Biographical Sketch
ELAINE ALMA DRAPER
Elaine Draper is a sociologist and legal scholar who received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. from UCLA. She is currently Director of the Law and Society Program, Professor of Sociology, and Coordinator of the Law and Human Rights Network at California State University, Los Angeles.
Dr. Draper has taught at U.C. Santa Barbara and University of Southern California and received the Salvatori Award for Innovative Teaching, NSS Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award, Exceptional Service to Students Award, and Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions to the Community. Her professional experience includes publication and consulting in the areas of environmental and health hazards, bioethics and health policy, professions, new biomedical technologies, and government and corporate policy. Her book, Risky Business: Genetic Testing and Exclusionary Practices in the Hazardous Workplace (Cambridge University Press), was awarded the Robert K. Merton Book Award from the American Sociological Association, the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society Book Award, and the C. Wright Mills Book Award Honorable Mention from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her book, The Company Doctor: Risk, Responsibility, and Corporate Professionalism, was published by Russell Sage Foundation Press. Her articles, essays, and reviews on workplace and medical issues have appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, Hastings Center Report, Risk, Contemporary Sociology, New Solutions, and other publications. She was contributing editor of a special issue of International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy on “Science and Technology.” An article on occupational health policies published in that journal was awarded the Gertrude Jaeger Prize by U.C. Berkeley’s Department of Sociology.
Dr. Draper has presented her research on health, work, and the environment at the International Sociological Association meetings in Madrid and Bielefeld, the Law and Society Association meetings in Budapest, the American Public Health Association, and the American Sociological Association, where she also organized and moderated sessions on risk, technology and society, and the sociology of scientific knowledge. She has lectured on environmental risk and workplace issues at U.C. Berkeley, Duke, Stanford, UCLA, Rutgers, College of William and Mary School of Law, NIH National Center for Human Genome Research, Tulane, Dartmouth, Keck Graduate Research Institute, and elsewhere.
At Stanford University, Dr. Draper was Co-Director of the Faculty Research Seminar on Policy Issues in the Workplace. She also has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in Stanford’s Organizations Research Program and a Visiting Scholar at the UCLA School of Law, U.C. Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Social Change, and Stanford’s Department of Sociology. She has worked as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and the National Jury Project. For three years, she conducted research supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development on new medical technologies in the workplace. She received Russell Sage Foundation grant support for her book The Company Doctor and research support from the National Science Foundation, NIH, and other sources.
Professional associations in which she has been an active member include the American Sociological Association, Law and Society Association, Society for the Study of Social Problems, American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, and American Association for the Advancement of Science; she has organized sessions and served on award committees and governing councils in these organizations. She has served on the Editorial Boards of Contemporary Sociology and Sociological Inquiry and on the American Sociological Association national Task Forces on Academic Freedom and Scientific Integrity, on Institutionalizing Public Sociology, and on Sociology and Global Climate Change. She has been Associate Editor of the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, Advisory Board Member of the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, and a frequent reviewer of books, journal articles, and research grants.