Short professional biography

E.J. Graff is a journalist, columnist, and author. Her reporting and commentary focus on social justice and human rights issues, with special attention to gender, sexuality, and family lives. Her work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review, Democracy Journal, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, Ms., The Nation, The New Republic, Newsweek, Salon.com, Slate.com, TheAtlantic.com, The Village Voice, and The Women’s Review of Books, and has been excerpted in dozens of anthologies and textbooks.

E.J. Graff’s first book, What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution, guides readers through the entertaining social history of marriage and explores why same-sex couples belong today. E.J. Graff later collaborated with former Massachusetts Lt. Governor Evelyn Murphy, helping to research and write Murphy’s book Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men–And What To Do About It.

Her awards, honors, grants, and fellowships include the Society for Professional Journalism’s Sigma Delta Chi award for best in magazine investigative reporting; a Nation Institute Investigative Research Fund award; and appointments as a Visiting Scholar at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library and as a Fellow in Law & Journalism at Harvard Law School. Her work has been cited widely in academic and law review articles, governmental and quasi-governmental reports, NGO research, court filings, syllabi, and other policy discussions.

Graff regularly gives talks, keynotes, and presentations at colleges, churches, conferences, and other forums in the U.S. and internationally, and is often interviewed on public, private, and cable news and documentary outlets such as NPR, ABC, BBC, CBC, Logo TV, MTV, PBS, and beyond.

Currently, E.J. Graff is a columnist and contributing editor at The American Prospect; a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism; and a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center. She serves on the board of directors of the Journalism & Women Symposium, or JAWS; and on the advisory board of the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.

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