Elaine Leeder, MSW, MPH, PhD
Interim Program Director
eleeder@wi.edu
Pronouns: she/her

BA in Sociology - Northeastern University, 1967
MSW - Yeshiva University, 1969
MPH - University of California, Berkeley, 1975
PhD in Human Service Studies, History, and Public Policy - Cornell University, 1985

Elaine Leeder is a trained social worker and sociologist who has worked in gerontology, foster care, community mental health, addictions, couples therapy and individual therapy. She was a professor of Social Work and Sociology at Ithaca College from 1977-2001; she then became Dean of the School of Social Science at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, CA. She began teaching in 1977 and continues to teach and write. Leeder is the author of seven books including My Life With Lifers: Lessons for a Teacher, Humanity Has No Bars about her work in prisons in CA and NY. She has also written a textbook called The Family in Global Perspective: A Gendered Journey (now in its third edition through Cognella Press). Her other books were about a radical labor organizer, a book on treating abuse in families using a feminist approach, another on women in prison. She has traveled around the globe three times on Semester At Sea, having been to 65 countries in the world. Leeder has been working in prisons since 1995, first as a professor at Elmira Correctional Facility in NY and then at San Quentin. She has also run self-help groups in prison and currently does Restorative Justice Victim/Offender Dialogues throughout the state of California, working with men who are serving life sentences and the victims or the victim’s families, bringing them into a transformative process of healing. Leeder is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American Women and Who’s Who in Higher Education. In 2013 she received a Red Cross award for her work in prisons and has also received many awards from student organizations for her mentoring and support for first generation college students. She has long considered herself the “memorial candle” for her father’s mother, sister and brother who were killed in Lithuania by the “Holocaust by Bullets” in 1941.

In her free time Leeder swims at least five times a week, travels extensively, loves to go to lots of movies in actual theaters, sits by the ocean, spends time with her daughter who lives in Oregon, hangs out with friends and meditates on her porch listening to the birds while watching the lavender grow. Visit her at www.elaineleeder.com.