People

MA Alumni Listing

MA Alumni Listing

YingLing, Natasha

  • Education: BA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Majoring in Gender Studies and English.
  • Committee: Nicole Fleetwood, Julie Rajan, Nikol Alexander-Floyd
  • Thesis/Practicum: Co-Pilot: A Study of Disability, Criminality, & the “Post”-Human.Advisor: Dr. Nikol-Alexander Floyd

Transue, Laura

  • Education: BA from Cornell University
  • Job Placement: Laura currently works at iTV Studios, providing video production services at Rutgers University and designing workforce readiness opportunities for undergraduate media students. She also continues to develop and support independent film and digital media productions. Laura is currently teaching an undergraduate course, Capstone in Gender & Media at Women’s & Gender Studies.
  • Committee: Mary Hawkesworth, Harriet Davidson, and Ethel Brooks
  • Thesis/Practicum: “Inclusion as Innovation and Innovating Towards Inclusion: Lessons from the Making of a Short, Feminist Documentary Film.”
  • Dissertation: For her Practicum, Laura worked on the set of the short documentary film project entitled, ‘From the Boardinghouse to the Boardroom: 250 Years of Women at Rutgers,’ which was directed by documentary filmmaker June Cross. The film was produced by the Institute for Women’s Leadership as part of Rutgers University’s 250th anniversary celebrations to acknowledge the legacy of women in shaping the institution’s history and the revolutionary struggles these groups fought. While working on the film, Laura pondered unique challenges and adverse conditions of feminist filmmaking and (feminist) film education that had not previously been clear to her. Her inquiries about these adverse conditions led her to think about how they are worth articulating as they may resonate with common threads across feminist and women-centric media. Examining these phenomena, she concluded, would allow feminists to strategize around and/or through them, for example.

Srivastav, Karuna

  • Education: Graduated from Barnard College with a major in English.
  • Committee: Mary Hawkesworth, Nikol Alexander-Floyd, Julie Rajan
  • Post-MA Employment/Education: Karuna is currently completing law school at Georgetown University.
  • Thesis/Practicum: Practicum Site: Intersectionality in Action: How Cognizance of Multiple Identities Shapes the Work of Sakhi for South Asian Women"

Napatalung, Anne

  • Research Interests: Race, space, prison abolition, plants, birth and the body; logics of captivity and containment, surveillance and the sensorium, and the roles of midwives and healers of color in abolitionist and decolonial struggles. Anne is a community based doula, herbalist, Reiki practitioner, and vegan caterer passionate about reproductive freedom, healing justice, and plant knowledges.
  • Education: Received a B.A. in Communication and Studio Art from the University of Tampa and an M.A. in Communication, with a Certificate in Mediation and Negotiation, from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
  • Committee: Brittney Cooper, Mary Hawkesworth, and Kyla Schuller
  • Post-MA Employment/Education: Anne is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In Fall 2017 she embarked on the next part of her academic journey as a doctoral student in UCSC’s Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies programs.
  • Thesis/Practicum: Thinking Local, Thinking Global: Race, Policy, & Reproductive Freedom; Practicum Sites: Milwaukee, WI, Brooklyn, NY, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Ramallah, Palestine

Wallace, Ann

  • Dissertation: Practicum Site: Thinking Local, Thinking Global: Race, Policy, & Reproductive Freedom

Gebreegziabher, N'Bsrat

  • Committee: Julie Rajan, Judith Gerson, Abena Busia
  • Thesis/Practicum: Practicum Site: Horror @ Home: Affordable & Permanent Housing for Women Survivors of Domestic Violence at Dina’s Dwellings
  • Dissertation: N’Bsrat Debessai is a graduate of the University of Asmara, (Eritrea) majoring in History. She worked as a graduate assistant at the Eritrean Institute of Technology in the Department of History for four years. She was a tutor and a stand-alone-lecturer for World History and African History classes.

Allred, Kevin

  • Dissertation: MPhil Practicum Site: Politicizing Beyonce

Alumni MA Program Listing

Cantrell, Amber

  • Research Interests: Fat studies, disability studies.
  • Education: B.A., Women's and Gender Studies, College of Charleston, 2013.

Bio

Amber is a recent graduate of the College of Charleston with a BA in Women's and Gender Studies. Amber's current research examines the intersection of fat studies and disability studies through a feminist disability studies framework. Her senior thesis project (2012-2013) focused on the meaning of fatness and the figure of the fat lady in the nineteenth century American freak show and the cultural transition to modern spectacles of the fat figure, with a focus on the reality television show The Biggest Loser. Amber is interested in the practical applications of her research in various kinds of institutional policies, and is regularly irritated by news of various policies, from elementary schools to insurance companies, that police the fat body. Although her primary research interests revolve around fatness and disability, Amber also can be found reading romance novels, fan-fiction, and young adult novels in her spare time and dreaming up new research projects that allow her to ship Kirk and Spock as part of her academic career.

Mescal Gunstensen, Sheilagh

  • Research Interests: Using a feminist lens, exploring domestic and international Gender Based Violence rooted in Politics/laws; Religion, Patriarchy and White Supremacy.
  • Education: 1986 Bachelors of Science in Nursing Queens' University, Canada
  • Committee: Julie Rajan (Chair), Charlotte Bunch, Brittney Cooper
  • Thesis/Practicum: Practicum: “Transforming Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Advocacy Training through the Framework of Intersectionality, in Mercer County, New Jersey."

Bio

I first became interested in Gender-Based Violence 35 years ago as a young nurse in the ICU, my patient had been thrown from her moving car by her husband. Police investigators at that time were aware of multiple instances of domestic violence but it was not until he had harmed her so gravely that the law and custom allowed them to pursue him in any meaningful way. She died from her injuries. Since that time I have worked independently to understand the complexity of GBV. I have worked for the past several years as a volunteer victims’ advocate with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and more recently as a court advocate for domestic violence survivors. Also in these intervening years, advocate for domestic violence survivors. Also in these intervening years, I have lived in 2 other countries, raised a family, helped found a school, taken classes in the W&GS department, and worked in a variety of philanthropic roles.

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