Leah Ruppanner is a Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab at the University of Melbourne. She was previously a Director of The Policy Lab at the University of Melbourne.

Her research investigates gender and its intersection to inequalities, technologies and policies. Professor Ruppanner is a leading expert on COVID-19 and its impact on gender inequality in US and Australia. Her book, Motherlands: How States Push Mothers out of Employment (2020) provides a typology of childcare and gender policies and their relationship to mothers' employment varies across US states. This has led to a range of high impact publications showing women have divergent experiences based on their state of residence. Finally, she is leading a project on gender bias in hiring algorithms to understand how gender bias limits women's access to employment. Ruppanner's research is published in Demography, Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociological Methods and Research, European Sociological Review and Social Science Research. She also has expansive media coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post and the Guardian and external grant success including the ARC DECRA, an ARC Discovery on sleep and an ARC Linkage on women in local government.

Leah was recently named an Australian Research Council Future Fellowships recipient and will continue to expand her work on The Consequences of the Mental Load for Australian Families.