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Farzana Ahmed (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Bernadette P. Resurrección
Start: September 2022
Email: 20fja@queensu.ca
The concept of power is intriguing to me, as it is inherent and impactful but yet often subtly overlooked. To overlook how difference can limit or amplify access is to overlook power. This form of delusion, strengthens the status quo. My research interest is embedded in addressing power in international aid, particularly in relation to decision making, governance and accountability to affected communities.
In my last professional assignment, I worked with more than 47 member agencies, both local and international in Bangladesh, to identify gaps in their accountability mechanisms and co-create an accountability framework. My work sparked my interest in exploring the political governance of aid and how representation is politicised, particularly related to power politics between local and international NGOs, community participation and broadly the economic and social costs of aid.
Hannah Ascough (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Marc Epprecht
Start: September 2018
Email: 17ha10@queensu.ca
My research centers on environmental charities, in South Africa and internationally. Specifically, I am interrogating how these ENGOs are framing a just recovery from COVID-19, and what that recovery means for ENGO beneficiaries, employees, and donors – capturing the juxtaposition between large- and small-scale environmental charitable work. Ultimately, my project concerns itself with both projected and experienced “futures” that emerge from development institutions’ imaginaries, and so locates itself within the intersections of feminist political ecology, degrowth, eco-socialism, and post-development theory.
Nodir Ataev (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Marcus Taylor
Start: January 2023
Email: 22na13@queensu.ca
I am broadly interested in transboundary relations. Specifically, my research focuses on examining transboundary water relations from a political-economy perspective in the Fergana Valley, a densely populated region divided between the modern states of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. By studying water, livelihoods, climate, and power relations, I hope to unveil who has access to and control over water and other crucial resources in the region.
Allyson Dafoe (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Start: January 2022
Email: 13akd@queensu.ca
My research interests centre around the military-industrial complex and the involvement of private military and security companies (PMCs/PSCs) in extractive industries. Situated in the context of extensive and continued environmental degradation, my research will consider what available information on PMCs/PSCs in extractive industries tells us about access to and control over resources.
Veronique Dryden (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Start: September 2021
Email: 20vmd@queensu.ca
My research interests lie in unpacking the contradictions inherent in the use of neoliberal ideas to drive development policies and planning in the Global South. I am studying the master planning of Bonifacio Global City in Manila, Philippines.I am doing so through the lens of political economy, which looks at the intersections of power in money in shaping the material world. I approach this study with almost a decade of experience working as an urban planner in the private and public sector across Asia and Canada.
Christina Frendo (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Kyla Tienhaara
Start: September 2024
Email: 12cjf2@queensu.ca
My research interests are climate finance, climate policy, and international environmental governance. My research project will explore just transitions and the impacts of climate finance programs. I plan to use case studies to explore the social, environmental, and economic outcomes of just transition finance projects.
Janette Haase (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Marcus Taylor
Start: September 2020
Email: 21jth1@queensu.ca
I propose to explore the use of regenerative and no-till agriculture in Ontario and Quebec through research and interviews with farmers and government and non-governmental agencies involved in this work. I seek to better understand the motivations, challenges, and experiences of transitioning to this type of agriculture and the conditions for its successful adoption. Agriculture is an incredibly complex social practice, deeply rooted in local cultures but also highly manipulated by large corporate interests. Current research on alternative agriculture highlights themes of social and environ-mental justice, climate change, food sovereignty, inequality and the ownership of both knowledge and nature. I seek to learn more about debates over sustainable agriculture and rural development and apply them to current agricultural models and our (in)ability to realize meaningful food system transformation close to home.
Avanthi Jayasuriya (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Start: September 2021
Email: 20anj2@queensu.ca
My research interests are grounded within Feminist Political Economy and social policy. Broadly, my research focuses on the political economy of social policy and its impact on marginalised populations paying attention to the intersections of gender, race and class.
Sandra McKay (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Start: September 2021
Email: 21srm12@queensu.ca
I am interested in the mining and development debate. My research looks at the conditions that influence the role that artisanal and small-scale gold mining has in improving local sustainable livelihoods in Peru. These include issues such as the negotiation and conflicts between large-scale mining and community-based small-scale mining, trade and cooperation between Canada and Peru, and private governance initiatives.
Meghan Mendelin (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Start: September 2021
Email: 14mkm8@queensu.ca
My research centres around the social reproductive functions of non-profit organizations, with a focus on how localized approaches to community care support the everyday gendered labours that reproduce our society. My project explores how different scales of non-profit organizations operating in Canada represent their charitable care work to the public, and what this elucidates about particular notions of caring in the context of a global crisis of care. By considering non-profit organizations through a feminist political economy lens, my research draws attention to the capitalist discourse of dominant development interventions which purport a depoliticized, individualized and purely financial way of caring for fellow global citizens, and considers how community-based approaches to care may differ or depart from those of large-scale, international non-profit organizations.
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Wondimnew Mersha (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Marc Epprecht
Start: September 2022
Email: 21wkm2@queensu.ca
My current research focuses on the interplay between conflict-induced internal displacement and disability protection. Along the way, it will unpack the policy, legal and institutional landscapes on internal displacement. Moreover, it will indulge in examining the real-life conditions and treatment of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in general and those with disabilities in East Africa (Ethiopia). It will further dis-aggregate the experiences of women, children, and the elderly as it is imperative to investigate the intra-group distinctions for a more complete understanding of the matter. The effect of ethnic affiliation on differential treatment of IDPs in the study area also forms a part of the proposed study. Overall, the proposed study applies a human rights-based approach to the assessment of the global and national responses to internal displacement.
Dani Mexner (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Start: September 2024
Email: 17dkm@queensu.ca
My research examines queer care and social reproduction in northern Canada, with a focus on health/care disparities for transgender and gender non-conforming folks. I am particularly interested in the ways in which queer, trans, and GNC youth care for one another in the context of institutional failure to meet their mental, physical, and sexual healthcare needs, and how these caring relations shape their experiences of community. I approach the intersections between queer care and northern health disparities through a decolonial, feminist political economy lens, utilizing arts-based research methods.
Daniel Ortiz Gallego (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Diana Córdoba
Start: September 2021
Email: daniel.ortizgallego@queensu.ca
My research focuses on alternatives to agribusiness development that challenge the dominant neoliberal food regime and contribute to potential sustainable transitions. Particularly, I am interested in understanding the complex working of power in oil palm and soybean agribusiness for their consolidation in Colombia and Bolivia and the strategies of resistance of grassroots organizations aimed at eroding this power, such as the peasant economies, agroecology, and food sovereignty.
Brandon Pryce (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Start: September 2018
Email: 11bp16@queensu.ca
My research focuses on critical engagements with the history of Canada as an extractive state. I take a historical materialist approach to the origins of extraction throughout Canada but particularly in the North and how it has impacted Indigenous and minority communities. In addition to extraction and resources, my work also investigates the political economy of tourism and hospitality in rural, remote, and indigenous communities. Alongside my supervisor Dr. Rebecca Hall, we work with Dene communities in the Northwest Territories on post-extraction development and Indigenous-led alternative development. Overall, I utilize a Marxian political-economy framework as well as critical decolonization studies to approach the topic of development.
Alyssa Rush (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Marcus Taylor
Start: September 2022
Email: 11ajj2@queensu.ca
My research interests lie within the themes of social movements and sustainable agriculture. Generally, I am interested in local food systems, food sovereignty, and agroecology. More specifically, I am examining issues around labour on ecological farms in Ontario, utilizing a feminist political ecology and labour studies framework. I wish to explore the nexus between environmental sustainability and social sustainability.
Maya Saryyeva (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: Kyla Tienhaara
Start: September 2019
Email: 19ms59@queensu.ca
I study governance frameworks surrounding sustainable finance, and in particular the transparency and effectiveness of green bond projects.
Simran Sharma (PhD Candidate)
Supervisors: Rebecca Hall and David McDonald
Start: September 2023
Email: 22ss67@queensu.ca
My research revolves around understanding the ecological and social dynamics of water dispossession and water knowledges in South Asia through the lens of political economy and decolonial theory.
Jordan Stark (PhD Candidate)
Supervisor: David McDonald
Start: September 2019
Email: 19jds1@queensu.ca
Broadly, my research lies at the intersection of data, development, and the city. My research project contributes to scholarly understandings of data justice and the ways in which it can be supported in the context of open data initiatives in South Africa (with implications for other cities in the global South). Focusing on open data in Cape Town, one of the first municipal open data initiatives in the global South, I ask how access to knowledge and the benefits of open data can be more equitably distributed in conditions of extreme inequality.
Alina Dixon, PhD (2023)
Supervisor: Allison Goebel
Dissertation Title: Not ‘Just’ a Kid: Knowledge Politics and Youth Peacebuilding in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa
Maya Aldis (MA Candidate)
Start: September 2024
Email: Email: 19mla3@queensu.ca
My interests focus on the social and environmental impacts of extractive industries in Canada. Specifically, the proposed ring of fire project in Northern Ontario which threatens vital peat moss vegetation and nearby Indigenous communities. I am interested in this specific example, as a way to consider environmental mitigation strategies in extractive industry from a culturally sensitive, political ecology approach. In addition, other research interests include the intersection of climate change and being LGBTQ+ and sustainable business models in remote Indigenous communities.
Natalie Braun (MA Candidate)
Start: September 2024
Email: Email: 24bxl1@queensu.ca
My research focuses on the uneven and combined development of capitalism, or, imperialist and anti-imperialist development. In particular, I am interested in a) how world-scale development affects and directs class politics within states, b) the politics of settler working classes, and formulating the national benefits derived via the settler state, and c) the multipolarization of the world system and its implications for development, especially concerning phenomena such as South-South industrial transmission.
Sheneeza Khan (MA Candidate)
Start: September 2024
Email: 19sk79@queensu.ca
My research area of interest revolves around creating sustainable yet profitable business models for South Asian garment factories. This research is dedicated to an effort to mitigate such factories’ effects on climate change as well as the elimination of workplace health hazards. Finally, this research is committed to including workplace and women’s equity in such business models.
Jordyn Moreno (MA Candidate: Thesis Option)
Start: September 2024
Email: 19jhm3@queensu.ca
My current research interests include migration, land politics, food security and community health. As large-scale land acquisitions continue to become increasingly popular within communities across the global south and migration levels continue to rise, the needs of those most affected continue to go unmet by the corporations and governments responsible. In response, I hope to apply an interdisciplinary approach to help examine the intersections between these topics. More specifically, exploring how issues of land politics affect members of the migrant community and their holistic health.
Hanna Pringle (MA Candidate)
Start: September 2024
Email: Email: hanna.pringle@queensu.ca
My research will focus on community building and family structures within Southeast Asia. With an ever-growing influx of tourist activity to many countries across the region, the needs and lives of local families and communities are increasingly decentered. In addition, the rapidly changing climate has had significant impacts on communities in the region, especially on the youth within them. I wish to examine these phenomena from a feminist political ecology lens, examining the intersection between tourism, the climate crisis, and families and youth. More specifically, I will examine the role of care and embodiment in localized challenges and resistance for youth and families across Southeast Asia
Oarisa Riddoch (MA Candidate: Thesis Option)
Start: September 2024
Email: Email: 19odr3@queensu.ca
My research focuses on the concept of just transitions within the South African context. I am particularly interested in how tourism can be used as an alternative site of economic growth during the nation's shift away from coal extraction and energy production. I intend to investigate the framing of tourism as a sustainable industry and the implications of this transition upon mining communities.
Katelin Boles MA (2024)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Second Reader: Allison Goebel
MRP Title: A ‘Strong Northern Workforce’: Exploring the Intersections of Diamond Mining, Education, and Dene Youth Futures in the Northwest Territories.
Ivanna Kazantsev MA (2024)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Second Reader: Norma Möllers
MRP Title: Raced markets and disciplinary electronic logging devices (ELDs): Assessing the intersection between Canadian neoliberalism, race, and surveillance in the Peel Region trucking sector.
Megan Zelle MA (2024)
Supervisor: Bernadette Resurrección
Second Reader: Kilian Atuoye
MRP Title: Who takes the heat? Understanding the intersections between climate vulnerability and structural racism in Johannesburg and New York City.
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Azra Alavi MA (2023)
Supervisor: Kilian Atuoye
Second Reader: Bernadette Resurrección
MRP Title: Learning From The Community: Immigrant Women Withering The Impact Of COVID-19 On Food Security in Toronto
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Evelyne Baker MA (2023)
Supervisor: Diana Córdoba
Second Reader: Rebecca Hall
MRP Title: Women's Empowerment Through Coffee Cooperatives: Collective action in Nicaragua from 1979 onwards
Emma Bouillard MA (2024)
Supervisor: Reena Kukreja
Second Reader: Vanessa Thompson
MRP Title: Racism Reborn: Deportability and Unfree Mobility of Roma Migrants in France (2007-2016)
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Claire Cornacchia MA (2023)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Second Reader: Bernadette Resurrección
MRP Title: Indigenous Futures in the Canadian State: An Examination of State-Imposed Education and Training on Dene Youth in the Northwest Territories
Cheyenne Kammerer (MA Candidate: Thesis Option)
Start: September 2022
Email: 17cek@queensu.ca
My research interests are geared toward sustainable development and global health. I come from a background in Biology. This interdisciplinary background has provided me with a multifaceted lens that considers development in a holistic way. My goal is to look at global health with biological and social sciences in mind, examining how the two are connected and how they impact one another through the frameworks of embodiment and ecosocoial theory. My current research project is focused on investigating the impacts of aquaculture as an adaptation to the environmental degradation caused by hydropower dams in Thailand. Current practices allow communities to be disproportionately affected as we accelerate into the Anthropocene and face the challenges of climate change. I intend to evaluate different sustainable processes that can lessen this effect in a resilient way and the impacts of aquaculture on the communities' physical and mental wellbeing.
Alexandria Leduc MA (2023)
Supervisor: Ayca Tomac
Second Reader: Scott Rutherford
MRP Title: “I’LL BE A GOD EXACTING MY RETRIBUTION”: Understanding The Relationship Between Incel Violence And Incel Constructions Of Gender
Shivangi Mistry MA (2023)
Supervisor: Karen Dubinsky
Second Reader: Jeffrey Brison
MRP Title: Trends, Impacts, & Influences of The Guggenheim Museum Franchise: A Cultural Political Analysis of Contemporary Debates
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Pamela O'Brien MA (2023)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Second Reader: Allison Goebel
MRP Title: The Rescaling of Indigenous Childhood: The effects of diamond mining on Indigenous youth, and a future grounded in youth autonomy and Indigenous resurgence
Ivy Yang MA (2023)
Supervisor: Scott Rutherford
Second Reader: Rebecca Hall
MRP Title: “Just clean your hands” - with what water? A comparative historical analysis on the 17th century fur trade and emergence of Treaty No. 9 to the Ontario Ring of Fire and water insecurity on the Neskantaga First Nation reserve
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Asvini Uthayakumaran MA (2023)
Supervisor: Mark Hostetler
Second Reader: Paritosh Kumar
MRP Title: Tamil self-determination and the pursuit of post-conflict unity in Sri Lanka
Makiko Brown (MA Candidate: Thesis Option)
Start: September 2021
Email: 21meb20@queensu.ca
My research interests include migration, diasporas and how remittances can support economic development. I would like to examine formal and informal networks within diasporas that encourage migration and the transfer of wealth between countries. I would like to apply an interdisciplinary approach to examine economic issues and the politics of citizenship. I am interested in the intersection of race, gender and immigration policies that affect documented and undocumented workers.
Holly Laurenzio MA Thesis (2023)
Supervisor: Diana Córdoba
Thesis Title: Small-scale cocoa farming and mechanisms of access to support services bridging producers with high-value market participation: a comparative analysis between Ecuador & Peru
Reily Morrison MA (2022)
Supervisor: Paritosh Kumar
Second Reader: Samantha King
MRP Title: Ethical Consumption of Plan-based Milks and Corporate Environmentalism
Alexa Platt MA (2022)
Supervisor: Paritosh Kumar
Second Reader: Mark Hostetler
MRP Title: Tensions in the Food Sovereignty Movement in Canada
Jenna Reid MA (2025)
Supervisor: Marc Epprecht
Second Reader: Colleen Davison
MRP Title: South Africa and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The unintended consequences of implementing international policy recommendations
Caroline Trippenbach MA (2022)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Second Reader: Kyla Tienhaara
MRP Title: Paving the Path to "Self-Sufficiency?" The Federal Government's Response to the Impacts of Mining on Indigenous Women in Remote Communities
Jacira Werle Rodrigues MA (2022)
Supervisor: Diana Córdoba
Second Reader: Jorge Legoas
MRP Title: Framing bioeconomy in Brazil: a sustainable path for the Amazon?
Claire Genest MA (2021)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Second Reader: Dan Cohen
MRP Title: Social Impact Bonds as the Failing Forward of Neoliberal Restructuring: A Canadian Case Study
Bessie Hodder Olivera MA (2021)
Supervisor: Reena Kukreja
Second Reader: Mark Hostetler
MRP Title: U.S. Detention Centres impact on the physical and mental health of Latin migrant women: a case study investigation of the coerced hysterectomies performed in U.S. detention facilities in 2020
Avanthi Jayasuriya MA (2021)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Second Reader: Rebecca Hall
MRP Title: Relief For Whom? A Feminist Historical Materialist Account of the Covid-19 Relief Measures in Toronto
Avanthi Jayasuriya MA (2025)
Supervisor: Ayca Tomac
Second Reader: David McDonald
MRP Title: Built to Exploit: Neoliberal Violence and Racial Capitalism in Lebanon’s Kafala System
Kylie McNeil MA (2021)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Second Reader: Rebecca Hall
MRP Title: Can You Pay for Success? An investigation and Critical Analysis into the Nature of Social Investment Bonds Centred Around the Chicago Pay-for-Success Bond
Ana Mejicano Greenberg MA (2021)
Supervisor: Reena Kukreja
Second Reader: Alexandra Pedersen
MRP Title: The Making of the “Perpetually Displace-Able”: Investigating the Role of the Guatemalan and the Canadian States in the (Re)production and Maintenance of Racialized Guatemalan Temporary Foreign Workers as a Latent Relative Surplus Population from 1960-Present
Carleigh Milburn MA (2021)
Supervisor: Celeste Pedri-Spade
Second Reader: Lindsay Morcom
MRP Title: Toward the Inclusion of Indigenous Women’s Arts in Ontario Secondary Schools and its Role in Developing Education for Reconciliation
Ethan Mitchell MA Thesis (2022)
Supervisor: Susanne Soederberg
Thesis Title: Building Alternatives: Community Land Trusts, Neoliberal Governance, and Transforming Housing Relations
Madalyn Neilsen MA (2021)
Supervisor: Marcus Taylor
Second Reader: Diana Córdoba
MRP Title: The re-introduction of Indigenous breeds of dairy cattle for increase climate resilience in Karnataka, South India
Sinead O'Hara MA (2021)
Supervisor: Rebecca Hall
Second Reader: Susan Bartels
MRP Title: The Weaponization of Sexual Violence: An Analysis of Women and Girls Healing in the Democrtatic Republic of the Congo
Kenna Panikkar MA (2021)
Supervisor: Scott Rutherford
Second Reader: Ayca Tomac
MRP Title: Redefinding what constitutes a "developed nation" in the context of United States with the rescente rise of right wing politics/nationalism.
Jessica Phillips MA (2021)
Supervisor: Bernadette Resurrección
Second Reader: Reena Kukreja
MRP Title: Migration in the Context of Climate Change: Cases in the Philippines
Kabir Shahani MA (2021)
Supervisor: Kyla Tienhaara
Second Reader: Mark Hostetler
MRP Title: The Role of Ecotourism in the Development of the Global SouthL A Case Study on hte Republic of Palau
Tianna Tischbein MA (2021)
Supervisor: Kyla Tienharra
Second Reader: Mark Hostetler
MRP Title: Degrowth post Covid-19
Charlotte Akin, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Reena KukrejaSecond Reader: Colleen Davison
MRP Title: Protection & Punishment - The Impacts of the Hotspot Approach on the Rights and Status of Unaccompanied Children in Greece.
Matthew Dunbar MA (2023)
Supervisor: David McDonald
Second Reader: Marcus Taylor
MRP Title: The Political Economy of the AIIB and the Belt and Road Initiative
Emily Edwards, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Colleen Davison
Second Reader: Reena Kukreja
MRP Title: The Neoliberal Market Relations of Global Commercial Surrogacy – A Postcolonial Analysis of Stateless Babies, Outsourced Wombs, and Conflicting Regulations
Jessica Gentile, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Diana Córdoba
Second Reader: Allison Goebel
MRP Title: Not Worth a "Dam" - A Socio-Environmental Analysis of the Experience of Displaced Women Along the Congo River
Brigid Goulem MA Thesis (2021)
Supervisor: Reena Kukreja
Thesis Title: Health and Healthcare Access for Undocumented Migrant Agricultural Workers in Greece
Rae Jardine, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Mark Hostetler
Second Reader: Marc Epprecht
MRP Title: "We Shall Not Wait for Karamoja to Develop": A Critical Discourse Analysis
Ainsley Johnston, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Marcus Taylor
Second Reader: David McDonald
MRP Title: The Exploration of Racial Bias in the US Federal Responses to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Maria
Alexandria Knipp, MA (2020)
Supervisors: Rebecca Hall and Diana Córdoba
MRP Title: LIFE IN A NATIONAL SACRIFICE ZONE: How the Settler-Colonial State Perpetuates Slow Violence Through Extraction in the Northwest Territories and Appalachian Kentucky
Kristen Ouimet, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Diana Córdoba
Second Reader: David McDonald
MRP Title: A Conflict of Worlds: Expressions of Buen Vivir in Resistance to the Yanacocha Mine
Michelle Owusu-Ansah, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Marc Epprecht
Second Reader: Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin
MRP Title: Unmasking the Ghanaian State Analysis of the Ghanaian state's performative nature in addressing domestic and sexual violence (DSV) against women and women's response to the state and DSV through activism
Julianna Rapper, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Elia Zureik
Second Reader: Mark Hostetler
MRP Title: Strategies of Occupation in Apartheid Israel
Shanaya Singh, MA (2020)
Supervisors: Marcus Taylor and Allison Goebel
MRP Title: Assessing the Potential for Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy to Support Maasai Women’s Land Rights in Northern Tanzania
Camille Slack, MA (2020)
Supervisor: Marcus Taylor
Second Reader: Scott Rutherford
MRP Title: The Potential of Food Sovereignty to Inform the Policy Response to Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic
Prateek Sood, MA (2020)
Supervisors: John Harriss and Marcus Taylor
MRP Title: The Potential of Food Sovereignty to Inform the Policy Response to Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic