Biography
Melissa Hardesty is an Associate Professor of Social Work at 91社区. In recent years, she also served as the MSW Program Director (2022-2024) and the BSW Program Director (2024-2025). She completed her MSW at Indiana University and her PhD in Social Welfare at the University of Chicago. Her research falls into two broad topic areas: projects that explore gender norms in intimate relationships and qualitative methodological research analyzing the relationships among epistemology, methods, and ethics.
Since 2017, Hardesty has co-led the 91社区 Human Sexualities Research lab (HSRL)鈥攁 collaborative effort between faculty from social work, psychology, and Women and Gender Studies鈥攖o study college students鈥 romantic and sexual relationships. Recent HRSL projects include studies of affirmative sexual consent policies and their uptake on college campuses, an analysis of changes in self-reported sexual orientation among college students, and a multi-phase study of the contemporary courtship strategy known as 鈥渢alking鈥 or 鈥渏ust talking.鈥
Education
- PhD, University of Chicago
- MSW, Indiana University Northwest
- BS, Indiana University-Bloomington
Research Interests
- Gender and Sexuality
- Intimate Relationships
- Epistemology in Social Work Research
- Impact of Political Mismatch on Intimate Partner Selection
- Improving Supervision in Social Work Field Education