M.A. Student Profiles

  • Portrait
  • Email: jess.burnham@rutgers.edu
  • Research Interests: The multiplicity of queer and gender variant relational formations and practices; expansiveness of gender identity and expression; relation to embodiment and embodiments in relation; the slippage between monogamous and non-monogamous formations; queer and gender variant re-valuation of relationships; the re-envisioning sensual and sexual practices.
  • Education: BS in Integrated Studies from Utah Valley University, emphases in Peace and Justice Studies, Sociology; Minor in Gender Studies.

 

Bio

Prior to coming to Rutgers University, Jess was the Prevention Education Coordinator with Davis County, Utah’s only sexual assault and domestic violence services agency, where they adapted and taught public health curricula centering LGBTQ identities and relational scripts. They likewise began and sustained a community coalition focused on bystander intervention initiatives and collaborated with the Utah Department of Health to create statewide bystander curriculum. Since beginning graduate studies in fall of 2017, they have worked as Researcher and Project Coordinator with the Rutgers Center on Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC). They have conducted a myriad of focus groups on dating and sexual violence and co-authored reports on campus climate. Since summer of 2018, they have led a participatory action “concept mapping” project centering the insights of racialized, queer and/or gender variant students across Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick campuses in mitigating experiences of violence, harm and oppression.