Women's Studies Graduate Students
Dalal Alfares
alfares@ucla.edu
Research Interests: Feminist Postcolonial Theory and Literature, Islamic Feminisms, Representations of Middle Eastern women in mainstream media, Subversive representations in alternative media (2000-present)
Azza Basarudin
azza@ucla.edu
BBA (Hons), Univeristy Utara Malaysia (UUM)
MA, Women's Studies, Roosevelt University
Ph.D. Candidate, Women's Studies, UCLA
Teaching/Research Interests: Gender and Religion, Islamic Societies and
Cultures, Transnational Feminist Analyses, Middle East Studies,
Southeast Asian Studies
Tina Beyene
tinab@ucla.edu
Bert
Maria Cueva
Bcueva@ucla.edu
BA, UCLA
MA, Urban Planning (Social Policy and Research), UCLA
Research Interests: My areas of specialization include: 1) Chicana Feminisms (methods/theory production);
2) American Indian Feminisms; 3) non-conventional feminist methodological approaches in feminist analysis;
and 4) feminist theory predominantly through: indigenous, “third world,” colonial, and post-colonial frameworks.
Additional areas of interest also include transnational feminist organizing in areas central to: globalization,
human rights, and indigenous advocacy. More specifically, in regions central to: Mexico (Chiapas), América
Latina (Peru, Columbia), and the Southwest.
Gwen D'Arcangelis
darcange@ucla.edu
BA, Biological Basis of Behavior, University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D. Candidate, Women's Studies, UCLA
Research Interests: feminist studies of science, technology and
medicine; gender, race, and science; empire and medicine; global studies
of public health; security studies; media studies. My research analyzes
the gendered and racialized cultural productions of "biological threats"
such as anthrax, smallpox, SARS and flu. I examine the role that this
threat discourse plays in post-9/11 U.S. Empire and nationhood.
Kolleen Duley
kduley@ucla.edu
BA, Community Studies and Women’s Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Steering Committee Member, Free Battered Women, San Francisco, CA
Research Interests: During my undergraduate study in Women’s Studies and Community Studies at UC Santa Cruz,
I directed much of my research towards a critical study of U.S. prisons, policing, and law enforcement.
Using analyses that critique along multiple axes of domination, I am now looking at how state power and
its supporting ideologies and apparatuses are reinforced through domestic forms of colonization, mobilized
via imperialist practice, and resisted through transnational feminist organizing and scholarship.
Laura Foster
lafoster@ucla.edu
BA, Economics and Government, Georgetown University
JD, University of Cincinnati College of Law
MA, Women’s Studies, University of Cincinnati
Research Interests: My current research is focused on developing a feminist critique of intellectual property
law. I am particularly interested in questions around patent law and genetics. My theoretical framework for
this research draws upon post-colonial feminist theory, feminist science studies, and critical legal theory.
Evangeline Heiliger
heiliger@ucla.edu
BA, Smith College, 2000
BA (Hons), Victoria University of Wellington, 2001
MA, Women's Studies, UCLA, 2007
Research Interests: Ethical consumption; sustainability; cultural
studies of the Americas; feminisms of color; queer theory; political
ecology; neoliberalism; branding, advertising and consumer cultures.
Jacob Lau
jrlau@ucla.edu
Stacy Macias
maciass@ucla.edu
Loran Renee Marsan
lmarsan@ucla.edu
Research interests: My research interests are critical film theory, queer theory, and postcolonial studies
as well as film production. I am currently researching racial and ethnic drag in film history
and recently finished a short educational video titled "Thinking From
Women's Lives: Sandra Harding, Standpoint, & Science."
Jessica Martinez
JessMMartinez@ucla.edu
MS, Women's Studies, Minnesota State University, Mankato
BA, Women's Studies, Metropolitan State University, Saint Paul
Research Interests: I am primarily interested in the raced/classed/gendered post 9/11 discourses of
American nationalism and grief. Other interests include pop culture, media studies, violence against women and
children, feminist pedagogy and activism.
Sarudzayi Matambanadzo
saruchie@hotmail.com
BA, English Literature and Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh
JD, Harvard Law School
Naveen Minai
nminai@ucla.edu
BA (Hons) Politics with a Minor (Communication and Media Studies),
Loughborough University, England.
Research interests: Gender, sexuality, sex, race and class, especially
in South Asia; deconstruction and reconstruction, and intersectionality
of identity elements and politics; sustainable community development and
human rights; feminist and queer theories and movements around the
world, especially in the 'Global South'.
Jennifer Musto
jmusto@ucla.edu
Ph.D. Candidate,
Women's Studies, UCLA
M.A., Women's Studies, UCLA
Fulbright Scholar, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
BA, Women’s Studies, DePaul University, Chicago
Research Interests: human trafficking, sex worker, and immigrant rights;
structural violence; social movements; trauma studies; transnational
feminism(s); European feminism(s); carceral feminism(s); human rights
Katie Oliviero
koliviero@ucla.edu
B.A. Dartmouth College
Secondary-School English Teaching Certificate, The New Teachers Collaborative with the Coalition of Essential Schools
Research: How do techniques of performance, memory and embodiment
compose our understandings of citizenship, intimacy, life and nation as
vulnerable? Analyzing how sensationalism and aesthetics are deployed to
gain political and emotional purchase, this research examines the
performance iconographies of organized opposition to liberal
immigration, queer, and reproductive justice legislation, as articulated
by such groups as the Minutemen, the Yes on Proposition 8 coalition, and
the Genocide Awareness Project, an anti-abortion group. A deep
understanding of conservative activist repertoires will help assess and
produce more progressive artistic and political responses to them.
Kimberly Dawn Robertson
krobertson@ucla.edu
BA, English Language and Literature, University of Northern Colorado
MA, American Culture, University of Michigan
Research Interests: feminisms of color, cultural studies, coalitional politics, identity politics, indigenism,
transnational feminism
Khanum Shaikh
khanums@ucla.edu
MA, International Studies, University of Oregon
Ph.D. Candidate, Women’s Studies, UCLA
Research Interests: Gender, Mobility, Morality and Markets. Looking at how women’s work moves through
markets, from Bahawalpur to Lahore, and the different ways in which women negotiate the space in-between.
Annalisa Synnestvedt
asynnestvedt@ucla.edu
Jocelyn Thomas
jocthomas@ucla.edu
B.A. Smith College, Afro-American Studies w/ minor in Studies of Women and Gender
Research Interests:
queers of color performance theory, Black women's music history, femme studies, gender theory, queer history, Hip-Hop Studies, pop culture studies, popular music studies, film and television, pornography, and POC feminisms
Kimberly Twarog
kstwarog@gmail.com
Kimberly Twarog is in the second year of her UCLA Women’s Studies PhD
Program. In addition to her graduate work, Kimberly also volunteers at a
local shelter for women victims of domestic violence. Her current
research focuses upon the intersections of gender and performance within
America and Indonesia, drawing connections between pop culture and
social life. Her broader research interests include feminist performance
theory, cultural constructions of self, the regulation of the female
body and female sexuality, domestic violence and Indonesian culture.
Sabah Firoz Uddin
sabah.uddin@verizon.net
Ph.D. Candidate, Women’s Studies, UCLA
Anna E. Ward
ae_ward@yahoo.com
Ph.D. Candidate, Women's Studies, UCLA
BA, Women’s Studies and Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz
Research Interests: Popular Media and Visual Culture, Sexuality and LGBT
Studies, Queer Theory, Embodiment, Feminist Theory, Science and Technology Studies
Yamissette Westerband
yamiwest@ucla.edu
Rahel Woldegaber
rahelsahle@hotmail.com
Past Women’s Studies Graduates
Cynthia Ace
uclace@ucla.edu
MA, Women’s Studies, UCLA Spring 2004
Heather Baramand
MA in Women’s Studies, UCLA, Spring 2005
Danielle Carrig
Daniell.carrig@anderson.ucla.edu
BA, Valparaiso University
MA in Women’s Studies, UCLA, Spring 2003
Thesis Title: An Analysis of the Global Gag Rule: Arguments Toward a Feminist Democratic Foreign Policy
Karina Eileraas
karina@ucla.edu
BA, Wesleyan University
Ph.D. in Women’s Studies, UCLA, Spring 2003
Research Interests: Transnational feminist studies; postcolonial and feminist theory; cultural and performance studies; colonization and visual culture; sexuality, nationalism, and war; violence against women; immigration, exile, and asylum policy; Francophone, especially Maghrebian, studies; Middle Eastern feminist autobiography.
Sherin Ershadi
ssershadi@cs.com
MA in Women’s Studies, UCLA, Spring 2003
Alissa Fox
Afox29@ucla.edu
MA in Women’s Studies, UCLA, Spring 2003
Sharmila Lodhia
Miga13@aol.com
BA, Santa Clara University
JD, Hastings College of the Law
Ph.D. in Women’s Studies, UCLA, 2007
Research Interests: My doctoral research examines how the U.S. and Indian legal systems, adjudicate
domestic violence homicides involving Indian women. My research also explores the extent to which the
landscape of feminist legal activism in both regions has been altered by transnational feminist discourses
and advocacy networks which increasingly link violence against women to changes in the global economy,
shifting racializations and re-assertions of state power. Other research interests include: women of color
feminisms, transnational feminisms, postcolonial theory, critical race theory and feminist legal theory.
Heather Masterton
soyfeminista@earthlink.net
BA, Women’s Studies, UCLA
MA in Women’s Studies, UCLA, Spring 2005
Jaime Placek
MA in Women's Studies, UCLA, Spring 2002