Phyllis Kernoff Mansfield

Professional Bio

Phyllis Kernoff Mansfield was a Penn State emeritus professor who joined the university as an assistant professor of nursing in 1983. She was named associate professor of health education and women’s studies in 1989, and professor of women’s studies and health education in 1994. She later became the first full-time women’s studies faculty and served as the interim chair of the department. She retired in 2007. A scholar who used feminist approaches to provide new perspectives on women’s reproductive health, she was also a teacher who touched many students’ lives. In 1994 she received the Dorothy Jones Barnes Teaching Award in the College of Health and Human Development, and in 1998 she received Penn State’s Alumni Teaching Award.