Christie Sennott

Promoted to Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
csennott@purdue.edu

Christie Sennott completed a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Colorado and an M.A. and B.A. in sociology at the University of Missouri. She is a faculty affiliate with the Center for Research on Young People’s Health who specializes in health, family, gender, inequalities, life course, HIV/AIDS, reproduction, and motherhood. She is the recipient of multiple fellowships, grants, and awards – including the 2018 Kenneth T. Kofmehl Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award – for her teaching and research.

Dr. Sennott’s research focuses on women’s experiences and desires related to childbearing, motherhood, and relationship formation and how these processes are associated with health and well-being over the life course. Her dissertation, which examined young South African women’s childbearing and relationship patterns in the context of HIV/AIDS, was supported by several grants, including a two-year dissertation fellowship in Population, Reproductive Helath, and Economic Development from the Hewlett Foundation and the Institute of International Education.

Her research examines the influence of AIDS on women’s relationship patterns, fertility preferences, and childbearing outcomes in rural South Africa; the measurement of unintended pregnancy and its implications for maternal and child health in sub-Saharan Africa; the reconsideration of gendered sexualities in response to AIDS in South Africa; and ambivalence in fertility preferences in Malawi.