Katherine Schaap Williams
Doctoral Student, English, Rutgers University
Katherine Schaap Williams is a doctoral candidate in the department of English at Rutgers University. She has held fellowships from the graduate school and the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University, where she is a fellow in the 2011-2012 “Public Knowledge: Institutions, Networks, Collectives” seminar. Her research interests include sixteenth and seventeenth-century English literature and culture, disability studies, and performance theory, and she is writing a dissertation tentatively titled Irregular Bodies: Disability on the Early Modern Stage.
Katherine Schaap Williams
Department of English, Rutgers University
Katherine Schaap Williams is a doctoral candidate in the department of English at Rutgers University. She has held fellowships from the graduate school and the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University, where she is a fellow in the 2011-2012 “Public Knowledge: Institutions, Networks, Collectives” seminar. Her research interests include sixteenth and seventeenth-century English literature and culture, disability studies, and performance theory, and she is writing a dissertation tentatively titled Irregular Bodies: Disability on the Early Modern Stage. She is the author of "Enabling Richard: The Rhetoric of Disability in Richard III,” a contribution to a special section on Shakespeare in Disability Studies Quarterly in 2009.
Anna Kirstine Schirrer
PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
CSSD Graduate Administrative Fellow (2022/23)
Technology and Communications
Anna Kirstine Schirrer is a Danish legal anthropologist, doctoral candidate and certificate fellow with the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University.
Anna Kirstine Schirrer
Anna Kirstine Schirrer is a Danish legal anthropologist, doctoral candidate and certificate fellow with the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. She is broadly interested in state responsibility for historical injustices and the governance of difference. Her dissertation project focuses on claims to redress for transatlantic slavery, white supremacy and racial exclusion in international law. She is currently developing her next project on affective diplomacy and the colonial origins of neutrality politics in Scandinavia.
Abby Schroering
Graduate Assistant
Working Group Liaison
ans2198@columbia.edu
Abby Schroering
Graduate Assistant
ans2198@columbia.edu
Abby is a doctoral candidate in the PhD program in theater and performance at Columbia University and a senior teaching consultant at the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning. Her research focuses on performance and ecology and asks, how can the power of performance be mobilized toward the creation of a more just, sustainable, and resilient future for all life on Earth? Her scholarship has been published in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, The Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, and Transnational Cinemas.
Abby assists the CSSD with working group liaison.
Carina del Valle Schorske
Doctoral Candidate, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Carina del Valle Schorske is a poet, translator, and PhD candidate in Comparative Literature. She is broadly interested in the history of psychoanalysis and other forms of psychic inquiry among artists and intellectuals of color in the Americas (Harlem, Mexico City, the Caribbean). She is currently at work on a project about Pamela Colman Smith, a turn-of-the-century Jamaican folklorist and the illustrator of the world's most widely used tarot deck.
Carina del Valle Schorske
Doctoral Candidate, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
photo credit: Mara Corsino, 2021
Carina del Valle Schorske is a writer and translator with roots in Washington Heights. Her personal essays and cultural criticism have appeared in many venues including The Believer, Bookforum, The Common, the New Yorker online, and the New York Times Magazine, where she is a Contributing Writer. She won Gulf Coast's 2016 Prize for her translations of the Puerto Rican poet Marigloria Palma, and co-edited the bilingual anthology Puerto Rico en mi corazón to raise funds for hurricane relief. Her forthcoming book, The Other Island, was recently honored with the Whiting Foundation's Creative Nonfiction Grant. As a doctoral candidate in the English & Comparative Literature department, her research focuses on women's performance in the Americas from Zora Neale Hurston through Ana Mendieta. Find out more at www.carinadelvalleschorske.com.
Working Group Affiliations
Zip Code Memory Project: Practices of Justice and Repair, Social Engagement Project
Mina Shah
Premedical Post Baccalaureate Student, General Studies, Columbia University
Mina Shah completed her undergraduate degree with honors in Comparative Literature and her Master’s in African Studies at Stanford University. During her time at Stanford, she was selected twice as an African Service Fellow to work at the West Africa AIDS Foundation in Accra and Takoradi, Ghana. In her studies, she focused on representational ethos of the African continent and communities across the continent, especially as representation relates to spaces of development.
Premedical Post Baccalaureate Student, General Studies, Columbia University
Mina Shah completed her undergraduate degree with honors in Comparative Literature and her Master’s in African Studies at Stanford University. During her time at Stanford, she was selected twice as an African Service Fellow to work at the West Africa AIDS Foundation in Accra and Takoradi, Ghana. In her studies, she focused on representational ethos of the African continent and communities across the continent, especially as representation relates to spaces of development. After leaving Stanford, Mina pursued a Princeton in Africa fellowship at Kucetekela Foundation in Lusaka, Zambia. In her time there, she supported the social and emotional development of the sponsored students with whom she works, in addition to running tertiary application and work experience programs. She also coordinated conversation between the fundraising and program arms of KF so that the organization could work on maximizing its ability to use funds in supporting its students. As one of the Project Coordinators for the On the Frontlines working group, Mina aims to continue to center conversations about power, equity, and who we listen to when learning lessons about outbreaks of disease. She is now pursuing her post-baccalaureate pre-health certificate at Columbia University and will apply to medical school in 2021, with the eventual aim of becoming a global health-focused medical doctor.
Working Group Affiliation
On the Frontlines: Nursing Leadership in Pandemics, Coordinator
Javairia Shahid
Ph.D. student, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University
Javairia Shahid is a Ph.D. student in Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), with a joint affiliation at the Institute of Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS). She holds a graduate degree in architectural history and theory from GSAPP.
Ph.D. student, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University
Javairia Shahid is a Ph.D. student in Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), with a joint affiliation at the Institute of Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS). She holds a graduate degree in architectural history and theory from GSAPP. Her research focuses on the history of knowledge production and epistemic labor under colonialism in South Asia and the Indian Ocean world. This work highlights the disjunctions and entanglements between the aestheticization of landscapes, the pecuniary production of land as resource, and the formation of human and nonhuman subjectivities.
Working Group Affiliations
Nikita Shepard
Nikita Shepard (they/them) is a PhD student in history at Columbia, exploring gender and sexuality, LGBTQ communities, social movements, data and surveillance, and radical politics in the twentieth century United States and beyond.
Ph.D. candidate, History, Columbia University
Nikita Shepard (they/them) is a PhD student in history at Columbia, exploring gender and sexuality, LGBTQ communities, social movements, data and surveillance, and radical politics in the twentieth century United States and beyond. They serve as the graduate intern for the Lehman Center for American History and an affiliate of the Columbia Research Initiative on the Global History of Sexualities, and have worked for the Center for Spatial Research and the Columbia Oral History Archives. They founded the "Data, Algorithms, and Social Justice" working group at the Center for the Study of Social Difference in 2019, and hold a position as an Oral History Fellow for the Digital Ethics and Governance working group at the Jain Family Institute.
Working Group Affiliation
Data Algorithms and Social Justice, Graduate Director
Wilson Sherwin
PhD Student, Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center
Wilson Sherwin is a native New Yorker and a PhD candidate in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her work centers around Marxist theory, feminism, social movements and the sociology of labor. She is currently beginning dissertation research on solutions to unemployment that foster autonomy from waged labor, and on current proposals for Universal Basic Income.
PhD Student, Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center
Wilson Sherwin is a native New Yorker and a PhD candidate in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her work centers around Marxist theory, feminism, social movements and the sociology of labor. She is currently beginning dissertation research on solutions to unemployment that foster autonomy from waged labor, and on current proposals for Universal Basic Income.
Working Group Affiliation
Jeremy Shropshire
Graduate Student, Columbia University
Jeremy Shropshire is a Louisiana native from Hammond, La. He is a recent graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry. At Xavier, Jeremy conducted research under the mentorship of Dr. Stassi DiMaggio in the Department of Organic Chemistry. His project focused on developing stimuli-responsive nanomaterials in order to be used as potential drug-delivery systems. He is also a Minority Access to Careers Scholar, Ronald E. McNair Scholar, and a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. He is currently enrolled in the Masters of Bioethics Program at Columbia University in the City of New York via the HBCU Fellowship Initiative.
Graduate Student, Columbia University
Jeremy Shropshire is a Louisiana native from Hammond, La. He is a recent graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry. At Xavier, Jeremy conducted research under the mentorship of Dr. Stassi DiMaggio in the Department of Organic Chemistry. His project focused on developing stimuli-responsive nanomaterials in order to be used as potential drug-delivery systems. He is also a Minority Access to Careers Scholar, Ronald E. McNair Scholar, and a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. He is currently enrolled in the Masters of Bioethics Program at Columbia University in the City of New York via the HBCU Fellowship Initiative. Jeremy has an acute interest in healthcare policy and the way that law regulates ethical practices. Jeremy looks forward to embracing his role as an Associate Fellow by contributing and learning from the Precision Medicine Program.
Working Group Affiliation
Iván Smirnow
Psychologist, Gender and Culture Studies, Universidad de Chile
Iván Smirnow received his Bachelors of Science in Psychology at the Universidad Diego Portales, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Personal Coaching and Leadership from the University of Barcelona. He plans to apply to the Masters Program in Gender and Culture Studies in Latin America, Department of Philosophy and Humanities a the Universidad de Chile with a proposed thesis: “Cuerpos-hechos-por/para-el-trabajo: cuerpo, memoria y trabajo precario.”
Psychologist, Gender and Culture Studies, Universidad de Chile
Iván Smirnow received his Bachelors of Science in Psychology at the Universidad Diego Portales, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Personal Coaching and Leadership from the University of Barcelona. He plans to apply to the Masters Program in Gender and Culture Studies in Latin America, Department of Philosophy and Humanities a the Universidad de Chile with a proposed thesis: “Cuerpos-hechos-por/para-el-trabajo: cuerpo, memoria y trabajo precario.”
Iván Smirnow es psicólogo chileno, radicado en Santiago de Chile. Ha trabajado en docencia e investigación y actualmente trabaja en su tesis (titulada Cuerpos-hechos-por/para-el-trabajo: cuerpo, memoria y trabajo precario) para obtener el grado de Magíster en Estudios de Género y Cultura Latinoamericana en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad de Chile.
Working Group Affiliation
Amitoj Singh
Graduate Student, School of Journalism, Columbia University
Amitoj Singh is currently an M.A Candidate in the Political Concentration at the Columbia School of Journalism. Amitoj has recently returned from Iraq where he was working towards reporting a multimedia project highlighting the colossal social devastation that ISIS has caused the Yazidi women.
Graduate Student, School of Journalism, Columbia University
Amitoj Singh is currently an M.A Candidate in the Political Concentration at the Columbia School of Journalism. Amitoj has recently returned from Iraq where he was working towards reporting a multimedia project highlighting the colossal social devastation that ISIS has caused the Yazidi women. In particular, he intends to find the words to relate the pain, suffering, and stigma of Yazidi women who had to leave their children, born of ISIS fathers, behind because their community wouldn’t accept them.
Previously, Amitoj has been News Editor and Principal Anchor of India’s NDTV (New Delhi Television), a pioneer in India’s news television and digital journalism, with a large English-language viewership.
Most recently, he won the Dag Hammarskjöld Journalism fellowship to the United Nations which allowed him to work as a journalist for 3 months at the UN headquarters in New York in 2018.
Amitoj has reported and presented news surrounding the 2019 General Elections in India, the 2018 Midterm Elections in the USA, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland 2018, the Presidential Election in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the focus of Facebook and Whatsapp in fighting fake news in San Francisco, and the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup in Australia.
While at NDTV for more than 12 years, he anchored NDTV’s Flagship and Primetime shows ‘Jai Jawan’, Trending @10PM, Good Morning India, Livestream, India vs Fake News, Versus, Youthquake, Newsbreak and Turning Point, amongst numerous breaking news developments.
Working Group Affiliation
Menstrual Health and Gender Justice, Media Fellow (2020)
Jorge A. Rodríguez Solórzano
Doctoral Student, Sociocultural Anthropology, Columbia University
Jorge Rodríguez Solórzano is a writer, translator, and doctoral candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at Columbia University. His current research examines how Indigenous Mixtec and Tlapanec communities in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, create alternative practices of jurisdiction to mitigate resource extraction and insecurity in their territories. His research has been supported by the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) and the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is 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.
Jorge A. Rodríguez Solórzano
Jorge Rodríguez Solórzano is a writer, translator, and doctoral candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at Columbia University. His current research examines how Indigenous Mixtec and Tlapanec communities in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, create alternative practices of jurisdiction to mitigate resource extraction and insecurity in their territories. His research has been supported by the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) and the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is 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.
Jorge’s published translations have appeared on Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, LIFTA Volumes: Futures of Palestine, and Khabar Keslan. Jorge’s creative work has been published in oral.pub and rivulet.net. His work has shown at the London-in-Motion Film Festival and appeared in curated web volumes with artist Jumairy.
He received an MA with Distinction in Migration and Diaspora Studies from SOAS, University of London, and holds a BA in French Literature from Reed College. In 2020, Jorge was named a Columbia University Provost Diversity Fellow.
Working Group: Refugee Cities
Oluwatomisin Sontan
Graduate Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University
Oluwatomisin Sontan is a first-year student in the Narrative Medicine Program at Columbia University. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Yale in Literature & Comparative Cultures and concentrated her studies in bioethics and medical humanities. She hopes to use storytelling to bridge the gap between legal, medical, and philosophical understandings to promote health justice, health equity, and ethics in the biomedical space.
Oluwatomisin Sontan
Graduate Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University
Oluwatomisin Sontan is a first-year student in the Narrative Medicine Program at Columbia University. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Yale in Literature & Comparative Cultures and concentrated her studies in bioethics and medical humanities. She hopes to use storytelling to bridge the gap between legal, medical, and philosophical understandings to promote health justice, health equity, and ethics in the biomedical space.
Working Group Affiliation
Isabela Souza
Isabela Souza is a PhD student in Geography at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), and holds a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), a MBA in Project Management from Brazilian Institute of Capital Market (IBMEC - RJ) and a bachelor degree in Tourism from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO).
Isabela Souza
Isabela Souza is a PhD student in Geography at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), and holds a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), a MBA in Project Management from Brazilian Institute of Capital Market (IBMEC - RJ) and a bachelor degree in Tourism from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). Isabela was born and raised in Maré, and since 2011 has been part of OSCIP Observatório de Favelas do Rio de Janeiro. Her interests span debates about the city, the people in it, and art and culture as means to construct more egalitarian society.
Working Group Affiliation
Natalia Romano Spica
Graduate Student, Columbia University
Natalia Romano Spica is a graduate student in the Narrative Medicine Program at Columbia University, where she also earned her B.A., double majoring in Biology and Medicine, Literature and Society. Born in the US and raised between Europe and the US, she has had the opportunity to explore life sciences and clinical research alongside her studies in the Classics, the Arts and the Humanities. She plans to continue her lifelong journey of bridging the sciences and the humanities as a physician.
Natalia Romano Spica
Graduate Student, Columbia University
Natalia Romano Spica is a graduate student in the Narrative Medicine Program at Columbia University, where she also earned her B.A., double majoring in Biology and Medicine, Literature and Society. Born in the US and raised between Europe and the US, she has had the opportunity to explore life sciences and clinical research alongside her studies in the Classics, the Arts and the Humanities. She plans to continue her lifelong journey of bridging the sciences and the humanities as a physician.
Working Group Affiliation
Destiny Spruill
Graduate Research Assistant, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University
Destiny Spruill
Graduate Research Assistant, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University
Working Group Affiliation
Harini Sridhar
Graduate Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University
Harini Sridhar is a graduate student of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. She previously earned her Bachelor's in Biology, focused in Genomics, at Duke University. Harini is classically trained in Bharathanatyam, an age-old dance of India. Through movement, she has shared stories on stage exploring themes of community, environmental health, gender identity, and disability. The parallels she has drawn between the art of dance and the art of medicine has enlightened and reinforced her academic interests in the intersection of dance, mental health, and women's health.
Harini Sridhar
Graduate Student, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University
Harini Sridhar is a graduate student of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. She previously earned her Bachelor's in Biology, focused in Genomics, at Duke University. Harini is classically trained in Bharathanatyam, an age-old dance of India. Through movement, she has shared stories on stage exploring themes of community, environmental health, gender identity, and disability. The parallels she has drawn between the art of dance and the art of medicine has enlightened and reinforced her academic interests in the intersection of dance, mental health, and women's health.
Working Group Affiliation
Didier M. Sylvain
Doctoral Candidate, Ethnomusicology, Columbia University
Didier Michel is a sound artist and PhD student in Ethnomusicology. His work focuses on the spiritual or phenomenological dimensions of “black” engagement with sound technology among Afrofuturist-identified music-makers and listeners in Haiti and the United States.Doctoral Candidate, Ethnomusicology, Columbia University
Didier Michel is a sound artist and PhD student in Ethnomusicology. His work focuses on the spiritual or phenomenological dimensions of “black” engagement with sound technology among Afrofuturist-identified music-makers and listeners in Haiti and the United States.
Didier M. Sylvain
Doctoral Candidate, Ethnomusicology, Columbia University
Didier Michel is a sound artist and PhD student in Ethnomusicology. His work focuses on the spiritual or phenomenological dimensions of “black” engagement with sound technology among Afrofuturist-identified music-makers and listeners in Haiti and the United States. He engages with dialogs on Afrofuturism and the speculative arts; ritual healing, self-transformation and embodiment; human-machine interaction and improvisation; histories and aesthetics of sound and media; and the relation between the virtual and the everyday.
In addition to his graduate pursuits, Didier serves as Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed music journal, Current Musicology, where he is publishing a special issue on Race, Sound, and Technology (Spring 2017), featuring an interdisciplinary group of scholars writing on the mediations of racial formation in society. In Spring 2015 he collaborated with the Institute of Religion, Culture, and Public Life to organize “Tomorrow is the Question: Afrofuturism, Sound and Spirit”—a symposium of artists and scholars exploring what an “Afro-future” might sound like and mean today. Beyond Columbia, Didier’s professional career has centered on facilitation and the art of listening to elicit creative leadership in organizations and people across creative, entrepreneurial, philanthropic, and business communities.
Working Group Affiliation
Madiha Tahir
Ph.D. candidate, Film, Columbia University,
Madiha Tahir has a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and is a writer, filmmaker, and former journalist focusing on drone warfare, surveillance, and empire. She is the director of Wounds of Waziristan, a short documentary essay film on survivors of drone attacks.
Madiha Tahir
Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University
Madiha Tahir has a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and is a writer, filmmaker, and former journalist focusing on drone warfare, surveillance, and empire. She is the director of Wounds of Waziristan, a short documentary essay film on survivors of drone attacks. Her work has appeared in several media outlets including Al-Jazeera, Vice, Funambulist, Foreign Affairs, Caravan, Democracy Now!, Costs of War, Guernica, PRI and BBC’s “The World,” and elsewhere. Tahir is the co-founder of the bilingual, online journal Tanqeed, with Mahvish Ahmad, and the co-editor of Dispatches from Pakistan, a volume of essays in a series on timely issues spearheaded by Vijay Prashad. She is collaborating on a film project on Pakistani movements and a research grant on questions of data and political violence.
Working Group Affiliation
Jade Tan
Doctoral Student, Health Policy Management and Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Columbia University
Jade Tan is a graduate student in Public Health at Columbia University, concentrating in Health Policy Management and Infectious Disease Epidemiology. She has a B.A. from the University of Virginia in Political Philosophy, Policy, and Law (PPL), as well as Biomedical Ethics. Her work and interests focus on human genetic engineering ethics, precision medicine technology, neuroscience, synthetic biology, philosophy of mind, jurisprudence and constitutional law, and the ethical, philosophical, sociopolitical, legal, and deeply human dimensions of future technologies.
Jade Tan
Health Policy Management and Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Jade Tan is a graduate student in Public Health at Columbia University, concentrating in Health Policy Management and Infectious Disease Epidemiology. She has a B.A. from the University of Virginia in Political Philosophy, Policy, and Law (PPL), as well as Biomedical Ethics. Her work and interests focus on human genetic engineering ethics, precision medicine technology, neuroscience, synthetic biology, philosophy of mind, jurisprudence and constitutional law, and the ethical, philosophical, sociopolitical, legal, and deeply human dimensions of future technologies. She has been a research analyst consultant for multiple institutions, edited for several print and online publications, and the strategic director of a successful biotech startup. Jade enjoys grappling with complex intellectual puzzles and engaging in rousing cross-disciplinary debate. She takes pleasure in subverting the humanities versus STEM binary and includes coffee as a main food group. She spends time thinking about the big questions in the morning like: if we had teleportation, would she have been able to sleep in for another 30 minutes?
Working Group Affiliation