Faculty Profiles

New Faculty for Fall 2009

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Cheryl Cooky

Assistant Professor
Health and Kinesiology/Women's Studies, LAMB

ccooky@purdue.edu

Cheryl Cooky is a joint appointed faculty in Health & Kinesiology and Women's Studies. Before joining Purdue University, Cheryl was an assistant professor at California State University, Fullerton (2006-2009). Cheryl received a Ph. D. and Masters in sociology from the University of Southern California (2006), a Masters in Sport Studies from Miami University of Ohio, and a bachelors of science in kinesiology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Cheryl's research interests center on two areas: 1) girls' participation and experiences in sport and, 2) gendered media representations of sport and athletes. Her research has been published in Sociological Perspectives, Sociology of Sport Journal, the Journal of Sport and Social Issues as well as edited anthologies. She is currently working with her colleague, Michael A. Messner, Ph. D., on a longitudinal study of gender stereotypes in the news media. This study has examined the news media's coverage of men's and women's sports over a 20 year time frame. With her colleague Don Sabo, Ph. D., she has applied for a Women's Sport Foundation grant to conduct an in-depth qualitative study on urban girls' participation in sport and physical activity. This study will examine the role of parents and communities in facilitating or hindering girls' access to sport and physical activity.

At Purdue, she is a member of the multi-disciplinary Breast Cancer Discovery Group and plans to team up with her Purdue colleagues to begin a line of research focusing on young women breast cancer survivors.

In her spare time, Cheryl runs marathons and is training for her 6th marathon, the Chicago Marathon on October 11. While in California, Cheryl served on the Board of Directors and Community Grants Chair for the Orange County affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.




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