Jessica Cohen is a doctoral candidate in Bowling Green State University’s sociology graduate program and holds a bachelor’s of arts in Sociology from Pennsylvania State University.  Jessica has recently proposed her dissertation, which examines the postmarital union formation, fertility intentions, and behaviors of women using the 2002 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG).  For the past five years, Ms. Cohen has worked as a graduate research assistant on Dr. Wendy Manning’s NIH-funded grant entitled, “The Meaning of Cohabiting Unions in the United States.”  She examines qualitative interviews of dating, cohabiting and married couples and explores young adult’ self-reported views and experiences in the contemporary courtship process.  In addition to her dissertation and assistantship work, Jessica’s current research projects include exploring the heterogeneity of cohabiting unions by examining serial cohabitors, as well as fertility outcomes of teenage cohabitors, also using the NSFG.