Lewin, a lesbian,[1] focuses her work on areas of motherhood, sexuality, and reproduction.
She concluded her studies at Stanford University with one of her earlier works, Mothers and Children: Latin American Immigrants in San Francisco.
[2] Lewin conducted research on Latin American women in San Francisco for her dissertation.
She also completed another study comparing aspects of motherhood among lesbians and heterosexual single women.
[2] Lewin is four times a recipient of the Ruth Benedict Prize: for two monographs, Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture (1992) and Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America (2010) and two edited volumes, Out in Public: Reinventing Lesbian/Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World (co-edited with William L. Leap) (2009) and Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology (co-edited with William L. Leap) (2004).