Elizabeth Shanks Alexander is an associate professor of Talmud and Rabbinics in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1998. She has published widely in academic forums on gender and rabbinic literature. Her most recent book, entitled Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism, came out in April with Cambridge University Press. Alexander's other academic interests include oral transmission of rabbinic tradition and the literary crafting of rabbinic literature. Alexander lives with her husband and two children in Richmond, VA where she teaches adults in a variety of local Jewish forums.