About the Authors
Khatera Afghan is a PhD candidate in gender, women, and sexuality studies, with a concentration in social justice education, at Oregon State University. As a Fulbright scholar, she completed her master’s degree in public administration at Ohio University. Khatera’s research focuses on decolonial education, Islamic feminism, and political activism.
Kiana Anderson is a PhD student at the University of Arizona whose research is focused on Asian American and local identities in the Hawai’i islands. Born and raised in Hilo, Hawai’i, she uses much of her work to honor the ancestral lineage and stories of the past/present/future—exploring Indigenous thought and practices within academia.
Carrie N. Baker, JD, PhD is the Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College. Her scholarly research centers on the intersections of gender and race in law and policy, focusing in particular on sexual harassment, sex trafficking, and reproductive health, rights, and justice. She has published three books: The Women’s Movement against Sexual Harassment, which won the National Women’s Studies Association 2008 Sara A. Whaley Book Prize; Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade: Gender, Race and Politics; and Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases, and Practice, with Jennifer Drobac and Rigel Oliveri. She is a regular writer and contributing editor at Ms. magazine.
Tracy R. Butts, upon the completion of her PhD in English (University of Georgia, 2001), joined the faculty at Chico State as a professor of American and African American literature. A native of Norfolk, Virginia, Butts earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Virginia Tech. Prior to her appointment as dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, she served as the director of multicultural and gender studies, chief diversity officer, and chair of the Department of English. She is a firm believer that with privilege comes great responsibility, which is why service is a top professional priority for her. Butts is a recipient of the Lantis Endowed University Professorship, the A. S. Women’s Center Carol Burr Lifetime Achievement Award, the Black Grad Celebration Outstanding Faculty Award, and the 2015/16 Outstanding Faculty Service Award.
Patti Duncan is the editor of Feminist Formations and an associate professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Oregon State University, where she specializes in women of color feminisms and transnational feminisms. She is author of Tell This Silence: Asian American Women Writers and the Politics of Speech (University of Iowa Press); coeditor of Mothering in East Asian Communities: Politics and Practices (Demeter Press); and coeditor of Women’s Lives around the World: A Global Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO).
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt is the Edith Green Distinguished Professor in the English Department at Linfield University in Oregon and co-coordinates the gender studies program. She is the author of monograph The Postcolonial Citizen: The Intellectual Migrant and is the lead editor of Civility, Free Speech and Academic Freedom in Higher Education: Faculty on the Margins. Her scholarship and creative writing are widely published and circulated in various literary and scholarly journals. Dutt-Ballerstadt also serves as the editor for Inside Higher Ed’s “Conditionally Accepted,” a column for marginalized faculty in higher education.
Folasade (Folah) Fletcher is a Nigerian feminist and women and girl-child advocate. She is currently a behavioral specialist with the Department of Human Services in the state of Oregon. Her research interests cut across transnational feminist perspectives on interpersonal violence, gender equity, and social justice for women and especially girl-children in Africa. Folasade holds a BEd, MEd in counseling from the University of Ibadan and University of Lagos, Nigeria, and an MA in women, gender, and sexuality studies from Oregon State University. Folasade has held several leadership positions and acts as a facilitator for incorporating and encouraging intellectual and social development in students, youth, and adults. She is a valued speaker, writer, and resourceful educator who has a proven ability to enhance individuals’ performance to shape a better world.
Shannon Garvin studied leadership and spiritual formation at George Fox University, where she received her doctoral degree. She worked as a pastor, community organizer, and cared for individuals with end-stage cancer. She taught graduate school online, focusing on students who are immigrants or in Second and Third World countries. She is the author of the chapter on Southeast Asia in Women and Religion: Global Lives in Focus. She is passionate about people’s ability to learn and grow. She lives in her native Oregon, where her children currently attend university.
Janell Hobson is a professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of three books, When God Lost Her Tongue: Historical Consciousness and the Black Feminist Imagination, Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture, and Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender. She is also the editor of two collections, The Routledge Companion to Black Women’s Cultural Histories and Are All the Women Still White? Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms. She has published extensively in academic, popular, and online platforms as a public scholar. Her research covers Black women’s histories and media representations, including such historic icons as Harriet Tubman and pop stars like Beyoncé. She regularly writes for Ms. and contributes a column on “Black Feminist in Public.”
M. Jayamala began to teach as an assistant professor in the Centre for Women’s Studies, PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, in 2005. With a doctorate in sociology, specializing in feminist research and teaching, she has coordinated many outreach programs and has organized funded workshops and conferences in women’s studies. Jayamala has hosted and co-led study abroad programs to the United States and in India. She has received research awards from the University Grants Commission and National Commission for Women and has worked as a research associate in an Indian Council of Social Science-funded research project. She has presented papers at national and international seminars and conferences, has published research articles in journals, and was editor for a women’s studies book required for introductory courses.
Sharadha Kalyanam is a third-year PhD student at Oregon State University (OSU) in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, with a minor in queer studies. Their areas of research interest include feminist cultural studies, queer of color critiques, queer and sexual politics in the Indian subcontinent, and transnational feminist studies. As a graduate instructor, Sharadha has taught the courses Women Worldwide, Women in World Cinema, Gender and Transnational Activisms, and Introduction to Queer Studies. Prior to their work at OSU, they earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, and worked as a news reporter covering women and child rights, queer and trans rights, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic in southern India. They have also remotely served in grant writing and advocacy communications roles focused on legal aid projects in Cameroon and educational projects in Papua New Guinea.
Kamalaveni is an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s Studies, Bharathiar University Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. She has guided doctoral scholars in women’s studies, and she has organized international conferences on gender issues. She the recipient of grant awards from Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, Human Rights Commission. She has developed content on the girl-child in society under e-parthasala, edited books, and published articles in national and international journals. She has also served as an editor for the International Journal of Social Sciences Review.
Rebecca J. Lambert has a PhD in women, gender, and sexuality studies from Oregon State University. Her research focuses on affective engagement in feminist coalitions. She is a visiting assistant professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at Syracuse University.
Janet Lockhart has dual master’s degrees in speech-language pathology and interdisciplinary studies (scientific and technical communication, archaeology, and women’s studies). She is a pediatric speech-language pathologist working with special needs children, with an interest in multicultural issues and the development of bilingualism in young children. This is her seventh collaboration with Susan Shaw; their publications include Making Connections: Your Education, the World Community, and You; Writing for Change: Raising Awareness of Difference, Power, and Discrimination; The Power of Words: Examining the Language of Ethnic, Gender, and Sexual Orientation Bias (for Learning for Justice, formerly Teaching Tolerance); Women’s Lives around the World: A Global Encyclopedia, winner of the 2018 American Book Fest Award in Women’s Issues; and Women and Religion: Global Lives in Focus.
Amanda Milburn is director of global education Oregon in London, the academic center of the University of Oregon in the United Kingdom. She holds a BA and an MA from Cardiff University and a PhD from Swansea University. Her academic specialisms are gender, class, and national identity in England and Wales. Amanda was previously the chair of the Association of American Study Abroad Programmes in the United Kingdom and currently serves on the Forum on Education Abroad Standards of Good Practice Consensus Committee
Susan M. Shaw is a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Oregon State University. With Janet Lee, she is coauthor of Gendered Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. She is author of Reflective Faith: A Theological Toolbox for Women and God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society, and is coauthor of Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide (with Grace Ji-Sun Kim) and Girls Rock! Fifty Years of Women Making Music (with Mina Carson and Tisa Lewis). She is the general editor of Women’s Lives around the World: A Global Encyclopedia and Women and Religion: Global Lives in Focus. She is a senior columnist for Baptist News Global and a regular contributor to Ms. magazine online. She has published in Inside Higher Education, The Conversation, the Berkeley Forum, Good Faith Media, and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. She is also founding coeditor of the ADVANCE Journal.
Paula Mangum Sheridan, PhD, LCSW, is a social work educator and is active in organizations that promote voter accessibility. She is a licensed clinical social worker and has been affiliated with undergraduate social work programs in Denmark, Finland, and the United States. In fall 2021, she was an instructor in the Doctor of Social Work Program at Loma Linda University.
Marcela Rodrigues-Sherley is a New York City-based journalist. She is a Stabile Investigative Fellow and MS candidate at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Rodrigues-Sherley holds a BA from Smith College, where she received highest honors for her senior thesis and was awarded the Schuster Van Dyne Prize for exceptional research in queer studies and the Valeria Dean Burgess Stevens Prize for excellent work in gender studies. Rodrigues-Sherley’s work can be found in Ms. magazine, Prism, VeryWell, Labor New York, Women’s Media Center, Daily Hampshire Gazette, and Supermajority News.
Mehra Shirazi is an associate professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Oregon State University, where she focuses on health inequities among immigrant and refugee women and communities. As a bicultural, bilingual community-engaged scholar, she is committed to addressing issues of health within a transnational context.
Luhui Whitebear (Coastal Chumash) is an assistant professor for the School of Language, Culture, and Society at Oregon State University (OSU) and serves as the center director of the Kaku-Ixt Mana Ina Haws on campus. She received her PhD in women, gender, and sexuality studies with a graduate minor in queer studies from OSU. Whitebear is also a mother, poet, and activist who is passionate about disrupting systems of oppression and creating positive change in society.
