Mary Blair-Loy

Mary Blair-Loy is Professor and Chair of Sociology at UC San Diego (PhD, University of Chicago). She studies gender, work-family, and cultural models of a worthwhile life.  Her award-winning book Misconceiving Merit: Paradoxes of Excellence and Devotion among Academic Scientists and Engineers, with Erin Cech, uses multiple types of evidence to show that cultural beliefs about merit in academic STEM are widely-embraced yet reinforce gender and race inequality and harm science.  An earlier award-winning book, Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Executive Women was enumerated in a 2012 study as one of the highest cited works in Sociology.  In 2018, Blair-Loy was recognized as a “Top Ten Extraordinary Contributor” in the interdisciplinary, international field of work-family research. She is coauthor of the 2024 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report, “Supporting Family Caregivers in STEMM”, and has published multiple journal articles in social science and science journals.  Avocations include singing, hiking, and keeping up with her multi-species family.  See maryblairloy.com for more.