Professor and co-director, Center of Economics & Family Security, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, USA.

Mary Ann Mason PhD is Professor and co-director of the Center, Economics & Family Security at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Her scholarship spans children and family law, policy, and history. From 2000 to 2007, she served as the first woman dean of the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley, with responsibility for nearly 10,000 students in more than 100 graduate programs. She is the co-author of “Do Babies Matter? Gender and Family in the Ivory Tower”, a lifecourse description of a ten year study on the effect of family formation on the career lives of men and women PhDs.

Professor Mason presentation at the Gender Summit 3 North America 2013 (GS3NA) was entitles "Do Babies matter in Science?". She examined the results of a survey of UC faculty which revealed that faculty mothers put in an astounding 51 hours of a second shift of caregiving and housework, while still putting in a nearly identical 51 hours with their professional work. The study also revealed that UC already had in place a progressive (for its time) set of family-friendly policies. Only one-half of eligible female assistant professors took the relief from teaching and only one-third chose to extend the period of preparation toward tenure for a year for children. Almost no fathers took any of the benefits.