Photo of Nona Maria Gronert.

Pronouns: she/her/hers

I am a Visiting Instructor at Colgate University. I am a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. My doctoral minor is in Gender and Women's Studies. I am also an affiliate of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. 

My research focuses on sexual violence and sexual consent in the context of higher education. I examine the intersection of law, organizations, social movements, and gender.

In my dissertation, I conducted an in-depth socio-historical case study of one university from 1972 through 2017. I investigate the changes in activist strategies, legal changes, and campus policy implementation. I triangulated content analysis of 1,807 newspaper articles with hundreds of archival data sources, supplementing these with 23 key actor interviews. My dissertation distinguishes itself from other work on Title IX and campus sexual violence by considering longer-term change, showing how activist, organizational, and legal processes within one university intersect with broader political, legal, and movement processes to shape institutional responses to sexual violence and refocus activism. My other current project investigates how study abroad coordinators perceive and address gendered risk in Germany.

My research is supported by a NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, UW-Madison's Center for Research on Gender and Women's Hyde Dissertation Research Award, Institute for Legal Studies' Law and Society Fellows program, Institute for Regional and International Studies, and Center for German and European Studies.

I also moderate an online group of junior scholars in the social sciences who study sexual violence. I encourage graduate students at any stage to contact me to join.

Interest areas: Gender, Law & Society, Organizations, Social Movements, Sociology of Education, Sexual Violence