Associate Professor
Coordinator of Graduate Studies
Department of Sociology
University of Memphis
Clement Hall, Room 207
Memphis TN 38152

Phone: (901) 678-4464
Fax: (901) 678-2525
jmloftus@memphis.edu

Dr. Jeni Loftus is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of Graduate Studies. She received her PhD from Indiana University in 2004. Her areas of interest include Medical Sociology, Sexuality, Gender, Youth and Adolescence, Family, Life Course and Social Psychology.

Her current research is primarily concerned with issues in adolescent sexuality and in particular with adolescents in age discordant relationships. Along with her coauthors she uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health and employs a life course perspective to answer several questions about the precursors and outcomes in both the long and short term for boys and girls as both the younger and older partner in these relationships. Although it seems to be common knowledge in American culture that these types of relationships are inherently bad, there has been very little research conducted on them using longitudinal data that can examine their effects in the long term and explore the predictors of entry into age discordant relationships.

Her research has been published in American Sociological Review, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Sociological Focus, Qualitative Sociology Review, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Journal of Adolescent Health, The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, and Sociological Spectrum.