MA Alumni Listing

• Research Interests: Relationship between religion and gender; women's leadership; among others.
• Committee: Andrea Hetling, Julie Rajan, Judith Gershon, and Abena Busia
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum Report entitled, “Building Long-term Supportive Housing for Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence.”

Holds an undergraduate degree in Religion from Capital University. Emily completed her Practicum at Dina’s Dwellings, a long-term residence facility established in New Brunswick to assist women survivors of domestic violence. Emily completed her Practicum during the first year when Dina’s Dwellings became operational. Her Practicum work allowed Emily to focus on the perspectives of female survivors residing in Dina’s Dwellings, particularly how women survivors of DV expressed what the space of Dina’s Dwellings meant to them as they moved through their journeys of healing.

• Research Interests: Transnational activist at the intersection of gender, social justice, and advocacy
• Committee: Radhika Balakrishnan, Mary Hawkesworth, Julie Rajan
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum, Manira focused on CWGL’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based-Violence Campaign to explore the importance that language plays in the process of uniting movements to meet common goals through the use of slogans that capture the mood of the moment and set it within a context.

With a media background spanning over 25 years and spread across all genres of communication, Manira Alva Pinto’s most recent work was scripting the award-winning documentary “Silent Screams- India’s Activism against Rape” which won a New York FIim Award. She produced and scripted several developmental films documenting best practices for UNDP-sponsored initiatives, the rebuilding of earthquake-devastated Gujarat, following women Sarpanch’s and assessing the efficacy of India’s famed self-help-group movement, She has been part of the content guideline team for shows that include the USAID-funded- “Sesame Street India” and the UNICEF-sponsored fictional series like “Jeena Isi ka Naam Hain” which targeted issues related to the girl -child.

• Research Interests: Intersection of environmental, economical and political issues impacting female sexuality within society. Kelle is also interested in examining transgender/gender non-conforming issues in relation to their revolutionary role in undermining sexism by dismantling traditional gender roles/norms.
• Committee: Co-Chairs Julie Rajan, Melinda Mangin, Sarah Tobias, Nikol Alexander-Floyd
• Thesis/Practicum: Thesis “Access Denied: The Case for Inclusive Sex Education for Special Education Students”

A graduate of William Paterson University in 2013, with a BA in Women’s and Gender Studies and Anthropology and a minor in Health Studies. In their year off, she continued to pursue activism by volunteering as a domestic violence victim advocate and also interned with a NYC non-profit organization called Re-Gender (formerly known as The National Council for Research on Women). In their spare time Kelle enjoys practicing martial arts, cooking, and riding her bicycle. Kelle is elated to be returning to academia, where they ultimately hope to remain, as they aspire to be a college professor.

• Research Interests: Postcolonial feminist theory, oral histories, hybrid identities, transnational work, and feminisms of the Global South.
• Committee: Mary Hawkesworth, Julie Rajan, Brittney Cooper
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum “Redefining Home through a Practicum Internship at Karamah Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights”

A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, where she majored in English and Journalism and minored in Religion. She fell deeply in love with the work of bell hooks and deeply out of love with her job as a research analyst during her first year after graduation, so she started a post-baccalaureate program in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and hasn't looked back since. Hiba's looking forward to figuring out for herself why everyone rolls their eyes when she tells them she's moving to Jersey.

• Committee: Mary Trigg, Samira Kawash, Cynthia Daniels
• Post-MA Employment/Education: Career Coach, alyssabest.com Co-founder and contributor, LYJnow.com Career Center Staff, American University
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum: Building an Inclusive Movement: Young Women's Leadership and the Future of Reproductive Justice with Pro-Choice Public Education Project (NYC)

Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Alyssa Best focused her graduate work on reproductive politics, feminist activism, and young women's leadership. She incorporated her graduate training into her pedagogy as an Instructor of Shaping a Life, a first-year mission course at Douglass College. She also spent her graduate career working at the Institute for Women's Leadership at Rutgers, which fueled her passion for leadership development. She completed her practicum at the Pro-Choice Public Education Project in NYC, where she served as the Leadership Coordinator of a national young women's leadership council. She currently serves as a career coach for college women and young professionals with the ultimate goal of helping others find and sustain lifelong careers in the feminist movement. 

• Committee: Cynthia Daniels, Ethel Brooks, Susan Carroll
• Post-MA Employment/Education: Communications Manager, The White House Project, NYC
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum: Advocacy, the State, and the Politics of Contraception with NARAL Pro-Choice NY (NYC)

Lara Cassell is originally from Brooklyn, New York. She received dual Bachelor's degrees from Stony Brook University, where she completed majors in Women's Studies and Humanities as well as minors in Philosophy and Studio Art. During her tenure at Rutgers, Lara focused on the field of reproductive politics, including public policy, the political economy of access, and the theoretical frameworks employed by feminists, the state, and anti-"choice" activists in lobbying for, and enactment of, reproductive policy. Lara conducted her practicum in the public policy department of NARAL Pro-Choice NY.

• Committee: Mary Gossy, Joanna Regulska, Julie Livingston
• Post-MA Employment/Education: Head Teacher Pre-K 4, Saint Stephen of Hungary School, New York, NY
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum: Perspectives from the Bottom Up: The Lived Experiences of Grassroots Women's Activism in Africa with Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood

• Committee: Cheryl Clarke, Samira Kawash, Beth Hutchison
• Post-MA Employment/Education: Program Faculty, Women's and Gender Studies, The College of New Jersey
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum: Bending the Boundaries of Identity: Creating & Editing a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning/Queer Youth Anthology with the Office of Diverse Community Affairs (Rutgers University)

Jessie Gamblereceived her B.A. with Specialized Honors from Drew University in May 2003. She majored in Women’s Studies and minored in Economics. While at Rutgers, Jesse conducted her practicum on LGBT youth with Graduate Professor Cheryl Clarke.

• Committee: Mary Trigg, Joanna Regulska, Carlos Decena
• Post-MA Employment/Education: Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, West Virginia University
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum: Feminist Experiential Learning with Institute for Women's Leadership (Rutgers University)

Cynthia Gorman received a B.A. in Political Science from Bates College and an M.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University. While at Rutgers, Cynthia directed the Community Leadership Action and Service Project (CLASP) at the Institute for Women's Leadership, a program which she developed through her Master's practicum with the Institute. After completing her PhD in 2013, Cynthia worked as an Instructor of Leadership Studies at West Virginia University. Her research focuses on the gender politics of nationalisms, the geopolitical context of human rights discourse, refugee-asylum law in the post-Cold War era, and the development of gender-based persecution jurisprudence in the United States. Other interests include community-based activism and feminist pedagogies.

• Committee: Yana Rodgers, Cheryl Clarke, Evan Stark
• Post-MA Employment/Education: Doula, Birth Justice Project, Bay Area, CA Non-profit Consultant, San Francisco, CA
• Thesis/Practicum: Practicum: Local, Global, or Virtual? Negotiating a Space In-Between for the Transnational Women's Human Rights Movement with International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (NYC)

Sarah's graduate work only galvanized her dedication to issues of gender-based violence. She has over ten years experience working to promote healthy and equitable communities, with emphasis on developing coordinated community response.