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Mary C. Waters is an American sociologist.
B.A. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1978, an M.A. in Demography and an M.A. and PhD in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught at Harvard University since 1986 and is the M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.
Waters specializes in the study of immigration, identity formation and inter-group relations, with an emphasis on ethnic and racial identity among the children of immigrants.
She is noted for her concept of ethnic option, according to which the children and descendants of immigrants have the option of choosing whether or not to identify with the ethnicity of their ancestors. The term first appeared in her book Ethnic Options, Choosing Identities in America.
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