Department of Sociology
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Telephone: 510 642-9671 llawton@berkeley.edu
Leora Lawton wears many hats, and these include being a lecturer in the Sociology Department, principal of TechSociety Research (a consultancy specializing in custom social science and marketing research for businesses, non-profits and government agencies); and Executive Director at the Berkeley Population Center.
Her academic research interests vary from internet research methodology to parent-child relations across the life course. She is now exploring areas concerning work-family balance, as well as other areas of family research.
Dr. Lawton is active in organizations supporting non-academic applications of the sociological mind. She served as council member, chair and secretary, webmaster and newsletter editor of the Sociological Practice section of the American Sociological Association. She was Treasurer and Executive Officer of the Society for Applied Sociology from 2003-2005. Given that focus, Dr. Lawton is now working to create opportunities and experiences for sociology students to do real sociology with a bachelor's degree, hence the Community-Based Research course (SOC190). In 2011 she received the William Foote Whyte Award from the ASA's section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology for a distinguished career in applied sociology.
A Cal alum, Dr. Lawton received her AB in economics in 1977, a masters in demography from the Hebrew University in 1985, and her doctorate in sociology from Brown University in 1991.
