Gottfried is Associate Professor of Sociology at Wayne State University, where she has been since 1999. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Madison, Wisconsin and a BA and MA in Sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was previously appointed to Purdue University as an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. Her research interests span areas ranging from sociology of work, the care economy, sociology of gender, welfare state, feminist theory, and labor movements to comparative political economy. She, along with co-PIs Eileen Boris and Ruth Milkman comprise the U.S. team of a six-country, three-year project on care work and the COVID-19 pandemic sponsored by the Trans-Atlantic Platform, with NSF as the funder of the U.S. component. Gottfried is the author or editor of seven books. Her published articles and chapters have appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Employment Relations, Social Theory at Work, Sociology, The British Journal of Sociology, and Work, Employment and Society. Her most recent book was a volume co-edited with Nadya A. Guimaraes et al., Care and Pandemics: A Transnational Perspective (Brill, 2024). 

At RSF, Gottfried and Ruth Milkman are examining the complexities of the fast-growing U.S. home care labor market. They are comparing formal employment in the Medicaid-funded market segment, formal employment in the privately paid segment, and the ‘gray market,’ in which clients hire home care workers through informal networks and pay them directly. The project draws on original interviews and survey data collected by Gottfried and Milkman.