Maria Charles (Ph.D. Stanford University) is Professor of Sociology at at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also directs the Broom Center for Demography and its research area on Sex and Gender. She is also an Afflilated Professor of UCSB's Department of Feminist Studies. Professor Charles specializes in the comparative study of gender inequalities, with particular attention to differences across countries in women's economic, educational, and family roles. She has published extensively on the phenomenon of gender segregation, most recently on the ideological and organizational factors that contribute to woman's underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ("STEM") fields around the world. Her book, Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men (Stanford University Press, coauthored with David Grusky) received the Max Weber Award for Distinguished Scholarship in 2005. Her article "Indulging our Gendered Selves? Sex Segregation by Field of Study in 44 Countries" (American Journal of Sociology, coauthored with Karen Bradley), received the 2011 Distinguished Article Award from the American Sociological Association's Sex and Gender Section.