Dr Maddy Coy 
Maddy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, specializing in research and teaching on violence against women.
Before moving to the U.S., she was a Reader (Associate Professor) at London Metropolitan University, U.K., and Deputy Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, where from 2006-2017 she worked on research projects covering a wide range of forms of violence against women, including experiences of survivors, evaluations of intervention projects, mapping of specialist support services and discourses about child sexual abuse. Maddy is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK, and a Faculty Fellow at Prevention Innovations Research Center, University of New Hampshire. She is also an Associate Editor for Women’s Studies International Forum.
Before entering academia Maddy worked in a range of specialist services for women and girls including residential child care, in women’s shelters, and as an outreach worker with women in the sex trade. She serves on the advisory council for the Alachua County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center. Since 2019, she has been working with Dr Zucker and the Rape Crisis Center on a project to analyze rape attrition rates in Alachua County.
Throughout Maddy’s work she has applied the concept of ‘practice-based evidence’ to capture the expertise of specialist practitioners that support survivors of violence. Her latest research project is with a team of students, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, exploring how specialist sexual and domestic violence organizations in Florida draw on their practice-based evidence.
Courses
- Capstone Seminar in Women’s Studies (Spring 2025)
- Sexual Ethics (Spring 2025)
- Feminist Methods (Fall 2024)
- Violence Against Women (Fall 2024)
Awards
- Anderson Scholar Faculty Honoree, University of Florida, 2018
- Undergraduate Teacher of the Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences 2023-2024
- International Educator of the Year, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 2024
Education
B.A.(Hons) Women’s Studies, Liverpool John Moores University, UK, 1998
M.A. Research and Social Policy, University of Birmingham, 2001
Ph.D. Loughborough University, UK, 2008
Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, London Metropolitan University, UK, 2016
Selected recent publications
Coy, M. (2024). Violence Against Women in the U.S.: Theory, Research and Policy. New York: Routledge.
Coy, M., Bull, A., Libarkin, J. & Page, T. (2022). Who is the Practitioner in Faculty-Staff Sexual Misconduct Work?: Views from the UK and US. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37 (17–18), NP14996–NP15019.
Coy, M. & Tyler, M. (2022). Pornography and Sexual Violence: Reflections on Policy Debates around Age, Gender, and Harm. In Horvath, M.A.H. & Brown, J. (eds). Rape: Challenging Contemporary Thinking – 10 years On, London: Routledge.
Tyler, M. & Coy, M. (2022). Systems of Prostitution and Pornography: Harm, Health, and Gendered Inequalities. In McCallum, D. (Ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.
Coy, M. & Tyler, M. (2020). Pornographication and heterosexualisation in public space. In J. Berry, T. Moore, N. Kalms & G. Bawden (Eds.) Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space. London: Routledge.
Coy, M. (2019). “What’s gender got to do with it? Sexual exploitation of children as patriarchal violence”. In J.J. Pearce (Ed.) Child Sexual Exploitation: Why Theory Matters. Bristol: Policy Press.
Coy, M., Smiley, C., & Tyler, M. (2019). Challenging the ‘Prostitution Problem’: Dissenting Voices, Sex Buyers and the Myth of Neutrality in Prostitution Research. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48 (7) 1931-1935.
Coy, M. & Kelly, L. (2019). The responsibilisation of women who experience domestic violence: a case study from England and Wales. In Hagemann-White, C., Kelly, L., & Meysen, T. (eds.) Interventions Against Child Abuse and Violence Against Women: Ethics and Culture in Practice and Policy, Berlin: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Contact Information
Email: m.coy@ufl.edu
Phone: (352) 273-0391
Office: Ustler Hall
Mailing address: PO Box 117352, Gainesville FL 32611