Professor Dara E. Purvis is a scholar of family law, contracts, feminist legal theory, and sexuality and the law. She is particularly interested in the intersection between gender stereotypes and the law. Her most recent work examines gendered impacts of the law and proposes neutralizing reforms, most recently in the context of how the law defines parenthood.
Prior to joining Penn State Law, Professor Purvis was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and a visiting fellow at the University of Kent Research Centre for Law, Gender, and Sexuality. A former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, she clerked for The Hon. Gerard E. Lynch, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and The Hon. Raymond C. Fisher, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit