Learn about what others have chosen to study and do through this innovative program.
Year: 2020
Dissertation Title: Reproducing and Resisting the Binary: Discursive Conceptualizations of Gender Variance in Children’s Literature
Current Occupation: Dr. Ali Ameera is a post-doctoral researcher
Allyson Mitchell is a Toronto-based maximalist artist, working predominantly in sculpture, installation and film. Her practice melds feminism and pop culture to trouble contemporary representations of women, sexuality and the body largely through the use of reclaimed textile and abandoned craft.
Year: 2003
Dissertation Title: A Justice of their Own: The Toronto Women’s Court, 1913-1934.
Current Occupation: Dr. Amanda Glasbeek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University. Her research centres on: feminist criminology; feminist sociolegal studies; feminist surveillance studies.
Year: 2008
Current Occupation: Dr. Amber Fletcher is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Academic Director of the Community Engagement and Research Centre, University of Regina. She is also the Academic Director of the Community Engagement and Research Centre at the U of R. Her research examines how gender and social inequality shape the lived experience of climate change through the lens of climate disasters (flooding, wildfire, and drought), focusing on rural communities in the Prairie region. Dr. Fletcher has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and major reports on the topics of gender, environment, climate disaster, and research methods. In 2017, she published the book Women in Agriculture Worldwide with Dr. Wendee Kubik. Dr. Fletcher has served as a consultant to the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme and as an official delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She is a contributing author to a 2019 special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is former President of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. Dr. Fletcher holds two medals from the Governor General of Canada for her research and advocacy on gender equality in Canada. In 2020 she was the Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
Year: 2005
Current Occupation: Dr. Anh Hua is an Associate Professor in the Department of Women's Studies at San Diego State University, California. Her areas of research include cultural studies and the humanities, critical race feminism, literature, film, and the arts by women of color. She has published in the journals Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, Feminist Formations, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture, Asian Women, African and Black Diaspora, the Journal of International Women's Studies, and Canadian Woman's Studies and in the anthologies Diaspora, Memory, and Identity: A Search for Home and Emotion, Place and Culture. At the moment, she is working on four book projects: Diasporic Decolonial Feminisms: Literature, Film and the Arts; Ginkgo Memories: A Chinese Diasporic Feminist Memoir; Cherries and Pear Nectar, My Love: A Collection of Poetry; Aurora and the City of Twelve Sisters: A Children's Book in Poems.
Carla Rice is a Canadian educator, project director, consultant, speaker and author on women's body image issues. She is a Tier II Canadian Research Chair in care, gender and relationships in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences at the University of Guelph.
Year: 2004
Dissertation Title: Becoming Women: Body Image, Identity and Difference in the Passage to Womanhood
Current Occupation: Dr. Carla Rice is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Feminist Studies and Social Practice, Founding and Academic Director of Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice and Principal Investigator of the SSHRC Partnership Grant, Bodies In Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life
Year: 2013
Dissertation Title: (Re)Producing Nation at the Supreme Court of Canada: Identity, Memory, History and Equality in R v. Kapp
Current Occupation: Dr. Caroline Hodes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Lethbridge. She has published work on settler colonialism, constitutional law, masculinities, and intersectionality in the Canadian courts. She has also presented papers at a number of national and international conferences. Her most recent work can be read in Feminist Legal Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, The Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, the Journal of International Women's Studies, Studies in Costume & Performance, and Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice. Her current projects include “Unsettling Law’s Archive” currently under contract with University of Toronto Press and partially funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Explore program and the Community Research Excellence Award Program (CREDO), and "Race and the City," a book about racism in Lethbridge that is currently in press with Athabasca University Press. She is a co-founder of SNAC+, support network for students and academics of colour + allies, and a co-applicant with Drs. Glenda Bonifacio (principal investigator) and Saurya Das (co-applicant) on the R.E.D., Rights, Equity and Diversity Project, funded by the Alberta Human Rights Commission. She teaches courses in Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis, Feminist Legal Theory, Human Rights and Political Economies, The Charter, Gender and Social Change, and Feminist Critical Race and Decolonial Theories. She has taught graduate seminars in Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis and Indigenous Law and Public Policy, and she supervises students at both the MA and PhD level. Her students have gone on to pursue careers in Indigenous/Crown Relations, Academics, Law, Political Science, municipal politics, EDI, and anti-violence organizing. A strong advocate for academic activism, Caroline’s research, pedagogy and practice is aimed at bridging distances and filling gaps in how we think about knowledge production, the material culture of law and institutions, pedagogy, and community/university relations in settler-colonial societies.
Year: 1998
Current Occupation: Cathy Murphy is the Executive Director at the Irish Canadian Immigration Centre, Vice President at EUCCAN (euccan.com), and the Secretary of the Board for the Lua Shayenne Dance Company (luashayenne.com).
Year: 2011
Dissertation Title: Changing Practice, Changing Self: Examining the Relation Between Women’s Body, Practices and Subjectivity
Current Occupation: Dr. Claire Carter is an Associate Professor in the Gender, Religion, and Critical Studies Dept at University of Regina. Their research centres on relationship between movement / exercise and embodiment of gender within changing dynamics of queer and trans communities in Canada.
Year:
Current Occupation: Cody Yorke is an associate at Outten & Golden in New York, and a member of the firm’s Executives and Professionals Practice Group and its Financial Services Practice Group. She represents employees, partners, co-founders and consultants in the negotiation and drafting of employment, severance, independent contractor, international assignment and restrictive covenants agreements. She also counsels individuals and groups of individuals with respect to employment-related issues such as deferred compensation issues, lift-outs, restructurings and corporate transactions. Ms. Yorke has experience working with individuals in a wide variety of industries – including financial services, healthcare, law, technology, media & entertainment, consumer goods & services, and fashion & luxury retail. She is a regular contributor to the Firm’s blog.
Year: 2020
Dissertation Title: Big, Beautiful Affect: Exploring the Emotional Environment of Bbw Social Events and its Relationship to Fat Women’s Embodiment
Current Occupation: "The Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies program at York provided me with the opportunity to study topics of interest, conduct important research, and network with other academics whose politics and interest in issues of social justice aligned with my own. It was a fantastic experience! I was never interested in taking a traditional academic path, so my time in the program felt special because I was able to focus closely on my learning and not be so concerned with where the credential would get me in the end. The program gave me a chance to hone research, writing, time management, and analytical skills that I rely on heavily in my current position. I think it’s important for anyone starting a PhD program to know that it’s possible to find gainful employment outside of the university with a PhD. "
Year: 2017
Dissertation Title: Personal Touches, Public Legacies: An Ethnography of LGBT Libraries and Archives
Current Occupation: Dr. Danielle Cooper is Manager, Collaborations and Research, at Ithaka S+R
Year: 2005
Dissertation Title: To Take a Load Off: A Contextual Analysis of Gendered Meaning(s) in Experiences of Breast Reduction Surgery
Current Occupation: Dr. Diane Naugler is Director, Future Students and Community Engagement at North Island College. They continue activism and a research program in DEI, leadership, and gender studies.
Year: 2003
Dissertation Title: Trauma's Narratives: Diasporic Histories and Ineffable Truths
Current Occupation: Dr. Dina Georgis is an Associate Professor at Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto.
Year: 2009
Dissertation Title: Sex for Work: How Policy Affects Sexual Labour, an Argument for Labour Legitimacy and Social Change
Current Occupation: Dr. Emily Van Der Meulen is a Full Professor in the Department of Criminology at X University.
Year: 2018
Current Occupation: Hillary Di Menna is a Draw The Line Campaign Coordinator and Social Media Consultant for the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres.
Year: 2015
Dissertation Title: Unsettling Citizenship: Movements for Indigenous Sovereignty and Migrant Justice in a Settler City
Current Occupation: Dr. Jennifer L. Johnson, PhD, holds degrees in Women’s and Gender Studies from York University, the University of Oxford and Queen’s University. Her community-based research and teaching are guided by deep commitments to critical pedagogies and methodologies that open onto better understandings of gender, race, and sexuality in un/paid work, space and place, and equitable workplaces. She is co-editor of Feminist Issues: Gender, Race, and Class 6th edition (Pearson Education, 2017), Feminist Praxis Revisited: Critical Reflections on University-Community Engagement (WLUP, 2019) and Maternal Geographies: Mothering In and Out of Place (Demeter Press, 2019). Jen was Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies (Thorneloe University, federated with Laurentian University) from 2007-2021. She contributes to many organizations through board membership and volunteer work for policy development and research including the Sex Work Advisory Network of Sudbury, and YWCA Sudbury & Genevra House. She is a past and present editorial board member of Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice/Études critiques sur le genre, la culture, et la justice sociale.
Year: 2010
Dissertation Title: Reproducing America: Examining Mainstream Media Narratives of Four White Pregnant Women in the U.S. Nation, 2000–2006
Current Occupation: Dr. Jennifer Musial is an Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at New Jersey City University.
Year: 2003
Current Occupation: Kim Phillips is a Psychotherapist in Private Practice.
Year: 2009
Dissertation Title: Critical Left Legalism: Taking Feminist and Queer Legal Theorists to Court
Current Occupation: Dr. Lara Karaiain is an Associate Professor at Carleton University. Her research examines the intersections between sexuality, technology, representation, bodily experience, and legal regulation. She approaches these topics empirically and theoretically and employ a post/intersectional lens. Her current SSHRC funded research—“Sex/Crime in the Era of Immersive, Interactive, and Intelligent Technologies" examines how sextech—new technologies developed or applied to enhance, innovate, or disrupt human sexual experience—affects us, and how these affects sustain or destabilize legal constructions of ‘sex crime’. Her previous research analyzed the governance of feminist, queer, and adolescent sexual expression.
Year: 2020
Dissertation Title: Shimmy, Shake or Shudder?: A Feminist Ethnographic Analysis of Sexualization and Hypersexualization in Competitive Dance
Current Occupation: Dr. Lisa Sandlos is an Academic/Contract Faculty at York University (School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, School of Kinesiology and Health Science, Individualized Studies and the Faculty of Education). Building on her doctoral thesis, a main trajectory of Dr. Sandlos’ research focuses on the sexualization of young female dancers and the impacts of this trend on dance education, public perceptions of dance, and girls’ psychological and social development. Another branch of her work is accomplished through Soma-City, an organization that uses interdisciplinary methods of research and teaching to explore topics at the intersection of human movement and landscape design.
Year:
Current Occupation: Dr. Lori Leach is a long-time sessional professor at the University of New Brunswick, teaching in the fields of gender and technology, the sociology of technology, and women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Development and implementation of a national learning support program for apprentices, called, “VLS”, Virtual Learning Strategy Program. We are currently validating a successful model of support designed and successfully operated in NB being integrated into other government apprenticeship systems nationally. In addition, we are conducting research to validate the use of online psycho-educational assessments, as well as an online learning disability screener tool we developed. This is a federally funded project with an end date of 2026 and an investment of $10M.
Year: 2020
Dissertation Title: Stereo/Types: Women DJs Sound Off
Current Occupation: Dr. Maren Hancock is a Lecturer in Popular Music at the University of Wolverhampton School of Performing Arts
Year: 2011
Dissertation Title: Hybrid, Cyborg, Queen: What Mommyblogs Teach Us About Motherhood
Current Occupation: Dr. May Friedman is a Professor in the School of Social Work/School of Fashion at X University. The majority of her research program focuses on embodiment, especially around fat and race. Most recently she has worked on a number of projects using digital storytelling methods and have also used photography to use treasured garments as a form of ethnography.
Year: 2015
Dissertation Title: Queer and Trans Madness: Biomedical and Social Perspectives on Mental Distress
Current Occupation: Dr. Merrick Pilling is an Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies in the School of Social Work at the University of Windsor. Dr. Pilling's forthcoming monograph is entitled Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice. He is co-editor with Dr. Andrea Daley of Interrogating Psychiatric Narratives of Madness: Documented Lives, which is forthcoming in Oct 2021.
Year: 2002
Current Occupation: Dr. Sarah Rudrum is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Acadia University. She holds a PhD from the Institution for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (UBC) and an MA in Women's and Gender Studies (York). She is concerned with issues of health equity, particularly in relation to gender relations and transnational (global) health activities. Her book, Global Health and The Village: Transnational Contexts Governing Birth in Northern Uganda, is forthcoming with the University of Toronto Press. Other current research investigates public health messaging on male circumcision as HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, and maternity care closer to home including in rural Nova Scotia.
Somali Women's Study Centre was founded by Dr. Shukria Dini, a Somali-Canadian scholar who has extensively researched and written on issues contributing to the understanding of the challenges facing Somali women.
Year: 2001
Dissertation Title: Im/Proper Subjects? An Inquiry into Social Differences as Knowledge and Pedagogy in Women’s Studies
Current Occupation: Dr. Susanne Luhmann is Associate Professor and the former Chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta. From 2018 to 2020 she was Director of Intersections of Gender, one of five signature areas of research excellence at the University of Alberta. Luhmann’s research interests include: the institutionalization of intersectional Women’s and Gender Studies; feminist and queer pedagogies; trauma and cultural memory. Her work has been published in journals such as Topia, New German Critique, Women in German Yearbook. She is co-author of Troubling Women’s Studies: Pasts, Presents and Possibilities (2004) and co-edited Feminist Praxis Revisited: Critical Reflections on University-Community Engagement (2019). Luhmann is currently finishing two projects, a co-edited collection entitled Prairie Sexualities: Theories, Archives, and Communities, and a monograph tentatively entitled Domesticating the Nazi Past: Gender, Generation, and the Familial Turn in German Cultural Memory.
Year: 2019
Dissertation Title: The Sexual Politics of Clinical Psychoanalysis and Transgender Mental Health
Current Occupation: Dr. Tobias Wiggins is an Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Athabasca University: Coordinator, University Certificate in Counselling Women Nov 2019–present. He is the primary coordinator of a one-year certificate specifically designed for those who work with women in crisis intervention. The program applies feminist theory to the practice of counseling women in these settings. Research: Transgender Mental Health During COVID-19: Digital World Building in Alberta. Athabasca University, Alberta. June 2020–May 2021. This timely research aims to trace and catalogue the emerging effects of COVID on transgender communities’ mental health in Alberta. Transgender people’s use of digital worldmaking and technological kinship will be centralized as a unique community apparatus, commissioned in the face of isolation, discrimination, and illness. Interviews conducted using feminist, community-based and queer methodologies. Project funded through Athabasca University’s COVID-19 Special Study Grant and the AVPR Special Research Opportunities Fund.
Year: 2009
Dissertation Title: Mistress of the Blue Castle: Phebe Florence Miller and Her Writing Life in Newfoundland
Current Occupation: Dr. Vicki Hallett is an Associate Professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland
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The Graduate Program in Gender, Feminist & Women's Studies at York is an exciting environment to pursue innovative, socially engaging, career-ready education. Contact our Graduate Program Assistant to learn more.