NSRC opened in 2003 and is directed by Gilbert Herdt, an anthropologist who pioneered the cross-cultural study of sexuality.
[1][2] He authored Guardians of the Flute, an examination of sexual rituals in New Guinea.
The center is affiliated with San Francisco State University and is supported through the Ford Foundation's Global Dialogue on Sexuality.
Awardees were thinkMTV, actor BD Wong, former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, Bernard Goldstein, and Anke Ehrhardt of the HIV Center at Columbia University.
NSRC publishes the journal Sexuality Research and Social Policy.