Dr. Elisabeth "Eli" Sheff is a sociologist and 🏷️#researcher specializing in gender and sex minorities, with particular expertise in 📝Polyamory, 📝BDSM, and LGBTQ+ legal issues. She holds a PhD in sociology, is a Certified Sexuality Educator, and co-founded the 📝Bonding Project, where she serves as Director of Research.

Sheff has spent roughly three decades studying polyamorous families with children, making her longitudinal work among the most sustained research on the subject. She has written four books and more than thirty academic articles on polyamory, BDSM, and gender, sex, and relationship diversity, and has served as an expert witness in family, criminal, civil, and military cases — a role that connects the research directly to the legal exposure 📝Consensual Non-Monogamy (CNM) practitioners face around custody and recognition. Outlets including the New York Times, NPR, the BBC, New York Magazine, Vogue, and The Atlantic have cited her as a subject-matter expert.