Alison Dahl Crossley

Alison Dahl Crossley is the executive director of Stanford's Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, where she has worked for more than 10 years. Crossley is the author of two books, Finding Feminism: Millennial Activists and the Unfinished Gender Revolution and Feminism in the United States: A Concise Introduction. She is the co-editor of Feminist Frontiers, 11th edition (forthcoming 2025). 

Crossley's areas of scholarly expertise include gender, social movements, and feminisms. She has written and spoken widely about online feminisms, the continuity of feminisms, and feminist transformation in higher education. Her research has been published in Socius, Mobilization, and other academic journals, and covered by media outlets such as the New York Times, Forbes, and NPR.

Crossley is responsible for the Clayman Institute's strategic focus, operations, and fellowships, and she engages partners at Stanford and beyond. She leads the Institute team and collaborates with the faculty director and research director on the research agenda of the Institute.  

Previously, Crossley was a postdoctoral fellow at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research. She earned her MA and PhD in Sociology with an emphasis in feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received an MA in media and communications from the University of London, Goldsmiths College, and a BA in women's studies from Smith College (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, with Highest Honors). 

(photo by Paige Parsons Photography)

Selected Publications and Media Appearances

Crossley, Alison Dahl. 2024. Feminism in the United States: A Concise Introduction. Routledge.

Ariel Lam Chan, Bethany J. Nichols, Adrian Daub, Alison Dahl Crossley. 2024. "Assessing the Impact of Non-Disclosure Agreements and Forced Arbitration Clauses on Survivors of Workplace Sexual Harassment and Discrimination." White Paper, The Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

"The Feminist Movement: Fluid, complex and empowering," 2024, The Stanford VMWare Women's Leadership Innovation Lab.

"Urgent steps to prevent the pandemic stalling women's academic careers," by Adrian Daub and Alison Dahl Crossley, Times Higher Education, March 10, 2022.

"Race in America: Missing White Women Syndrome," NBC Bay Area, Nov. 12, 2021.

Hart, Chloe Grace, Alison Dahl Crossley and Shelley J. Correll. "Leader Messaging and Attitudes toward Sexual Violence." Socius 4: 1-11.

Hart, Chloe Grace, Alison Dahl Crossley and Shelley J. Correll. Dec. 14, 2018. "When Leaders Take Sexual Harassment Seriously So Do Employees." Harvard Business Review.

Crossley, Alison Dahl and Heather McKee Hurwitz. 2018. "Gender and Social Movements." The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Edited by David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, Hanspeter Kriesi, Holly J. McCammon.

Crossley, Alison Dahl. 2018. "Online Feminism is Just Feminism: Offline and Online Movement Persistence." Nevertheless They Persisted: Feminisms and Continued Resistance in the U.S. Women's Movement. Edited by Jo Reger.

Crossley, Alison Dahl and Laura K. Nelson.  2018. “Feminists Reshaping Gender.” The Springer Handbook of the Sociology of Gender. Edited by Barbara J. Risman, Carissa Froyum, and William J. Scarborough.

Crossley, Alison Dahl. 2017. Finding Feminism: Millennial Activists and the Unfinished Gender Revolution. New York University Press.

• Reviews and Press: Publishers Weekly, Feminist Media Studies, Gender and Society, Mobilization, Contemporary Sociology, New York Times, Women’s Media Center, USA Today, Curve Magazine, Inside Higher Ed, NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show, Inflection Point

Crossley, Alison Dahl.  2017. “Women’s Activism and Educational Institutions.” Oxford Handbook of U.S. Women’s Social Movement Activism. Edited by Holly McCammon, Lee Ann Banaszak, Verta Taylor, and Jo Reger.

Crossley, Alison Dahl. 2015. “Facebook Feminism: Social Media, Blogs, and New Technologies of Contemporary U.S. Feminism.” Mobilization20(2): 253-269.