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Rita Melendez is an Assistant Professor in Human Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University in 2000. Her dissertation examines women's understanding of their bodies as affected by their adherence to a work ethic. In 2002, she earned a Masters Degree in Biostatstics from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Dr. Melendez was a postdoctoral research fellow at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at Columbia University, where she combined quantitative and qualitative methods in researching HIV issues as they relate to gender. She has worked in the areas of gender-specified HIV/ STD prevention programs, intimate partner violence, and the structural concerns of transgendered people