Graduate Student Profiles
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Jacob Barry (PhD program) My name is Jacob Barry and I am a first-year PhD student in the department of Gender Studies. My current research utilizes ethnographic methodologies to explore the experiences of trans, Black trans, Indigenous trans, and Two-Spirit folks within the Canadian healthcare system. The project aims to highlight the discrepancies between the current state of trans* healthcare and the actual needs of trans* folks. As an openly visible transmasculine person, I wish to use my platform to create space for marginalized trans* voices and promote on-going efforts for social change. |
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Christopher Bennett (PhD program) |
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Ezgi (Gizem) Cagatay (MA program) Hi! My name is Ezgi Gizem Cagatay and I am Turkish as well as Canadian. I finished my undergraduate degree in Gender Studies here in Queen’s University and I am currently continuing my education with a graduate degree. |
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Afsheen Chowdhury (MA program) I fell in love with academic research and writing when I wrote a paper about how the rapper J. Cole’s studio album 4 Your Eyez Only serves as a political piece of resistance against the mass incarceration of Black folks in America. From there I became more invested in how conversations within rap music speak to and revolt against prison systems, racially based mass incarcerations and the mistreatment of racialized folks in society. |
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Muna Dahir (PhD program) |
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Jase Falk (MA program) Jase Falk is a non-binary transfeminine settler based out of Winnipeg, Treaty One Territory. She is a recent graduate of the English honours program at University of Winnipeg and is currently pursuing an MA in Gender Studies at Queen’s University. Jase is also a published poet whose writing has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and is a co-founder of Trans Hive, a peer-based residency program for transgender artists. |
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Maha Faruqi (MA program) My name is Maha Faruqi and I am an international student completing my MA in Gender Studies here at Queen’s. My work focuses on queer South Asian Muslim resistance through art. Specifically, I interrogate what it means to belong beyond the confines of settler states while being at the intersections of Islamophobia, queerphobia, and various nationalisms, when home is so often a site of heteropatriarchy. |
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Pravieena Gnanakumar (MA program) Pravieena Gnanakumar completed her undergraduate degree at Queens with a major in Global Development Studies, minor in Gender Studies, and a Certificate in Law. In her spare time, Pravieena enjoys writing for online publications such as Her Campus and The Queen's Journal. |
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Markus Harwood-Jones (PhD program) Markus Harwood-Jones is an academic, visual artist, and author based in Toronto. He is the author of young adult novels including Confessions of a Teenage Drag King, We Three, Just Julian, and Romeo for Real. He has also self-published several short story collections, such as the Everything and All at Once zine series. Finally, Markus is the co-producer and documentarian of Mosaic: A Documentary & Dialogue, available for online streaming and on DVD. Markus currently holds a BA in Sociology, an MA in Gender Studies, and he is undertaking a PhD at Queen’s University. Learn more at www.mharwoodjones.com. |
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Kanonhsyonne/Janice Corinne Hill (MA program) Jan, Mohawk, Turtle clan mother, single mother of two sons, Associate Vice-Principal Indigenous Initiatives and Reconciliation. Born in Messina, NY and raised at Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Jan has spent her life working for the revitalization of the Mohawk language and the culture, traditions, and spirituality of her ancestors. Grandmother, mother, auntie, sister, political and spiritual activist, and teacher – she believes in the power of knowing who she is and where she comes from. Jan acquired a B.A. in native studies from Trent University and a B.Ed. from the ATEP at Queen’s University. |
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Adria Kurchina-Tyson (PhD program) Adria is a Nishinaabe kwekaan whose PhD research focuses on consent and elements of kink and BDSM within Indigenous epistemologies. |
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Katherine Mazurok (PhD program) |
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Milka Njoroge (PhD program) My name is Milka Njoroge. I hold a master's degree in Education and Globalization from Oulu University, Finland. My research investigates humanitarian photography and the production, circulation, and consumption of images of suffering. |
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Maria O'Leary (PhD program) Maria completed her undergraduate degree from Mount Allison University, with a major in Psychology and a minor in Women and Gender Studies in 2018. She has gone on to complete her master’s degree at Queen’s University in Gender Studies in 2019 and is currently working towards her PhD in Gender Studies. Her PhD work examines the restrictive access to abortion services in the Province of New Brunswick. |
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Dorcas Okyere (PhD program) |
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Dany Perault (MA program) My name is Dany and I am Kichespirini Algonquin traditionally from Ile-aux-Allumetes. I did my undergrad at Nipissing University doing an honours specialization in gender equality and social justice and a major in Indigenous studies. I began to adore research while completing this degree especially upon getting to write my final paper about Indigenous hip hop and how it navigates and challenges notions of Indigenous identity and authenticity. |
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Elizabeth Poirier (PhD program) Hi, my name is Elizabeth, and I am a second year PhD student. My work focuses on untangling the relations between carceral sites and academia. I question how do universities participate or perpetuate the prison industrial complex? I ask these questions in a Canadian context, looking at Kingston Prisons and Queen's specifically. |
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Nat Rambold (MA program) My name is Nat Rambold, I am an MA student in the department of gender studies at Queens. I am a non-binary femme settler currently living on Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territories. My research focus is on masculinities and Canadian nationalism. I am interested in queer and trans masculinities within the Canadian nation-state. My work takes an anti-colonial and anti-racist approach that aims to interrogate the links between colonial violence, white supremacy, masculinity, and the ways that queer/trans-ness complicates colonial imaginings of masculinized nationalism. I became interested in nationalism studies during my undergraduate degree at the University of Victoria where I completed a degree in Political Science and Gender Studies. I am looking forward to continuing this work at Queens. |
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Lousanne Rodé (PhD program) My name is Lousanne Rodé and I am a first-year, part-time PhD student. I am a South Asian woman born in Sri Lanka. I hold a Master of Social Work from McGill University. My current research interest uses ethnographic methodologies to illuminate the experiences of those subjected to mandated institutions of social control, specifically the Child Welfare system in Ontario. I am passionate in my exploration of issues relating to race, surveillance, representation, and the dynamics of social care. |
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Mikayla Sebesta (MA program) My name is Mikayla Sebesta and I am a Master's student in the department of Gender Studies. My research looks at Surrogacy in Canada as it is regulated through the Assisted Human Reproduction Act and the forced model of altruism gestational carriers and intended parents are forced to follow. |
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Hannah Smith (MA program) Hi everyone! My name is Hannah Smith and I’m an MA student here at Queen’s University in the gender studies program. I’m from Thunder Bay, Ontario and completed my undergraduate degree at Lakehead University in gender studies and political science. It was during my undergrad where I absolutely fell in love with academics, learning and immersing myself in feminist education. As a lover of research, my interests are broad, however, I am particularly interested in feminist leadership and understanding how we can continue to grow the feminist movement. |
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Sarah Smith (PhD program) Sarah is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Gender Studies. Broadly speaking, her work sits at the intersection of mad studies and gender studies, and focuses on the relationship between madness and the body. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral research is focused on how psychiatric discourses of self-harm impact the lives of those with lived experience and seeks to help empower people who self-harm to define their own experiences and seek recovery on their own terms. |
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Victoria Valliere (MA program) |
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Amanda Watson (PhD program) My name is Amanda Watson and I am a sex worker in her 1st year of the Gender Studies PhD program. I am a registered social service worker who holds a BA and MA in Sociology and who has additional training in Addictions. My research explores the role (institutional) stigma has in the experiences of sex working students in academia. I believe sex worker rights are both human and labour rights, and that harm reduction saves lives. My hope is towards a future where sex workers no longer hold their heads down in shame. |
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Kendall Witaszek (PhD program) |
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Michael Young (MA program) |