Roberta G. Simmons

Roberta Grodberg Simmons (November 30, 1937 – February 15, 1993) was an American sociologist. A 1979 Guggenheim Fellow, she studied the psychology of adolescence and later organ transplants and authored the books Black and White Self-Esteem, Gift of Life (1977), and Moving Into Adolescence (1987). She was a professor at the University of Minnesota and University of Pittsburgh, and she served as president of the Midwest Sociological Society.

Biography Simmons was born on November 30, 1937, in Boston, daughter of Burton C. Grodberg.

After working as a lecturer at Barnard College, she was assistant professor at Columbia in 1966, before working as a staff fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health's Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies from 1966 to 1968. she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for "a comparative study of the policy and ethical issues of organ transplantation". She won the NIMH Research Scientist Career Development Award fifteen times and was a 1986-1987 Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Fellow.

On September 7, 1958, she married Richard L. Simmons, who later co-authored her first book. She was 55 and predeceased both her father and husband. Gift of Life (1977; with Susan D. Klein and Richard L. Simmons) Moving Into Adolescence (1987; with Dale A. Blyth)