Patricia Leavy is an independent scholar and author, who is widely recognized as a leader in arts-based research. She was an associate professor of Sociology and founding director of Gender Studies at Stonehill College. Her seventeen books include "Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice", "The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research", "Fiction as Research Practice", "Essentials of Transdisciplinary Research", and the novels "Low-Fat Love" and "American Circumstance". She edits five book series including the Social Fictions series. She blogs for The Huffington Post and The Creativity Post and received the 2010 New England Sociologist of the Year award from the New England Sociological Association and the prestigious 2014 American Creativity Association Special Achievement Award for her work advancing arts-based research. Dr. Leavy received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Boston College. For more information visit http://www.patricialeavy.com/