User:Sj/sandbox/Gretchen Sisson

Gretchen Sisson is a sociologist at UC San Francisco's Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Her work focuses on parenthood in popular culture, including teen pregnancy, abortion, adoption, and assisted reproduction.

Life
Sisson was born in Pennsylvania. She went to Amherst College and received her PhD from Boston College. She is married to Andrew McCollum, and lives in San Francisco.

At UCSF, she became the lead investigator of the Abortion Onscreen project, which maintains a public database of references to abortion in media. This is part of a broader program called Advancing New Standard in Reproductive Health. Since 2016, this dataset is widely used to understand changing social conversations around abortion in the United States, which can differ in demographics and context from actual use.

She has also written about the impact of judicial challenges to Roe v. Wade, and changing perceptions of adoption.

Published research

 * Depicting Abortion Access on American Television (2017)
 * Adoption Decision Making Among Women Seeking Abortion (2016)
 * Realizing Reproductive Health Equity Needs More Than Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (2016)
 * Finding a Way to Offer Something More: Reframing Teen Pregnancy Prevention (2012)

Fundraising
Sisson is a political activist and donor, serving on the board of political fundraising networks Emerge America and WDN Action. She has advised the San Francisco Foundation on philanthropy to support reproductive health.