UCLA Center for the Study of Women

We are sad to report that Jill Cherneff, a longtime CSW research scholar, has passed away. Jill received an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis in 2006 and fought mightily against the disease. It was most important to her to stay active in her life and her scholarship. Indeed she renewed her research scholarship status in July of 2011 and her husband wrote that “although Jill cannot speak, she is totally intellectually present and uses a computer to speak and write.” Her final research project concerned gender differences and similarities in the experience of receiving a diagnosis of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. As an ALS patient and a member of the community of ALS patients, she conducted interviews, distributed and collected questionnaires, and used Internet resources to gather ALS illness narratives including stories of patients’ participation in ALS advocacy and activism.