Oda-Kange Midtvåge Diallo
Oda-Kange Midtvåge Diallo
Oda-Kange Midtvåge Diallo (she/her) is a Fulani, Norwegian and Danish, black feminist ethnographer. Oda-Kange is currently finishing her PhD in Gender Studies at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. Her research focuses on conceptualizations of blackness, community building and black study among African-Norwegian youth. Her work is grounded in black-queer-feminist liberatory approaches to learning. Recent publications include a chapter in the anthology “Rasisme: forskningen, fenomenet, erfaringene” (Universitetsforlaget, 2022) and two articles with a zine published in Teaching Anthropology Journal on “Decolonizing the Anthropological Classroom” (2021), co-authored with Nico Miskow Friborg.
Katherine Neimeyer
Doctoral Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University
Katie Neimeyer is a graduate student in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University, where she also works as a research coordinator in the Taub Institute and Sergievsky Center on several neurogenetic studies. As an intern in the Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics Canada (SING Canada) 2019 program at the University of Alberta, she participated in a dialogue about Indigenous bioethics and approaches to genomic sciences. She plans on pursuing a career in genetic counseling after she completes her M.S. in Narrative Medicine.
Katherine Neimeyer
Graduate Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University
Katie Neimeyer is a graduate student in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University, where she also works as a research coordinator in the Taub Institute and Sergievsky Center on several neurogenetic studies. As an intern in the Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics Canada (SING Canada) 2019 program at the University of Alberta, she participated in a dialogue about Indigenous bioethics and approaches to genomic sciences. She plans on pursuing a career in genetic counseling after she completes her M.S. in Narrative Medicine.
Working Group Affiliation
May Niiya
Graduate Administrative Fellow
Media Production and Marketing
May Niiya
May Niiya is a second-year MA student in American Studies at Columbia University. She is interested in the history of U.S. empire and Asian settler colonialism in her home state of Hawaiʻi. In addition to serving as the Graduate Coordinator for the “Refugee Cities: Urban Dimensions of Forced Displacement” Working Group, sponsored by the Columbia Center for the Study of Social Difference, she is also the Rapporteur for the Columbia University Seminar in American Studies.
Akemi Nishida
Doctoral Student, Social Personality Psychology, CUNY
Akemi Nishida is a doctoral student in the social personality psychology PhD program and an adjunct lecturer in Psychology and Disability Studies at City University of New York. Using frameworks of social justice studies and critical disability studies, her work focuses on the politicization of disabled people and community building in relation to intersecting oppression and privilege. She is also a performer in a project ‘GIMP’ by Heidi Latsky Dance and a starting member of DISLABELEDtv, a media organization by disabled youth/young adults.
Akemi Nishida
Social Personality Psychology, CUNY
Akemi Nishida is a doctoral student in the social personality psychology PhD program and an adjunct lecturer in Psychology and Disability Studies at City University of New York. Using frameworks of social justice studies and critical disability studies, her work focuses on the politicization of disabled people and community building in relation to intersecting oppression and privilege. She is also a performer in a project ‘GIMP’ by Heidi Latsky Dance and a starting member of DISLABELEDtv, a media organization by disabled youth/young adults. Through her activism-oriented scholarship and art, she works toward disability justice and larger social justice.
Christie Oliver
Doctoral Student, Biomedical Science, Columbia University
Christie Oliver will be starting at Columbia University, School of Professional Studies, as a graduate student in the Bioethics program in Fall 2017. She is from Edinburgh, Scotland and has a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Biomedical Science (Anatomy) from University of Aberdeen. Her thesis focused on fetal testosterone and the role it plays in the development of autism spectrum disorders. She is fascinated by the differences in health care systems globally and is passionate about the development of emerging medical fields. She is an active runner and loves to do yoga.
Christie Oliver
Graduate Student, School of Professional Studies, Columbia University
Christie Oliver will be starting at Columbia University, School of Professional Studies, as a graduate student in the Bioethics program in Fall 2017. She is from Edinburgh, Scotland and has a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Biomedical Science (Anatomy) from University of Aberdeen. Her thesis focused on fetal testosterone and the role it plays in the development of autism spectrum disorders. She is fascinated by the differences in health care systems globally and is passionate about the development of emerging medical fields. She is an active runner and loves to do yoga.
Working Group Affiliation
Isin Önol
Curator, Oral History and Art, Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art Istanbul
Işın Önol is a curator and writer based in New York. She has been working as an independent curator (predominantly in the USA, Austria and Turkey) since 2009. Before that, she led the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art Istanbul as its director and curator. (2006-2009). Her curatorial research focuses on interconnecting archival information with oral histories to create platforms for collective memory through collaborative art practices
Işın Önol
Curator, Educator, and Writer - New York, NY
Işın Önol is a curator and writer based in New York. She has been working as an independent curator (predominantly in the USA, Austria and Turkey) since 2009. Before that, she led the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art Istanbul as its director and curator. (2006-2009). Her curatorial research focuses on interconnecting archival information with oral histories to create platforms for collective memory through collaborative art practices. She is a research scholar at the Center for the Study of Social Difference, Columbia University, and a lecturer at Montclair State University, Department of Art & Design. Önol co-founded and directs the Nesin Art Village, an independent art school in Turkey. Her recent exhibitions include Thinking Food Futures (New York), Women Mobilizing Memory (Istanbul, Vienna, New York, Madrid), and When Home Won’t Let You Stay (Vienna). She curated the International Sinop Biennial in 2012 and 2014. She has produced more than 50 exhibitions internationally, and published on the intersection of social justice and art. Önol holds an MFA from Sabanci University, Istanbul, a MAS from Zürich University of the Arts, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Isin Önol has been elected to the Board of Directors of Roberto Cimetta Fund for the period 2018-2021 and 2021-2024. https://isinonol.com/
Working Group Affiliation
Zip Code Memory Project: Practices of Justice and Repair, Social Engagement Project
Ittai Orr
PhD Student, American Studies, Yale University
Ittai is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies. His dissertation is an intellectual history of intelligence and intellectual ability in 18th- and 19th-century America with a focus on popular literary texts. His other areas of expertise include the history of race, sexuality and gender studies, disability studies, and the history of capitalism. He has been a tutor for the undergraduate non-fiction writing course “Daily Themes,” a writing instructor, and an LSAT-prep tutor and instructor. His work has been published in American Quarterly and Public Books, and he has presented at the Modern and Contemporary Studies Initiative, American Studies Association and the Modern Language Association.
Ittai Orr
PhD Student, American Studies, Yale University
Ittai is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies. His dissertation is an intellectual history of intelligence and intellectual ability in 18th- and 19th-century America with a focus on popular literary texts. His other areas of expertise include the history of race, sexuality and gender studies, disability studies, and the history of capitalism. He has been a tutor for the undergraduate non-fiction writing course “Daily Themes,” a writing instructor, and an LSAT-prep tutor and instructor. His work has been published in American Quarterly and Public Books, and he has presented at the Modern and Contemporary Studies Initiative, American Studies Association and the Modern Language Association.
Working Group Affiliation
Jeremy Orloff
Doctoral Student, General Studies, Columbia University
Jeremy Orloff is a premed postbac student in the School of General Studies. Prior to his interest in medicine, he studied political science and history at Johns Hopkins University. He later worked in local New York City government relations. As a postbac, Jeremy has been involved in clinical research around obesity and related diseases.
Jeremy Orloff
Premedical Post Baccalaureate Student, General Studies, Columbia University
Jeremy Orloff is a premed postbac student in the School of General Studies. Prior to his interest in medicine, he studied political science and history at Johns Hopkins University. He later worked in local New York City government relations. As a postbac, Jeremy has been involved in clinical research around obesity and related diseases. As part of his participation in On the Frontlines, Jeremy joined the group’s research trip to Sierra Leone and Liberia in August 2019.
Working Group Affiliation
Giovanni Pagán Vélez
Doctoral Student, International Finance and Economic Policy, Columbia University
Giovanni Pagán Vélez is a student from San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is an MPA candidate at Columbia SIPA, concentrating in International Finance and Economic Policy.
Giovanni Pagán Vélez
MPA Candidate, Columbia University
Giovanni Pagán Vélez is a student from San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is an MPA candidate at Columbia SIPA, concentrating in International Finance and Economic Policy. Giovanni also completed a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science at Columbia College in 2018.
Working Group Affiliation
Unpayable Debt: Capital, Violence, and the New Global Economy
Ming Pei
Doctoral Student, Medicine, Columbia University
Ming Pei is currently a pre-health student in the Pre-Medical Post Baccalaureate Program at Columbia University. Previously, she attended University of California, Berkeley earning a B.A. in Statistics and B.A. in Economics. She is interested in public health research and aims to make an impact on healthcare policy making.
Ming Pei
Postbac Premed, School of General Studies, Columbia University
Ming Pei is currently a pre-health student in the Pre-Medical Post Baccalaureate Program at Columbia University. Previously, she attended University of California, Berkeley earning a B.A. in Statistics and B.A. in Economics. She is interested in public health research and aims to make an impact on healthcare policy making.
Working Group Affiliation
Alex Pekov
Graduate Assistant
Social Media & Weekly Digests
ap3543@columbia.edu
Alex Pekov
Graduate Assistant
ap3543@columbia.edu
Alex is a 6th-year PhD candidate in Slavic Languages and Comparative Literature at Columbia. He holds a BA (diploma with distinction) in Philosophy from Moscow State University Lomonosov and an MA in Slavic and Jewish Studies from Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. He is also a recipient of Graduate Certificate in Feminist Scholarship at the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. His dissertation Toward a Transmediterranean Genealogy: Matrilineal Legacies in Sephardi Women Writers from the Former Yugoslavia and the Maghreb, focuses on the contemporary autofictional family novels, crafted in French and Serbian by the women writers of Jewish Sephardi origin, born in the French-ruled Maghreb and ex-Yugoslavia, respectively. Alex’s broader research interests include ex-Yugoslav literatures, Francophone belles lettres, Jewish lifeworlds & Jewish difference, the Shoah & pornotroping, multilingualism & decolonization, autofiction & life-writing, genocide & gynocide, postmemory, colonial regimes of desire, colonial photography, gay male physique photography, visual representations of gay masculinities, queer diasporic communities. In the academic year 2021-2022, Alex also serves as a Teaching Observation Fellow at the Center for Teaching and Learning and teaches Second-Year (Intermediate) Russian in the Department of Slavic Languages.
Alex assists the CSSD with social media and weekly digest updates.
Adrienne Pichon
Doctoral Student, Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University
Adrienne Pichon is a Research Coordinator under Dr. Noemie Elhadad in Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics. Her research interests center around leveraging emerging health technologies coupled with user-centered design to improve access to health-related information, access to care, and meaningful and actionable personal insights, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized populations.
Adrienne Pichon
Biomedical Informatics Research Coordinator, Columbia University
Adrienne Pichon is a Research Coordinator under Dr. Noemie Elhadad in Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics. Her research interests center around leveraging emerging health technologies coupled with user-centered design to improve access to health-related information, access to care, and meaningful and actionable personal insights, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized populations. The Citizen Endo project and Phendo app harness the power of citizen science to better understand and manage endometriosis.
Working Group Affiliation
Hannah Pivo
Hannah Pivo is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in 19th- and 20th-century design and architecture, with a focus on the history of graphic design and information visualization. Her work has appeared in the journals Design Issues and Public Art Dialogue and she has contributed to exhibition catalogs on various topics in modern and contemporary art and design.
Hannah Pivo
Hannah Pivo is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in 19th- and 20th-century design and architecture, with a focus on the history of graphic design and information visualization. Her work has appeared in the journals Design Issues and Public Art Dialogue and she has contributed to exhibition catalogs on various topics in modern and contemporary art and design. Her research has been supported by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University, the Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection, where she was the Summer Research Fellow for 2021. Before entering the doctoral program in 2019, Hannah was Curatorial Assistant for 20th- and 21st-Century Design at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Working Group: Extractive Media
Ronna Popkin
PhD Student, Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University
Ronna A. Popkin is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociomedical Sciences (SMS) with a concentration in Sociology at Columbia University. She was a Fellow in SMS's NICHD predoctoral training program in Gender, Sexuality, and Health. Her multi-disciplinary research interests span the fields of sociology, public health, science and technology studies, and gender studies, and include adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health, genetic risk, and women’s health in the United States. Prior to attending Columbia, Ms. Popkin worked as a community sexuality educator for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and lectured courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on sexuality education, women’s health, and the politics of fertility control. Ms. Popkin earned her M.S. in Health Education and B.S. with Honors in Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ronna Popkin
PhD Student, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Ronna A. Popkin is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociomedical Sciences (SMS) with a concentration in Sociology at Columbia University. She was a Fellow in SMS's NICHD predoctoral training program in Gender, Sexuality, and Health. Her multi-disciplinary research interests span the fields of sociology, public health, science and technology studies, and gender studies, and include adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health, genetic risk, and women’s health in the United States. Prior to attending Columbia, Ms. Popkin worked as a community sexuality educator for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and lectured courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on sexuality education, women’s health, and the politics of fertility control. Ms. Popkin earned her M.S. in Health Education and B.S. with Honors in Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Working Group Affiliation
Kenia Pujols
Doctoral Student, Public Health, Columbia University
Kenia has a clinical background and is an MHA '22 graduate of the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
Kenia Pujols
Mailman School of Public Health, '22 graduate
Kenia has a clinical background and is an MHA '22 graduate of the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
Kenia applies her knowledge and skills to identify solutions to the most pressing challenges in the health care system. More specifically, this fellowship analyses the limitations of precision medicine, implementation processes and possible solutions to help improve the scientific literature and applied knowledge on personalized medicine.
Working Group Affiliation
Hannah Pullen-Blasnik
Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology, Columbia University
Hannah Pullen-Blasnik is a Ph.D. student and Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. She is also a Graduate Research Fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab on the Pennsylvania Solitary Study and the Rikers Island Longitudinal Study. Her primary research interests include social movements, political economy, and algorithms and technology.
Hannah Pullen-Blasnik
Ph.D. candidate and Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology, Columbia University
Hannah Pullen-Blasnik is a Ph.D. student and Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. She is also a Graduate Research Fellow at the Columbia Justice Lab on the Pennsylvania Solitary Study and the Rikers Island Longitudinal Study. Her primary research interests include social movements, political economy, and algorithms and technology.
Hannah is the coordinator for the Racial Capitalism Working Group at the Center for the Study of Social Difference, in charge of organizing workshops, roundtables, and events for interdisciplinary collaboration rooted in a commitment to Black radicalism, historical materialism, feminism, and anti-imperialism. She is also co-coordinator for the Sociology of Algorithms Workshop at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy and volunteers with Data for Black Lives as project manager for a research team on algorithmic and technological surveillance.
Hannah is currently developing projects on the appropriation of Black Lives Matter by nonprofits and corporations during Covid-19, and transformations in the ideological state space of Black liberation organizing over the past 50 years. She is also working on research projects that aim to make algorithmic tools more transparent and build community control over their consequences. One such project investigates the biases and impact of prison intake risk assessment scores on incarceration, solitary confinement, and parole decisions. Another examines human decision-making and interpretation of algorithmic results in probabilistic DNA profiling.
Working Group Affiliation
Racial Capitalism, Graduate Assistant
Sikder Rabbi
Doctoral Student, Precision Medicine, State University of Bangladesh
Sikder Nahidul Islam Rabbi completed his Bachelor and Master’s in clinical pharmacy and pharmacogenetics from State University of Bangladesh. In the arena of research, he has worked with clinical pharmacokinetics, drug protein binding study, pharmacogenetics, SNP genotyping, HLA research and cancer genetics, better understanding about drug activation and pharmacodynamics variation based on patient’s genetics. His research interest includes, epigenetics, proto-oncogene mutation, cancer genetics and neuroscience.
Sikder Rabbi
Associate Fellow, Precision Medicine
Sikder Nahidul Islam Rabbi completed his Bachelor and Master’s in clinical pharmacy and pharmacogenetics from State University of Bangladesh. In the arena of research, he has worked with clinical pharmacokinetics, drug protein binding study, pharmacogenetics, SNP genotyping, HLA research and cancer genetics, better understanding about drug activation and pharmacodynamics variation based on patient’s genetics. He worked as a scientific officer in a pharmcogenetics lab and worked with FDA genetic biomarkers with several research groups of Bangladesh and Germany. He has several research articles on precision medicine, cancer genetics and HLA research. His research interest includes, epigenetics, proto-oncogene mutation, cancer genetics and neuroscience.
Working Group Affiliation
Syed Raza
Doctoral Student, Public Health, Columbia University
Syed Raza is a master of public health candidate in the department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University where he is also completing a certificate in the Social Determinants of Health. His work focuses on the political economy, sociocultural aspects, and research methodologies of public health. His research interests include historical sociology, geopolitics, science and technology studies, social epidemiology, world-ecology analysis, and critical animal studies.
Syed Raza
Graduate Student, Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Syed Raza is a master of public health candidate in the department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University where he is also completing a certificate in the Social Determinants of Health. His work focuses on the political economy, sociocultural aspects, and research methodologies of public health. His research interests include historical sociology, geopolitics, science and technology studies, social epidemiology, world-ecology analysis, and critical animal studies. For his master's thesis, he will examine the links between population health, precision medicine, health paradigms, health disparities, and political economy.
Working Group Affiliation
Natalie Reinhart
Project Coordinator
Working Group: Insurgent Domesticities
Project Coordinator
Working Group: Insurgent Domesticities
Natalie Reinhart is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, New York. She is the managing editor of PREE Literary Magazine in Kingston, Jamaica, and worked as an editorial assistant for Small Axe: A Journal of Caribbean Criticism from 2016-2019. Her dissertation thesis is funded by the Lindt Dissertation Completion Fellowship.
Her dissertation focuses on the "uncontrollable" law in Jamaica, and constructs a socio-legal genealogy of the legislation to argue that such offenses were integral to Jamaica's colonial state formation immediately following Emancipation. She interrogates how such laws have become a discursive staging ground where Caribbean postcolonial modernity, national identity, and international human rights are debated— mobilized around the double-edge of an “uncontrollable” girl’s perceived social vulnerability and threat. Building on work in vagrancy, which positions the runaway as an intervention in the literature and theory of the flâneur, she thinks through girlhood as a critical category and an intellectual tradition.
Andrew Ressler
PhD Student, Systems Biology, Columbia University
Andrew Ressler is a PhD Candidate in the department of Systems Biology. Andrew is currently a researcher in the Institute for Genomic Medicine in Dr. David Goldstein’s lab. He received his Bachelors of Science in Applied Math and Biology from Brown University in 2013. After graduating, Andrew worked as an associate in finance at Amgen for two years before beginning his PhD at Columbia University in 2015. As a graduate student, Andrew’s research focuses on developing methods to model and characterize neuropsychiatric disease using human stem cell derived cultured neuronal networks.
Andrew Ressler
PhD Student, Columbia University
Andrew Ressler is a PhD Candidate in the department of Systems Biology. Andrew is currently a researcher in the Institute for Genomic Medicine in Dr. David Goldstein’s lab. He received his Bachelors of Science in Applied Math and Biology from Brown University in 2013. After graduating, Andrew worked as an associate in finance at Amgen for two years before beginning his PhD at Columbia University in 2015. As a graduate student, Andrew’s research focuses on developing methods to model and characterize neuropsychiatric disease using human stem cell derived cultured neuronal networks.
Working Group Affiliation