Kevin Windhauser

Kevin Windhauser

PhD Candidate, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Kevin Windhauser is a PhD Candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, writing on the relationship between Renaissance literature and the development of library systems in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. He is currently pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Feminist Scholarship through Columbia's Institute for Research on Women, Gender, & Sexuality. He has a B.A. from the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University and an M.A. and M.Phil from Columbia University. 

Inga Winkler

Inga Winkler

Lecturer in the Discipline of Human Rights in the Department of Political Science, Columbia University

Inga Winkler is a lecturer in the Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Human Rights Program. Her research agenda is held together by her interest in socio-economic rights, development, gender, social justice and substantive equality. Her policy experience over the last years has enabled her to follow discussions at various levels from global processes to local challenges which is reflected in her research approaches. Current research projects focus on the Sustainable Development Goals and human rights, the UN Special Procedures, menstrual health and wellbeing, and the human right to sanitation.

Previously, she has been in residence as a visiting scholar the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU, at Stellenbosch (South Africa) and at Berkeley. She is an affiliate of the Economic and Social Rights Working Group at the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut.

Prior to joining Columbia, Inga was the Legal Adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, who was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Inga has consulted for various international organizations and NGOs including the European Parliament, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, WaterAid, and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

Inga holds a German law degree and a doctorate in international human rights law (summa cum laude).

Working Group Affiliation

Menstrual Health and Gender Justice, Project Director

Penny Wolfson

Penny Wolfson

Sarah Lawrence College; Narrative Medicine Program, Columbia University

Penny Wolfson won a National Magazine Award in Feature Writing in 2001 for an essay in The Atlantic Monthly called “Moonrise,” which has since been anthologized in several collections, including Best American Essays. Her memoir, Moonrise: One Family, Genetic Identity and Muscular Dystrophy, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2003.  Her writing on disability has also appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Exceptional Parent, and other publications, and is included in Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write their Bodies. She has a BA and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she taught nonfiction writing from 2001 to 2010. She has also taught in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia, and is now working on a paper on the history of wheelchairs.

Glenn Wolther

Glenn Wolther

Graduate Student, Neuroscience, Biobehavioral Sciences Department, Columbia University

Glenn Wolther is a Master of Science candidate in Neuroscience within the Biobehavioral Sciences Department. His diverse research interests include the interrelated genetic, transcriptional, and proteomic changes involved with short- and long-term synaptic potentiation; ways of better integrating research in neurobiology at the molecular, cellular and systems level with cognitive and affective neuroscience and neuropsychology; and the relationship of neuroscience to the law. Glenn holds a B.A. in English Literature from Boston University and a J.D. from B.U. School of Law. While in law school, he served on the Advisory Committee to the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts, and worked for the A.C.L.U.'s voting rights project, at their Southern Regional Office in Atlanta. In private practice Glenn has concentrated on Constitutional Law/ Civil Rights, Criminal Defense and other litigation. He is admitted to the bars of N.Y., N.J., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, Northern Districts of NY, and the District of New Jersey. He has taken on litigation and trials as a member of the Pro Bono Panel for the U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y. Glenn’s personal pursuits have included extensive acting in theatre and independent/student films, studying, living and traveling in various European cities, and teaching himself to play guitar.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Autumn Womack

Autumn Womack

Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Pittsburgh

Autumn Womack received her PhD from Columbia University where her research focused on 19th and early twentieth century African American literary culture. At Columbia she developed a rich interest in archival practices, visual studies, black print culture, and social science. As an Assistant Professor in The University of Pittsburgh's English Department, Autumn continues to explore these topics in her current book project, Social Document Fictions, which uncovers a small genre of literature published between 1890 and 1928, looking in particular at writers deployed formally experimental and generically hybrid texts to advance social scientific epistemologies that uncover archives and social bodies that remain opaque to normative visual techniques. Autumn has taught classes in 19th and 20th century African American literature, Post-bellum "experimental" fiction, the Harlem Renaissance, visual culture, as well as single author seminars on Toni Morrison (Spring 2014). She looks forward to developing courses in Black visual culture, African American Literary Theory, Social Science and Literature, antebellum performance culture, and African American periodicals.

Sophia Wong

Sophia Wong

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus

Sophia Isako Wong is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University in New York, NY, USA. She has published on duties of justice to persons with intellectual disabilities, comparisons between sexism and discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities, and how the availability of PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) affects the reproductive autonomy of prospective parents. Her current research analyzes the work of children and adolescents who provide care to their siblings, parents and other family members. She also enjoys writing short stories and making stained glass mosaics.

Alexa Woodward

Alexa Woodward

Graduate Student, Bioethics, Columbia University

Alexa Woodward is a newly accepted graduate student in the Bioethics program at Columbia University School of Professional Studies. She graduated with honors from California State University Chico with a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology in 2015, having also competed an Honors Thesis focused on autonomy, futility, and end of life issues. After graduate school, she plans on attending medical school or pursuing a Ph.D. program. Outside of academia, Alexa is an ardent fitness enthusiast, artist, and vocalist.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Daniella Wurst

Daniella Wurst

Doctoral Candidate, Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University

Daniella Wurst is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. She is a graduate member at the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality and a Teaching Scholar at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. Since 2016, she has been a part of the Reframing Gendered Violence working group, as well as a member and part of the organizing team of the Cultural Memory University Seminar at Columbia University. Her dissertation analyzes photography, documentary theatre, and literature of the post-generation focusing on the tensions present in Cultural Memory Practices in Argentina, Chile, and Peru.

Working Group Affiliation

Reframing Gendered Violence

Lee Xie

Lee Xie

Ph.D. candidate, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, New York University

Lee Xie is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at New York University. She holds a B.A. in Spanish (high honors) and Journalism (double major) from New York University. She works at the intersections of diaspora studies and feminist aesthetics: her dissertation considers how Chinese diasporas are remembered in contemporary feminist aesthetic practices in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her most recent essay, "Mapping Covid-19’s Transnational Implications for Women Workers," was published in CUNY FORUM's special issue, Corona Conversations: East & West. She is a grant awardee and lab member of the 2021-2 Cross/Currents H-Lab, funded by the NYU Center for the Humanities.

Working Group Affiliations

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

Merieme Yafout

Merieme Yafout

Merieme Yafout is a professor and researcher in social sciences.  She is the author of several articles on “Islamic feminism in Morocco”, “female ijtihad”, “the status of women in Moroccan political parties”, “Islamist movements in Morocco,” “elections in Morocco,” and “field research in Morocco.”  She received her PhD in political science from the Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences at Hassan II University in Casablanca, Morocco.  Her thesis is on “The status of women within the Islamist movements in Morocco: between feminine exegesis and political participation.”

Hairong Yan

Hairong Yan

Anthropologist, Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Yan Hairong is an anthropologist in the Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.  Her research interests are labour migration, rural-urban relations, and rural cooperatives in China, as well as Hong Konger/Mainlander relations and China/Africa links.  She is the author of New Masters/New Servants: Migration, Development and Women Workers in China (Duke University Press, 2008).

Hentyle Yapp

Hentyle Yapp

Assistant Professor, Department of Art & Public Policy, New York University

Hentyle Yapp is an assistant professor at New York University in the Department of Art & Public Policy. He is affiliated faculty with the Department of Performance Studies, Disability Council, and Asian/Pacific/American Institute. His research engages China, performance, disability, and queer theory. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in GLQ, American Quarterly, Journal of Visual Culture, and Verge: Studies in Global Asias. He is also a member of the Social Text collective. He received his BA from Brown University, JD from UCLA School of Law with specializations in Critical Race Theory and Public Interest Law, and a PhD from UC Berkeley in Performance Studies with a designated emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Working Group Affiliation

Queer Aqui

Melanie Yazzie

Melanie Yazzie

Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico

Melanie Yazzie (Diné) is an Assistant Professor at University of New Mexico. She has published widely in scholarly platforms, and engages in extensive public intellectual and activist work on Native women’s rights, LGBTQ2 rights, environmental justice, policing and incarceration, and Indigenous housing justice, urban issues, and international solidarity. She specializes in Navajo and American Indian history and her work examines (neo)liberalism, settler colonialism and decolonization, biopolitics and political ecology, theories of policing and the state, and Indigenous feminisms/queer studies/urban experience. She is bilagaana born for Ma’iideeshgiizhinii (Coyote Pass Clan).

Working Group Affiliation

Insurgent Domesticities

Armanc Yıldız

Armanc Yıldız

Armanc Yildiz is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. His current research interests are sexuality, race, labor, political economy, colonialism, migration, Germany, and the anthropology of Europe. He received his master’s degree (with Distinction) in International Performance Research at the University of Warwick. He has a bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in Cultural Studies with a minor on Art Theory and Criticism at Sabanci University.

Working Group Affiliation

Women Mobilizing Memory

Helen Yitah

Helen Yitah

Associate Professor & Head, Department of English, University of Ghana

Helen Yitah is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English, University of Ghana. She is also founding Director of the University of Ghana-Carnegie Writing Centre, established through her initiative. She holds a BA and MPhil from the University of Ghana and a PhD from the University of South Carolina, Columbia. She has taught various courses on literature and writing at both universities. A literary scholar and cultural critic, she has published on gender identity in literature, particularly oral and written African literature, American literature and children’s literature in Ghana; and women’s cultural production in colonial and contemporary Africa. Her current work includes two edited books, Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities through Postcolonial Perspectives (Brill/Rodopi, 2016) and After the Ceremonies, a collection of poems by Ama Ata Aidoo (African Poetry Book Fund). She has supported literary and cultural activity in various ways, including serving on judging panels for the Millennium Excellence Awards (literature category) and the “Love on the Road” short fiction contest; as facilitator for the African Poetry Library project; editor of the MBAASEM/Daily Graphic Writers Page; and presenter for “Read a Book a Week,” a book review program on Radio Universe, University of Ghana.

Working Group Affiliation

The Rural-Urban Interface: Gender and Poverty in Ghana and Kenya, Statistics and Stories

Gökçe Yurdakul

Gökçe Yurdakul

Georg Simmel Professor of Diversity and Social Conflict, Humboldt University, Berlin

Gökçe Yurdakul is Georg Simmel Professor of Diversity and Social Conflict at the Humboldt University, Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences.

She studied Sociology at the Bogazici University and Gender & Women’s Studies at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. She has her PhD. from the University of Toronto, Department of Sociology where she received the Connaught Fellowship.

Previously, she has taught courses on race, ethnicity, gender and immigration at the Trinity College Dublin and Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. She was affiliated with the Free University, Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies as a post-doctoral fellow. She has published books and articles on immigrant integration, citizenship Islam in Europe and issues of Muslim women in Western Europe and North America. She has written articles for scholarly journals, such as Annual Review of Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and German Politics and Society. She has been working on policy reports for the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

Sarover Zaidi

Sarover Zaidi

Assistant Professor, Jindal School of Art & Architecture, Delhi

Sarover Zaidi works at the intersections of critical theory, anthropology, art, architecture and material culture studies. She has extensively worked on religious architecture, and urbanism in the city of Bombay and currently co-runs a site on writing the city called Chiragh Dilli (https://chiraghdilli.wordpress.com). Previously she worked on rural development, with a focus on health, education, and women's rights across India, and currently works on religious iconography & modernist architecture in south Asia. She has received the Max Planck fellowship, the INTACH fellowship, the IFA fellowship and the Khoj fellowship for her research interests. Besides this she also curates an interdisciplinary forum on art, architecture and anthropology, 'Elementary forms' and has previously taught at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. At JSAA she runs a studio course on 'Materials and making', and also teaches Modern South Asia, and Design Theories.

Working Group Affiliation

Insurgent Domesticities

Jon Zaikowski

Jon Zaikowski

Graduate Student, Bioethics, Columbia University

Jon Zaikowski is the co-founder of CapCell Biologics, a NASA-spinout biotechnology startup developing implants to treat rare diseases. He is a graduate student in Bioethics at Columbia University, having previously graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University with a BA in History and Philosophy.

Working Group Affiliation

Precision Medicine: Ethics, Politics and Culture

Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

Author, Editor and Attorney

Rafia Zakaria is an author, editor and attorney. She has been a weekly columnist for DAWN, Pakistan’s largest and oldest English language daily since 2009. Her column is syndicated in newspapers all over the world through the Inter Press Service and is regularly republished in the Deccan Chronicle, The Wire India, Kathmandu Post, Sri Lanka Guardian, Korea Herald, New Straits Times and The Internazionale among others. She writes the “Alienated” column for The Baffler and has previously been a regular columnist for Al Jazeera America. She also writes regularly for Guardian Books and is a CNN Opinion contributor. Her recent New York Times Op-Ed “The Myth of Women’s Empowerment” was shared over 30K times on Facebook.

From 2009-2015 Rafia served on Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA and was the first Pakistani-American woman to do so. In Fall 2016 she was part of the “How Should Journalism Cover Terrorism” Project at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. In Fall 2017 she along with political scientists Kate Cronin-Furman and Nimmi Gowrinathan published the “Emissaries of Empowerment” report for the Colin Powell Center for Civic and Public Leadership. The report (which calls out racism in women’s empowerment initiatives in international development) was featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian.

Rafia is the author of two books The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan which was selected one of the “Best Non-fiction Books of 2015” by Newsweek Magazine and Veil (2017). She is currently under contract for a third book A Different Life with Beacon Press.

Working Group Affiliation

Religion and the Global Reframing of Gender Violence, Media Fellow

Rafia Zaman

Rafia Zaman

Rafia Zaman is presently pursuing her doctoral thesis in Political Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India under the supervision of Prof. Gurpreet Mahajan. She is interested in the intersectionality of gender and identity politics represented by Muslim women. As part of her M.Phil, she wrote a dissertation on the topic “ ‘Islamic Feminism’: A Critical Appraisal”. Her current research focuses on Muslim women’s activism in India from the period following the Shah Bano controversy till the present. A research paper, “(Re) Framing the Issues: Muslim Women’s Activism in Contemporary India” has been accepted for publication in the January, 2013 issue of ASIEN. Rafia has previously taught the Bachelor’s in Education program at Jamia Millia Islamia and GGSIP University, both in New Delhi.