Julie Shayne was born and raised in California. She received her BA and MA in Women's Studies from San Francisco State University and her second MA and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She became active in Latin American politics during the Reagan administration as a result of the intensive U.S. intervention in Central America.

As a solidarity activist she traveled to El Salvador for the first time in 1985. Since then, she has been able to incorporate her political convictions into her intellectual pursuits. Professor Shayne's areas of interest include revolution, gender, feminism, and development in Latin America and the diaspora.

Dr. Shayne started her academic career at Emory University in Women's Studies and Sociology but after six years in Atlanta, and a very difficult decision, she and her husband decided they had to return to the west coast and she resigned to move to the Seattle area. (For more details about the decision see Julie's essay "Mother's Day".)

She currently is a lecturer at the University of Washington at Bothell. When not working, Julie enjoys the natural beauty of the Puget Sound area with her family - her husband Dave, daughter Barrie, and son Aaron.