Michal Frenkel is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she has served as a department chair (2018-2022). Her research focuses on power relations in and around organizations, examined through a dual lens: (i) How power relations affect the production of managerial knowledge and practices and how the latter are institutionalized, transferred, and implemented across national boundaries; and (ii) The role of such knowledge and practices in the reproduction of gender-, ethnicity-, race-, and religiosity-based social hierarchies. She studies the multilayered nature of power and theorizes the interrelations between the global, national, organizational, and interpersonal power dynamics and how these shape organizational control and members’ compliance, agency, and resistance in organizations. Her current studies focus on gender-religiosity intersectionality at work and the intersection of gender and age in shaping academic careers.

As a public sociologist, she applies insights from her studies (and others) to help public and private organizations implement more inclusive employment practices and become more family-friendly and egalitarian in their approach toward marginalized groups. She is a frequent commentator on questions of work, organization, and gender equity in the Israeli media. She enjoys mentoring up-and-coming scholars and has worked closely with more than fifty graduate and postdoctoral students in developing their studies and academic careers.