Patricia Leavy is an independent scholar, formerly associate professor and chairperson of the Sociology & Criminology Department and the founding director of the Gender Studies Program at Stonehill College in Easton, MA. She is the author of Iconic Events: Media, Politics, and Power in Retelling History (2007), Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice (2009), Oral History: Understanding Qualitative Research (2011), and Low-Fat Love (2011); coauthor of Feminist Research Practice: A Primer (2007) and The Practice of Qualitative Research (2d ed. 2010); and co-editor of Hybrid Identities: Theoretical and Empirical Examinations (2008), Handbook of Emergent Methods (2008), Emergent Methods in Social Research (2006), and Approaches to Qualitative Research: A Reader on Theory and Practice (2004). She is also the editor of the Oxford University Press book series Understanding Qualitative Research, and series editor for the Sense Publishers book series Social Fictions. Leavy was named the New England Sociologist of the Year 2010 by the New England Sociological Association.