LSR8 KEYNOTES
Dr. Kenneth Hanson
Taking a Life Course Perspective to Understand Love and Sex Doll Owners
Kenneth R. Hanson, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology at the University of Wyoming.
His research uses symbolic interactionism and social psychology to understand how people develop normative ideas about transgressive and emerging sexual technologies and sex practices.
His work appears in Symbolic Interaction, Sociological Inquiry, Current Sexual Health Reports, Deviant Behavior, and elsewhere. His teaching focuses on human sexuality, the social construction of deviance, and social psychology.
His presentation 'A Methodological Reckoning For The Empirical Study of Sex Doll and Sex Robot Issues' won the David Levy Award for Best Paper at LSR7 in 2022.
Dr. Amanda Gesselman
From Stigma to Empowerment: Emotional and Social Well-Being in Sextech Users
Amanda Gesselman, PhD is a social–developmental psychologist. She is the Associate Director for Research at The Kinsey Institute and the inaugural Anita Aldrich Endowed Research Scientist at Indiana University.
Dr. Gesselman has been involved in a wide array of social-behavioral research, with collaborators from academia and industry. Her current program of research focuses on how incorporating technology into our romantic and sexual lives could improve well-being in diverse ways.
Dr. Gesselman has served as a scientific or statistical consultant for corporations, non-profit organizations, and academic collaborations. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and covered by international media outlets including TIME, VICE, and Netflix’s Explained.