Bürge Abiral
Doctoral Student, Cultural Studies, Sabanci University
Bürge Abiral is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She received her BA from Williams College and her MA in Cultural Studies from Sabancı University, Turkey. Her research interests include human- environment relations, climate change, agriculture, political violence, and gender and sexuality. Her translation of Toward an Anthropology of Women (ed.
Bürge Abiral
PhD Student, Johns Hopkins University
Bürge Abiral is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She received her BA from Williams College and her MA in Cultural Studies from Sabancı University, Turkey. Her research interests include human- environment relations, climate change, agriculture, political violence, and gender and sexuality. Her translation of Toward an Anthropology of Women (ed. Rayna Reiter, 1975) was published in Turkish in 2015. She was a member of the organizing committee of Gendered Memories of War and Political Violence Young Researchers Conference, which was held in Sabancı University in April 2014.
Working Group Affiliation
Fatemeh Adlparvar
Doctoral Student, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Fatemeh Adlparvar is a recent graduate of the Narrative Medicine program. She will begin her graduate studies at the Mailman School of Public Health where she hopes to study the intersections of narrative medicine, social work, and public health. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley with a major in Environmental Science with an Education minor. She went on to complete her MSW at Columbia School of Social Work, with a minor in Law and a concentration in health, mental health, & disability.
Fatemeh Adlparvar
Graduate Student, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Fatemeh Adlparvar is a recent graduate of the Narrative Medicine program. She will begin her graduate studies at the Mailman School of Public Health where she hopes to study the intersections of narrative medicine, social work, and public health. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley with a major in Environmental Science with an Education minor. She went on to complete her MSW at Columbia School of Social Work, with a minor in Law and a concentration in health, mental health, & disability. She hopes to become a physician and work in a community health clinic in service of people who are homeless, living with serious mental health conditions, and substance abuse. Her work examines the impact of narrative medicine workshops on young adults in developing self-reflection, empathy, and attentive listening skills. She aspires to impact health care policy on a federal level with the goal of providing increased health and mental health care services to underserved communities. Fatemeh currently interns with the Bellevue Literary Review and serves as the School of Professional Studies Student Association (SPSSA) Secretary and Disability Chair.
Working Group Affiliation
R. Ertuğ Altınay
Doctoral Student, Performance Studies, New York University
Rüstem Ertuğ Altınay is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Sociology, and his M.A. degree in Philosophy from Bogazici University. Ertuğ’s primary fields of research are the politics of gender and sexuality in Turkey, with a focus on artistic and everyday performance, visual practices, fashion, and queer historiography.
R. Ertuğ Altınay
PhD Candidate, New York University
Rüstem Ertuğ Altınay is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Sociology, and his M.A. degree in Philosophy from Bogazici University. Ertuğ’s primary fields of research are the politics of gender and sexuality in Turkey, with a focus on artistic and everyday performance, visual practices, fashion, and queer historiography. His essays have been published or are forthcoming in peer-reviewed journals, including the Trans- and Fashion special issues of Women’s Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Women’s History, Transgender Studies Quarterly, the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, Radical History Review, and Feminist Media Studies as well as various edited volumes. His dissertation, entitled “Dressing for Utopia: Fashion, Performance, and the Politics of Everyday Life in Turkey (1923-2013),” explores how the body of the national subject has been defined in relation to the multiple and shifting utopian political projects throughout the Republican history of Turkey, and the role of fashion and embodied practices in regulating the politics of subjectivity and belonging.
Ertuğ’s research has been supported by the Turkish Cultural Foundation Doctoral Fellowship in Turkish Culture and Arts and the History Project Research Grant (Joint Center for History and Economics, Harvard University and University of Cambridge) as well as fellowships and grants from New York University. He has also held residential fellowships at the New Islamic Public Sphere Program of the University of Copenhagen, the Remarque Institute at New York University, Orient Institute Istanbul, Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Arni Magnusson Institute for Icelandic Studies, and the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research at the University of Salzburg. Ertuğ is also a playwright, translator, and theater professional.
Working Group Affiliation
Odelia Bay
Doctoral Student, Disability Rights, Columbia Law School
Odelia Bay is a master’s student at Columbia Law School where she hopes to specialize in disability rights in North America, with a focus on comparative constitutional and civil rights jurisprudence. Odelia received her J.D. from the University of Ottawa in Canada and was admitted to the Ontario bar in 2012. She worked with one of Canada’s leading labor and civil rights law firms and has also participated in disability-related work with the Canadian Human Rights Commission and a community legal clinic in Ottawa.
Odelia Bay
Columbia Law School
Odelia Bay is a master’s student at Columbia Law School where she hopes to specialize in disability rights in North America, with a focus on comparative constitutional and civil rights jurisprudence. Odelia received her J.D. from the University of Ottawa in Canada and was admitted to the Ontario bar in 2012. She worked with one of Canada’s leading labor and civil rights law firms and has also participated in disability-related work with the Canadian Human Rights Commission and a community legal clinic in Ottawa. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Odelia worked as a journalist in radio and television. In 2011, she published an article in the Critical Disability Discourse, a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal, examining the Supreme Court of Canada’s decisions in cases involving the intersection of gender and mental health.
Joshua Bennett
Doctoral Candidate, English, Princeton University
Joshua Bennett is a second-year doctoral candidate in the Department of English at Princeton University. His academic interests include but are not limited to: black studies, disability studies, affect, animal studies, and 19th century Afro-Protestantism(s). In addition to his graduate work at Princeton, Joshua is a also a full-time performance artist, and has recited his original work at events such as The Sundance Film Festival, the NAACP Image Awards, the ESPN documentary "One Night in Vegas," and President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at The White House.
Joshua Bennett
Department of English, Princeton University
Joshua Bennett is a second-year doctoral candidate in the Department of English at Princeton University. His academic interests include but are not limited to: black studies, disability studies, affect, animal studies, and 19th century Afro-Protestantism(s). In addition to his graduate work at Princeton, Joshua is a also a full-time performance artist, and has recited his original work at events such as The Sundance Film Festival, the NAACP Image Awards, the ESPN documentary "One Night in Vegas," and President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at The White House.
Christopher Cadham
Doctoral Student, Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University
Christopher is a second year Master of Public Health student at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences. His certificate is in History, Ethics and Law. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research interest is in using ethics to assess how policies in the fields of public health and medicine work to balance efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Christopher Cadham
Graduate Student, Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Christopher is a second year Master of Public Health student at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences. His certificate is in History, Ethics and Law. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research interest is in using ethics to assess how policies in the fields of public health and medicine work to balance efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness. His fascination with precision medicine stems from the anthropology of the body and the implications that precision medicine has on phenomenological experience. Essentially, how can the body be changed without the mind (or experience of the mind) be changed? His year of public health studies has raised further questions about the efficacy of precision medicine specifically with regard to notions of justice. The history of public health repeatedly shows public, rather than precision have been the most effective interventions for improving health outcomes. Public interventions in water, hygiene and sanitation, vaccination programs and robust health systems have and continue to prevent millions of deaths worldwide. Yet, the recent turn in the United States and other countries has been towards the individualized precision medicine. In addition to being an Associate Fellow of the Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, and Culture working group, Christopher is also a Philanthropy Fellow at the New York Community Trust in the Health and People with Special Needs, and the Environment portfolios. He has also interned at Columbia University’s Earth Institute as well as at the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS.
Working Group Affiliation
Henry Castillo
Doctoral Student, Cultural Studies, New York University
Henry Castillo is a doctoral student in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. He holds a B.A. in Applied Linguistics (Honors) from the University of California--Los Angeles and an M.A. in Performance Studies form New York University. His research interests include race and ethnicity; women, gender, and sexuality; memory and "Intangible Cultural Heritage" in the Americas; Blackness in Latin America; and Afro-Colombian "heritage" practices and performance.
Henry Castillo
Cultural Studies, NYU
Henry Castillo is a doctoral student in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. He holds a B.A. in Applied Linguistics (Honors) fromt he University of California--Los Angeles and an M.A. in Performance Studies form New York University. His research interests include race and ethnicitiy; women, gender, and sexuality; memory and "Intangible Cultural Heritage" in the Americas; Blackness in Latin America; and Afro-Colombian "heritage" practices and performance. Outside academia, he is an actor and former member of the Colombian avant-garde theatre group Teatro Experimental de Cali and was led by the late Maestro Enrique Buenaventura. Henry also collaborates with the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics as Editorial Assistant of digital books.
Working Group Affiliation
Stephanie Chen
Graduate Student, Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University
Stephanie Chen, B.A., is currently working at the Center for OCD and Related Disorders on studies relating to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) at New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). Stephanie graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in Psychology in 2012. Prior to joining the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at NYSPI, she coordinated a joint-project study on medication adherence at Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia University. Stephanie’s research interest is finding the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders. After completing her M.A.
Stephanie Chen
Graduate Student, Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University
Stephanie Chen, B.A., is currently working at the Center for OCD and Related Disorders on studies relating to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) at New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). Stephanie graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in Psychology in 2012. Prior to joining the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at NYSPI, she coordinated a joint-project study on medication adherence at Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia University. Stephanie’s research interest is finding the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders. After completing her M.A. degree in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, Stephanie hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
Working Group Affiliation
Katherine Cohn
Katherine Cohn is a Master's student in Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University in the MODA Program.
Katherine Cohn
Katherine Cohn is a Master's student in Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University in the MODA Program.
César Colón-Montijo
Graduate Student, Music, Columbia University
César Colón-Montijo is a journalist and doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at Columbia University. He obtained a Master's in anthropology and audiovisual communication from the University of Barcelona, Spain in 2005, and previously completed a B. A. in communications at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus in 2003. César is the editor of the Cocinando Suave: Ensayos de Salsa en Puerto Rico (2015), a landmark collection of scholarly, historical, and journalistic essays, poems, and photo-essays about the histories of salsa.
César Colón-Montijo
Graduate Student, Music, Columbia University
César Colón-Montijo is a journalist and doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at Columbia University. He obtained a Master's in anthropology and audiovisual communication from the University of Barcelona, Spain in 2005, and previously completed a B. A. in communications at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus in 2003. César is the editor of the Cocinando Suave: Ensayos de Salsa en Puerto Rico (2015), a landmark collection of scholarly, historical, and journalistic essays, poems, and photo-essays about the histories of salsa. He recently published Viaje a La Casita: Notas de Plena en el Rincón Criollo (2016), an ethnographic chronicle based on his research about Puerto Rican music and culture in the South Bronx. His doctoral dissertation studies the music and legacy of Afro-Puerto Rican salsa singer Ismael ‘Maelo’ Rivera (1931-1987). Through ethnographic research conducted in Venezuela, Panamá, Puerto Rico, and New York since 2006, César studies the politico theological specters haunting Maelo’s oeuvre and the ways in which his music serves as a medium for the articulation of affective relations amongst his fans, peers, friends, and family in these geographies.
Working Group Affiliation
Unpayable Debt: Capital, Violence, and the New Global Economy
Andrea Crow
PhD Student
Andrea Crow is a PhD student at Columbia in the department of English and Comparative literature. Her research focuses on seventeenth-century literature and food politics as well as on academic labor and the future of the university. Her work has been published in Early Modern Women and Shakespeare Quarterly, and she has been the recipient of a grant-in-aid from the Folger Shakespeare Library to pursue her research. Andrea received a B.A. in English with a minor in Latin from Gonzaga University and an M.A.
Andrea Crow
Assistant Professor, Boston College
Andrea Crow specializes in early modern English poetry and drama. She is currently working on a book project on diet and food scarcity in seventeenth-century Anglophone literature. Her research interests include food history, gender and sexuality studies, the intersection of England and the Arab world, and academic labor and the future of the university. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Christianity and Literature, Early Modern Women, Shakespeare Quarterly, and SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900.
Working Group Affiliation
Nijah Cunningham
Doctoral candidate, Department of English and Comparative Literature
Nijah Cunningham is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the editorial assistant for Small Axe. He is currently working on a dissertation that focuses on the interplay between literature, performance, and the question of a black aesthetic that emerges out of the 1960s moment and across three African diasporic nodes in Senegal, Jamaica, and the United States.
Nijah Cunningham
Doctoral candidate, Department of English and Comparative Literature
Nijah Cunningham is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the editorial assistant for Small Axe. He is currently working on a dissertation that focuses on the interplay between literature, performance, and the question of a black aesthetic that emerges out of the 1960s moment and across three African diasporic nodes in Senegal, Jamaica, and the United States.
Working Group Affiliation
Lindsey Dayton
PhD Student, History, Lawrence College
Lindsey Dayton is a second-year PhD student in the field of U.S. History, focusing on African American, gender, and labor history in the 20th century. She received a BA in liberal arts and an MA in women’s history from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. Her MA thesis, “From Heavy Iron Blues to I Pay my Union Dues,” explored black women laundry workers’ successful efforts to organize a union in New York City during the Great Depression.
Lindsey Dayton
PhD Student, History
Lindsey Dayton is a second-year PhD student in the field of U.S. History, focusing on African American, gender, and labor history in the 20th century. She received a BA in liberal arts and an MA in women’s history from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. Her MA thesis, “From Heavy Iron Blues to I Pay my Union Dues,” explored black women laundry workers’ successful efforts to organize a union in New York City during the Great Depression. After completing her master’s degree she worked in the hospitality industry in Chicago and was active in organizing hotel, restaurant, and food service workers there and in New York. Research interests include the dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality in the organizing of black women in the urban north; the history of the radical left and leftist coalitions; and the impact of migration and immigration on black protest politics around issues of labor. She is currently researching domestic worker organizing in Manhattan and Brooklyn during the Great Depression.
Working Group Affiliation
Matthew Dias
Doctoral Student, Bioethics, Columbia University
Matthew Dias is a researcher at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and graduate student in Columbia’s bioethics program. Matt’s scholarship focuses on clinical research ethics and advances in medicine that intersect law and public policy. He is actively involved in various healthcare innovation and precision medicine initiatives in New York City and beyond. To this end, Matt looks forward to sharing his distinct perspectives and insights with the Precision Medicine Project and its affiliates.
Matthew Dias
Graduate Student, Bioethics, Columbia University
Matthew Dias is a researcher at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and graduate student in Columbia’s bioethics program. Matt’s scholarship focuses on clinical research ethics and advances in medicine that intersect law and public policy. He is actively involved in various healthcare innovation and precision medicine initiatives in New York City and beyond. To this end, Matt looks forward to sharing his distinct perspectives and insights with the Precision Medicine Project and its affiliates.
Working Group Affiliation
Sarah Dugger
Graduate Student, Genetics and Development, Columbia University
Sarah Dugger is a PhD student in the Department of Genetics & Development, who is working in the laboratory of Dr. David Goldstein in the Institute for Genomic Medicine. Sarah is originally from Akron, Ohio and obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology and a Masters degree in Genetic Counseling from Case Western Reserve University. She was a practicing full time prenatal genetic counselor for four years at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio—an experience that sparked her interest in precision medicine research.
Sarah Dugger
Graduate Student, Genetics and Development, Columbia University
Sarah Dugger is a PhD student in the Department of Genetics & Development, who is working in the laboratory of Dr. David Goldstein in the Institute for Genomic Medicine. Sarah is originally from Akron, Ohio and obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology and a Masters degree in Genetic Counseling from Case Western Reserve University. She was a practicing full time prenatal genetic counselor for four years at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio—an experience that sparked her interest in precision medicine research. As a graduate student, she is now working to understand the underlying pathogenic mechanisms of a single patient’s severe, genetic form of epilepsy, with the long-term goal of identifying a potential treatment.
Working Group Affiliation
Basak Ertur
PhD Candidate, Political Science, Birbeck Law
Basak Ertur is a PhD candidate and sessional lecturer at the School of Law, Birkbeck College. Her current research focuses on political trials, performativity, spectrality and sovereignty. She is the editor of Manual for Conspiracy (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2011) and co-editor of Waiting for Barbarians: A Tribute to Edward Said (Verso, 2008).
Basak Ertur
Başak Ertür is a Reader at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths and a Research Fellow at Forensic Architecture. She is the author of Spectacles and Specters: A Performative Theory of Political Trials (2022) which was awarded the 2024 SLSA Socio-Legal Theory and History Prize. Her work is engaged with questions of legal violence, legal performativity, and more broadly with law's epistemologies and aesthetics. Her writing has appeared in Critical Times, Law & Critique, Theory & Event, Aut aut and across several edited volumes. Ertür's edited collections include Waiting for the Barbarians: A Tribute to Edward Said (2008), Manual for Conspiracy (2011), and Something Is Rotten in the State (2016), a special issue of Theory & Event. She has held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2023-24), was a CAPES/PRINT Visiting Professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in 2022, and received the Association for the Study of Law Culture and the Humanities Julien Mezey Dissertation Award in 2016.
Yasmine Espert
Doctoral Student, Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Yasmine Espert is an Art History doctoral candidate at Columbia University. Her research interests include the cinematic medium, the Caribbean, and diaspora. She is the Graduate Fellow for the Digital Black Atlantic Project, a working group supported by the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University. Yasmine is also an alumna of the Fulbright U.S. Student program.
Yasmine Espert
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Art History and Archaeology
Yasmine Espert is an Art History doctoral candidate at Columbia University. Her research interests include the cinematic medium, the Caribbean, and diaspora. She is the Graduate Fellow for the Digital Black Atlantic Project, a working group supported by the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University. Yasmine is also an alumna of the Fulbright U.S. Student program.
Working Group Affiliation
Susanna Ferguson
PhD Student, History, Columbia University
Susanna Ferguson is a PhD Student in the History Department at Columbia University, where she focuses on the history of the modern Middle East, particularly on questions of women and gender. She is also a certificate candidate at Columbia's Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality (IRWAGS). Prior to beginning her doctoral work at Columbia, Susanna graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a BA in History and received a Master's degree from NYU's Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies.
Susanna Ferguson
Susanna Ferguson is a PhD Student in the History Department at Columbia University, where she focuses on the history of the modern Middle East, particularly on questions of women and gender. She is also a certificate candidate at Columbia's Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality (IRWAGS). Prior to beginning her doctoral work at Columbia, Susanna graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a BA in History and received a Master's degree from NYU's Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies.
Susanna's MA thesis traced the circulation of human and women's rights discourse in Damascus, Syria, between 2009 and 2011. The deep attachments she found to the projects of human and women's rights in Syria raised questions about what other languages of justice might have historically shaped discussions about politics in general, and feminist politics in particular, in the region. Following this, Susanna's current research focuses on the concept of tarbiya in Arab thought from Egypt and the Levant in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a way of tracing the history of one such alternative language.
Anna Danziger Halperin
PhD Student, History, Columbia University
Anna Danziger Halperin studies twentieth century American and British social policy and its effects on women and children, with a particular interest in child care. She graduated from Barnard College in 2006 with a degree in History and Human Rights. Before returning to Columbia in 2010, Anna conducted research and coauthored several reports on U.S. child care policies and other related issues affecting low-wage working families during her employment with the Urban Institute and the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Anna Danziger Halperin
PhD Student, History
Anna Danziger Halperin studies twentieth century American and British social policy and its effects on women and children, with a particular interest in child care. She graduated from Barnard College in 2006 with a degree in History and Human Rights. Before returning to Columbia in 2010, Anna conducted research and coauthored several reports on U.S. child care policies and other related issues affecting low-wage working families during her employment with the Urban Institute and the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Working Group Affiliation