Bürge Abiral

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

Women Mobilizing Memory

Olamide Adejumo

Graduate Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University

Olamide Adejumo is a student of narrative medicine at Columbia University. He is a graduate of medicine and surgery from Obafemi Awolowo College of Health Sciences in Nigeria passionate about narrative care practices in medicine. His passion for Medical Humanities dates back into medical school when he conducted a research with peers on the impact of religion and culture on diabetes prevention and care in Nigeria which ultimately lead to starting a non profit: The Nigeria Diabetes Online Community - a social peer support platform for people living with diabetes in Nigeria. He believes in culturally appropriation and all inclusive healthcare practice as a bridge to achieving universal medical care. His interests includes clinical care and research in Narrative Medicine, Personalized Medicine, Medical Humanities and Genetic Technologies in Disability Care.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Fatemeh Adlparvar

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

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Luis Rincon Alba

Luis Rincon Alba

Ph.D. Candidate, Performance Studies Department, New York University

Luis Rincon Alba is a Colombian artist and scholar based in New York City since 2010. He has taught at the departments of Art and Public Policy and Performance Studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He is currently a doctoral candidate in the Performance Studies Department at New York University and a Public Humanities Fellow at Humanities NY and the Urban Democracy Lab. As an actor, performer, and oral narrator, he has collaborated with different artistic collectives in his home country and also in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the United States, and Italy. He is also the artistic director of the collective MUSA Presents.

Working Group Affiliations

Zip Code Memory Project: Practices of Justice and Repair, Social Engagement Project

R. Ertuğ Altınay

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

Women Mobilizing Memory

Sydney Amoakah

Sydney Amoakah

Graduate Student, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University

Sydney Amoakoh is a Human Rights Studies MA candidate at Columbia University whose research takes a look at the considerations and constraints behind the drafting of human rights into humanitarian guidelines, with specific focus on the recent inclusion of a section on menstrual health management (MHM) in the 2018 edition of the Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response. In her role as a menstrual health advocacy fellow, Sydney contributes to the joint efforts of Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council in elevating and expanding the inclusion of menstrual health in high-level UN forums. Sydney’s concentration on the right to health of displaced persons, particularly women and children, are informed by her past work focusing on the rights of children and survivors of GBV. She has held internships at London-based organizations, AfriKids and World Child Cancer, and a volunteer position at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Sydney received her BA in International Affairs with a minor in Business Management from Northeastern University.

Working Group Affiliation

Menstrual Health and Gender Justice

Kata Ámon

Kata Ámon

PhD Student, Sociology and Social Policy, Corvinus University of Budapest

Teresa Cebrián Aranda

Teresa Cebrián Aranda

Graduate Student, School of International and Public Affairs and Journalism School

Teresa holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and is currently pursuing a Master of International Affairs and an MS in Journalism at Columbia University. She previously worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (Rome), where she was responsible for the coordination and editing of high-profile publications. Among others, she edited the joint FAO-EL PAÍS publications series “The State of our Planet”. She is interested in how documentary video, photography and journalism at large can drive social action and improve public policy across geographical boundaries.

Working Group Affiliation

Geographies of Injustice: Gender and the City

Matthew Argame

Matthew Argame

Graduate Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University

Matthew Argame is currently a graduate student in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University. Upon graduation, Matthew will continue on to medical school as an aspiring psychiatrist, advocating for the needs of vulnerable communities. While completing his undergraduate degree at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), Matthew founded the first TEDx program at his university, with the vision of bringing various voices to a globally recognized stage. He also worked for Counseling and Psychological Services as a Peer Educator on Mental Health topics, conducted research through a National Institutes of Health funded program called BUILD (Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity), and was recognized nationally as the Jed Foundation’s Student Voice of Mental Health Honoree. Matthew hopes that his engagement with the Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics, Culture program will produce interdisciplinary dialogue on improving patient care by addressing societal injustices and by bringing attention the unique needs of queer and disabled communities.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Linda Aristondo

Linda Aristondo

Master of Divinity student, Union Theological Seminary

Linda Aristondo is a Latina bilingual woman of color and attorney championing the needs of vulnerable populations. Her field of interest is collaborating with nonprofit service organizations dedicated to serving the legally disenfranchised, including vulnerable undocumented immigrants and refugees. Linda was among the first-generation of students of color from extremely poor communities admitted to the most selective colleges, and subsequently to law school. Linda was in the forefront of the generation of women of color educated to lead their communities into the national consciousness as equal members of the professional class. Linda, a Harvard educated attorney, was an Encore Public Service Fellow; CORO Foundation’s Hispanic Women Leadership Fellow and garnered an ABA CLEO Fellowship. She is currently a Master of Divinity student at Union Theological Seminary.

Working Group Affiliations

Zip Code Memory Project: Practices of Justice and Repair, Social Engagement Project

Larry Au

Larry Au

PhD Student, Sociology, Columbia University

Larry Au is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Columbia University. He is broadly interested in science and technology studies, economic sociology, and political sociology. His dissertation examines the rise of precision medicine in China and the United States, focusing on the diffusion of the concept and its associated technologies, as well as the ways in which debates around ethical, legal, and social issues are constructed locally and globally. He is also interested in the recent controversies over human gene editing and the modernization of traditional medicines.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

George Aumoithe

George Aumoithe

PhD Student, Columbia University

George Aumoithe focuses on 20th century American history and the history of public health, science, and medicine. He received his B.A. from Bowdoin College with a double major in history and Africana studies and a minor in gay and lesbian studies. His studies were supported by the Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and Point Foundation , the national LGBTQ scholarship. His work examines the politics of patient advocacy, lay expertise, and clinical medicine as it pertains to HIV and AIDS. 

In his spare time, George volunteers for Columbia Health's Gay Health Advocacy Project and sings Bass 1 as part of the New York City Master Chorale.

Working Group Affiliation

Social Justice After the Welfare State

Michael Awad

Michael Awad

PhD Student, Teacher's College, Columbia University

Michael Awad is a completing his Ph.D. in counseling psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. He earned dual master’s degrees in mental health counseling and professional counseling from Seton Hall University. He has experience working with diverse populations across the lifespan at every level of behavioral health care, including inpatient psychotherapy at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, neuropsychological assessment at the Cognitive and Research Center of NJ, intensive outpatient psychotherapy at Overlook Medical Center, community mental health at the Dean Hope Center, behavioral medicine at Morristown Medical Center, addictions counseling at the NJ Department of Veterans Affairs, and integrated health care through the Health Resources and Services Administration Graduate Psychology Education Program. He currently works as a school counselor at Prep for Prep, New York City’s oldest leadership and academic development program for students of color. Michael has done extensive advocacy work at the national level related to behavioral health equity as a two-time public policy fellow of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. His doctoral research focuses on cultural issues in psychology. Specific projects include validating culturally-sensitive assessment tools for understanding masculinity in multicultural populations, developing a strategic framework for disarming microaggressions as lab leader to Dr. Derald Wing Sue’s research team, and conducting participatory action evaluations with under-resourced community agencies employing effective behavioral health interventions not specified in the literature. He is currently developing and piloting a peer health program through the Raising Educational Achievement Coalition of Harlem at two secondary schools.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Olivia Balderes

Olivia Balderes

Graduate Student, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

Olivia Balderes is an MPH Candidate at Mailman in the department of Sociomedical Sciences with a focus on Health Promotion, Research and Practice. She is a Washington Heights native, and received her BA from Barnard College in Creative Writing and Biological Sciences. Olivia currently works in the laboratory of Dr. Krzysztof Kiryluk as both a Clinical Research Coordinator on a number of large national precision medicine initiatives, and as the lab’s manager. She is interested in applying her Intervention Design and Evaluation background to improve community involvement within Precision Medicine programs/studies, maximize efficiency and efficacy of return of genetic results in clinical settings, and explore the determinants of genetic and general health literacy.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Kayleigh Barrett

Kayleigh Barrett

Graduate Student, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

Kayleigh Barrett is a current MPH candidate in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, working toward a certificate in Global Health. She received her Bachelor’s degree in International Studies with an emphasis in global health and development at the University of Oregon. While studying abroad, her research focused on the power dynamics in research relationships and the ethical implications of the use of over-studied populations in student research. She is new to the east coast, hailing from the Pacific Northwest. In the last three years, she worked as a Research Scientist at the University of Washington in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Disease and was involved in a structural genomics pipeline for an early structure-based drug design projects targeting a number of pathogens. Her current interests include research ethics, infectious disease, reproductive health and medical anthropology. She is an avid reader and lover of all things coffee.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Naomi Heller Batzer

Naomi Heller Batzer

PhD Student, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Naomi Batzer graduated from Barnard College with a degree in economics in 2017. She is particularly interested in the roles of health and gender in development economics and wrote her final paper on the effect of Ebola on maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. After graduation, Naomi moved to Madrid to teach English and play rugby for a year. She is in her first semester of the Sustainability Management program at Columbia University. Naomi is currently working with Anja Tolonen and Sandra Aguilar Gomez on menstrual stigma and schooling in Tanzania.

Working Group Affiliation

Menstrual Health and Gender Justice

Iuri Bauler

Iuri Bauler

Graduate Student, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University

Iuri Bauler Pereira holds a B.A. in History from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). His research focus on the transnational connections and geopolitical imagination of Latin American Countercultures (underground press, literature and film), Brazilian Critical Geography, and the Intellectual History of the Americas. Before coming to Columbia he worked as a researcher and archivist in audiovisual and printed media archives in Brazil, including the Brazilian National Radio, Brazilian Public Television, and in collections of radical pamphlets and underground press. 

Working Group Affiliation

Geographies of Injustice: Gender and the City, Graduate Assistant

Odelia Bay

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.

Veronica Belafi

Veronica Belafi

PhD Student, English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Veronica Belafi is the graduate assistant for PRECISION MEDICINE: ETHICS, POLITICS AND CULTURE and a PhD candidate in English & Comparative Literature. Her academic interests stem from the history and philosophy of science and technology, including the medical humanities, modern and contemporary media poetics, ecocriticism, and the growing field of petrocultures. 

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Joshua Bennett

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.