been supported by two grants from NIDDK.