Speaker Gallery
Elena Kagan, Associate Justice
United States Supreme Court
Ann Gale, Professor of Painting and Drawing
University of Washington
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media
Simon Fraser University
Dawn Jeanine Wright, Chief Scientist
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)
Meg Urry, Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Yale University
Laura Strickling
Soprano
Jean Comaroff, Alfred North Whitehead Professor of African & African American Studies
Harvard University
Lydia Kavraki, Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science
Rice University
Hon. Patricia Millett, United States Circuit Judge
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Anna Deavere Smith
Actor and Playwright
Lorrie Moore
Prize-winning author
Carla Hayden
Librarian of Congress
Kristen K. Waggoner, Senior Vice President, Legal Division
Alliance Defending Freedom
Chai Feldblum, Immediate Past-Commissioner
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Deborah Loewenberg Ball, William H. Payne Collegiate Professor of Education
University of Michigan
Stephanie Murphy '00
Member of Congress (D-FL)
Elizabeth Barnes, Professor of Philosophy, Corcoran Department of Philosophy
University of Virginia
Ira Kemelmaher-Schlizerman, Asst. Prof., Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering
Univ. of Washington
Tamura Lomax, Co-Founder, Managing Editor & Visionary
The Feminist Wire
Margaret Leinen
Director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Dean, School of Marine Science, University of California, San Diego
Anne Rasmussen, William M. and Annie B. Bickers Professor of Middle Eastern Studies
William & Mary
Mary Silber, Professor of Statistics
University of Chicago
Valerie Taylor, Director, Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory
Adrienne Mayor, Research Scholar, Classics and History and Philosophy of Science
Stanford University
Elizabeth Spires
Poet and Children's Book Author
Geraldine Richmond, Presidential Chair in Science and Professor of Chemistry
University of Oregon
Bernedette Muthien
Activist, Poet and Scholar
Natalie H. Brito, Assistant Professor of Applied Psychology
New York University
Dr. Ysaye Barnwell
Composer and Musician
Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, Dean and Professor of Education, School of Education
American University
Jodi Kantor, Journalist
New York Times
Archana Pathak
Assistant Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University
Ann M. Little, Professor of History
Colorado State University
Selena Fox, Psychotherapist, Teacher and Writer
Circle Sanctuary
Mary Jean Corbett, University Distinguished Professor of English
Miami University (Ohio)
Karen Goldberg, Affiliate Professor of Chemistry & Director of CENTC
University of Washington
Ann Owen, Chair and Professor of Economics and Henry Pratt Bristol Professor of Public Policy
Hamilton College
Patricia Smith
Poet, Performer and Teacher
Dorothy Kim, Assistant Professor of English
Vassar College
Professor Kim is a medievalist, digital humanist and feminist. She teaches medieval literature at Vassar College. She has been a Fulbright Fellow, a Ford Foundation Fellow and a Frankel Fellow at the University of Michigan. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Mellon Foundation. She is a Korean American who grew up in Los Angeles in and around Koreatown.
Professor Kim’s article, Teaching Medieval Studies in a Time of White Supremacy, has been viewed more than three million times.
Kimberly Tanner, Professor of Biology
San Francisco State University
Bonnie Ruberg, Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Games, Dept. of Informatics
University of California at Irvine
Alison Keith, Professor of Classics and Director, Jackman Humanities Institute
University of Toronto
Deborah Denenholz Morse, Sara E. Nance Professor of English
William & Mary
Maria Massi Dakake, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
George Mason University
Joy Buolamwini, Research Assistant
MIT Media Lab
Douglas Flowe, Assistant Professor, Department of History
Washington University (St. Louis)
Yiman Wang, Associate Professor, Film & Digital Media Department
University of California at Santa Cruz
Christy S. Coleman, Chief Executive Officer
American Civil War Museum
Christy Coleman is the Co-Chief Executive Officer of the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar in Richmond, VA. It is the nation's first museum to explore the story of the Civil War from three perspectives – Union, Confederate and African American.
Ms. Coleman began her career as a living history interpreter at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Over the course of a ten year career, she had increasing levels of responsibility, finally serving as Director of Historic Programs. In 1999, she was named President and CEO of the nation's largest African American museum, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan.
In 2008, Ms. Coleman joined the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, now known as the American Civil War Museum.
She has lectured extensively and consulted with some of the country's leading museums, written a number of scholarly and public history articles as well as being an award-winning screenwriter for educational television.
Schroeder Stribling, Chief Executive Officer
N Street Village, Washington DC
Ms. Stribling is an activist for homeless and poor people in Washington, D.C. She is a social worker by background and has been at N Street Village since 2003 when she initially came as the Director of Programs. Under her leadership, N Street Village has grown significantly – the housing offerings have more than tripled, and the programs have greatly expanded in the areas of health, mental health and addiction recovery.
In 2006, Ms. Stribling was first appointed to the DC Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH). The ICH is an advisory group intended to provide the Mayor with strategic policy and planning guidance regarding homelessness. Since then, she has been re-appointed to the ICH several times. She presently serves as the Chair of the Board of the Center for Nonprofit Advancement, and is on the Boards of the National Capital Breast Care Center and MedArt Center for Integrative Medicine at George Washington University.
Michal Lipson, Eugene Higgins Professor in Electrical Engineering and Professor of Applied Physics
Columbia University
Professor Lipson is an American physicist known for her work on silicon photonics. She was named a 2010 MacArthur Fellow for contributions to silicon photonics and in 2017 was awarded the R. W. Wood Prize from The Optical Society (OSA) for her "pioneering research contributions in silicon photonics." The award recognizes an outstanding discovery, scientific or technical achievement, or invention in the field of optics that opens a new area of research or significantly expands an established one.
Until 2014, Professor Lipson was the Given Foundation Professor of Engineering at Cornell University in the school of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience at Cornell. She is now at Columbia University, where she heads the Lipson Nanophotonics Group. According to Google Scholar, her publications have been cited over 34,000 times.
Bibiana Suárez, Professor of Art and Vincent DePaul Professor, Department of Art, Media and Design
DePaul University
Professor Suárez was born and raised in Puerto Rico, but has resided in Chicago since 1980. She has a BFA (1984) and an MFA (1989) in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Suárez has exhibited extensively in the United States as well as in Puerto Rico and Mexico. Her solo exhibitions include Memoria(Memory) at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2011-2012); Domino/Dominó at El Museo del Barrio (1998) in New York and the Illinois Arts Gallery (1999) in Chicago; De Pico a Pico (Beak to Beak - Face to Face) at Sazama Gallery, Chicago (1993); and Island Adrift: The Puerto Rican Identity in Exile at Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia (1993).
Celia Pearce, Associate Professor, College of Arts, Media and Design
Northeastern University
Professor Pearce is an award-winning game designer, author, researcher, teacher, curator and artist, specializing in multiplayer gaming and virtual worlds, independent art, and alternative game genres, as well as games and gender. She has also been described as a "serial instigator."
In addition to her academic position, Professor Pearce is co-founder and Festival Chair of IndieCade, and served as co-curator for XYZ: Alternative Voices in Video Games, the first exhibition to celebrate women game designers. Her games have been featured at Come Out & Play, Different Games, CHI, SIGGRAPH, Incubate, and the Boston Festival of Independent Games, where her electronic-quilt based board game eBee, designed in collaboration with Gillian Smith, won an award for most Innovative Tabletop Game in 2016. She is also launch title co-developer for Move38 "Blinks," an intelligent tile system for tabletop games; the first game on the platform, Fracture, was a finalist at IndieCade 2016. Professor Pearce has also written a number of papers on game design, emergent social behavior in games, and artgames. Her books include Communities of Play, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds (Co-Author) Meet Me at the Fair: A World's Fair Reader (Co-Editor and Contributor), and IndieCade @ 10.
micha cárdenas, Assistant Professor, Art & Design: Games + Playable Media
University of California, Santa Cruz
Professor cárdenas is an artist and theorist who studies the movement (migration, performance and mobility) of trans people of color in digital media. She is a member of the artist collective Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0. Her solo and collaborative artworks have been presented in museums, galleries and biennials including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Centro Cultural del Bosque in Mexico City, the Centro Cultural de Tijuana, the Zero1 Biennial and the California Biennial.
Professor cárdenas was the recipient of the first ever James Tiptree Jr. fellowship, a fellowship to provide support and recognition for the new voices who are making visible the forces that are changing our view of gender today. She has given keynote talks at the Allied Media Conference, the Association of Internet Researchers, the Digital Gender Conference at Umea University in Sweden, the Dark Side of the Digital Conference and the Vera List Center at the New School in New York. She is on the advisory boards of FemTechNet and the York University Center for Feminist Research.
Mattie Brice
Game Designer and Critic
Ms. Brice is an independent video game designer, critic and industry activist. Her games and writing focus on diversity initiatives in the games industry, discussing the perspective of marginalized minority voices in publications like Paste, Kotaku and The Border House. Her games are freeware and do not require programming to create.
Her game, Mainichi, role plays day-to-day life of a transgender person. It was exhibited at XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design in Museum of Design Atlanta, the first-ever exhibition that highlights the work of women as game designers and artists. It was also exhibited at Indiecade 2013. Brice also consults and speaks at gaming related conferences like the Game Developers Conference, Indiecade, and the Queerness and Games Conference at the Berkeley Center for New Media.
Dr. Libby Jewett, Director, Ocean Acidification Program
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Krista Thompson, Weinberg College Board of Visitors Professor, Department of Art History
Northwestern University
Anne J. McNeil '99, Professor of Chemistry and Macromolecular Science and Engineering
Professor McNeil is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry in the College of Literature, Science, & Arts, Professor of Macromolecular Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering, and heads The McNeil Group at the University of Michigan. There, graduate students focus on the synthesis and applications of organic materials. Specific materials of interest include conjugated polymers and small molecule gels.
The McNeil Group also studies educational methods and promotes efforts to improve student engagement and learning. Specific project goals include attracting and retaining a diverse body of students to careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, moving the Chemistry department towards more evidence-based teaching, narrowing the gap between varied high-school preparation and college-level introductory courses, and increasing the accessible scientific knowledge available to the masses.
Veronica Paredes, Assistant Professor, School of Theatre, Film & Television
University of California - Los Angeles
Professor Paredes' research focuses on reconfigured urban media spaces and feminist digital practices. She is currently working on a book project about movie theater use, reuse, and representation in urban space, emphasizing how intermedial connections and social, racial and cultural dimensions of moviegoing disrupt popular understandings of vintage movie theaters.
Professor Paredes is also an active member of the networked feminist collective FemTechNet and Situated Critical Race & Media (SCRAM). SCRAM is presently working on an online multimodal plug-n-play pedagogical platform with iterative playlists for collaborative critical making and mapping of media called FemTechSonic. The current prototype focuses on Games, Sound, and Location. Her individual work has been published in Amodern; collaboratively written work has been published in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, and is also forthcoming in the newest volume of the Debates in Digital Humanities series, Bodies of Information.
Lacrecia G. Cade, Law '02, Strategist
Taylor English Decisions LLC
Lacrecia Cade is a strategist in Taylor English Decisions LLC in Atlanta, where she consults with educational institutions, businesses and non-profit organizations providing strategic guidance on governance, legal and compliance strategies, crisis management, strategic communications, diversity and inclusion strategies, strategic planning and organizational development.
She is also a member of the Higher Education Practice Group of Taylor English Duma Law Firm LLP. Ms. Cade recently rejoined Taylor English from Morehouse College where she served as General Counsel and Chief of Staff during a time of unprecedented growth and change.
In addition to her consulting and legal practices, Ms. Cade is a speaker and author. She uses these platforms to discuss how to overcome organizational dysfunction and shares lessons learned during a career that’s been full of healthy disruption.
Patricia J. Williams, James L. Dohr Professor of Law
Columbia University
Patricia J. Williams is the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University. She is the author of numerous books and articles, and her award-winning column, "Diary of a Mad Law Professor," has appeared monthly in The Nation Magazine for two decades. A MacArthur fellow, she is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates and has been recognized by all the institutions from which she matriculated: an Outstanding Alumna Award from Latin School in Boston, an Alumnae Achievement Award from Wellesley College, and a Graduate Society Medal from Harvard.
She will be welcomed by the Department of American Studies at a Symposium in her honor.
Carrie Etter
Poet
Carrie Etter is an American poet who has lived in England since 2001. She holds an MA, MFA and PhD from the University of California at Irvine. She currently is a Reader at Bath Spa University.
In the UK, her poems have appeared in The New Statesman, Poetry Review, The Rialto, The Times Literary Supplement and elsewhere, while in the US her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, The New Republic, Seneca Review and many other journals. She is also an essayist and critic. Her reviews of contemporary poetry have appeared in The Independent, The Guardian and The Times Literary Supplement, among others. Etter has also published essays on Sherman Alexie, Peter Reading and W. B. Yeats.
She won a 2010 London Awards for Art and Performance, the London New Poetry Award for a best first collection published in the UK and Ireland in the preceding year, for The Tethers. In 2013 she received an Authors' Foundation grant from the Society of Authors for work on her third collection, Imagined Sons, which went on to be shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry by the Poetry Society.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and Chief Executive Officer
New America
Dr. Slaughter is the President and CEO of New America, a think and action tank dedicated to renewing America in the Digital Age. She is also the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. From 2009–2011 she served as director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, the first woman to hold that position. Upon leaving the State Department she received the Secretary's Distinguished Service Award for her work, as well as meritorious service awards from USAID and the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe. Prior to her government service, Dr. Slaughter was the Dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from 2002–2009 and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School from 1994-2002.
Dr. Slaughter has written or edited eight books, including The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World (2017), Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family (2015), The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World (2007) and A New World Order (2004), as well as over 100 scholarly articles. She will be delivering the George Tayloe Ross Address in International Peace.
Michelle Gable '96
Author
Katherine A. Rowe, President
William & Mary
Katherine Anandi Rowe is a scholar of renaissance literature and media history. She was named the twenty-eighth president of William & Mary on February 20, 2018. She was sworn in on July 2, 2018.
Rowe, a Shakespearean scholar recognized for her work in the digital innovation of the liberal arts, served as provost and dean of the faculty of Smith College from 2014 to 2018. Prior to Smith, she served as an English professor and in other leadership roles at Bryn Mawr College as well as a faculty member at Yale University. An entrepreneur, Rowe is also the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Luminary Digital Media.
Alice E. Marwick, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
University of North Carolina
Professor Marwick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Media Law and Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she researches the social, political and cultural implications of popular social media technologies. Her current book project examines how the networked nature of online privacy disproportionately impacts marginalized individuals in terms of gender, race and socio-economic status. Marwick is also a Faculty Advisor to the Media Manipulation project at the Data & Society Research Institute, which studies far-right online subcultures and their use of social media to spread misinformation.
Her first book, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age (Yale 2013), draws from ethnographic fieldwork in the San Francisco tech scene to examine how people seek social status through attention and visibility online. She writes for popular publications such as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Guardian in addition to academic journals including New Media and Society, Public Culture, Social Media & Society, the International Journal of Communication and Television & New Media, among others.
Joan Donovan, Research Lead, Media Manipulation Initiative
Data & Society Research Institute
Aїcha Redouanne
Singer and Musician
Singer and instrumentalist Aïcha Redouane specializes in the art of Arabic singing, Sufi poetry and song, Amazigh (Berber) musical styles, along with jazz, blues and Western classical music. An internationally recognized Moroccan diva of Amazigh origin, Redouane, has revitalized the Arab music school of Nahda and art of maqâm, through the ensemble, Al-Adwar, which she founded in Paris with the Lebanese composer and percussionist, Habib Yammine. With a very rare and exceptional voice, Redouane, also qânûn player, commands an extensive Arabic classical music repertoire and has recorded numerous albums, on the labels Diapason d’Or, Choc de la Musique and Classica.
She and Habib Yammine will be Artists in Residence during the fall semester.
Amanda Phillips, Assistant Professor, Dept of English, Dept of Film & Media Studies
Georgetown University
Professor Phillips received her Ph.D. in the Department of English at the University of California – Santa Barbara, with an emphasis certificate from the Department of Feminist Studies. Her research unites interdisciplinary software and game studies approaches with feminist, queer and critical race theory, investigating specific design practices like digital animation and avatar customization to understand how difference is produced and policed in technological interfaces. Her interests more broadly are in issues of social justice in and around technoculture, popular media and the digital humanities.
Her publications can be found in Queer Game Studies, Games and Culture, Digital Creativity, Debates in the Digital Humanities and The Fembot Collective. She has also been involved with the #transformDH Collective's efforts to encourage and highlight critical cultural studies work in digital humanities projects, and she currently serves as co-chair of the American Studies Association’s Digital Humanities Caucus.
Marie Hicks, Assistant Professor, Department of History
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Mireille Lee, Assistant Professor, Dept of History of Art, Dept of Classical Studies
Vanderbilt University
Adrienne Shaw, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies and Production
Temple University
Janet Abbate, Associate Professor
Dept of Science, Technology, and Society, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Professor Abbate's work focuses on the history of computer science and the Internet, particularly on the participation of women.
Abbate is the author of two books: Inventing the Internet (2000) and Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing (2012). Inventing the Internet was widely reviewed as an important work in the history of computing and networking, particularly in highlighting the role of social dynamics and of non-American participation in early networking development. Recoding Gender also received positive reviews, especially for its incorporation of interviews with women in the field. The book received the 2014 Computer History Museum prize.
Abbate is currently the co-director of Virginia Tech's graduate program in Science, Technology, and Society.
Sarah McLennan M.A. '04, Ph.D. '15, Visiting Assistant Professor, History and Philosophy
Virginia State University
Asifa Quraishi-Landes, Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Nell Scovell
Television Writer and Author
Ms. Scovell is a television and magazine writer, and producer. She is the creator of the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which aired on ABC and The WB from 1996 until 2003. As a television writer, Scovell wrote for David Letterman and The Simpsons. (She was one of the first few women to write an episode of The Simpsons.) Other TV writing credits include The Wilton North Report, Coach, Monk, Murphy Brown, Charmed, Newhart, The Critic, NCIS and many others.
Scoville co-wrote Sheryl Sandberg's 2013 best-selling book Lean In. In 2018, Scovell's book Just the Funny Parts: ... And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club was published with a foreword by Sheryl Sandberg.
Mary Patrice Brown, Of Counsel
O'Melveny, Washington, DC
Ms. Brown serves as Counsel at the international law firm O'Melveny.
Before joining the firm, Brown was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the US Department of Justice. She also has held many other senior leadership positions within the Department of Justice and the US Attorney's Office in Washington DC, including Chief of the Criminal Division at the US Attorney's Office and head of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility. Over the course of her distinguished career as a federal prosecutor, she has represented the United States government in more than 100 criminal appeals and jury and bench trials. She will be one of the featured speakers at the McGlothlin Leadership Forum.
E. Clorisa Phillips '77
Writer and Historian
Ellen Stofan '83, D.Sc. '16, P '10, P '14, Director
National Air & Space Museum, Washington, DC
Kathryn Carter '91
Sports Marketer
Ann Fairchild Law '96, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary
Siemens Corporation
Ms. Fairchild is General Counsel for Siemens North America as well as Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of Siemens Corporation in the United States. She oversees the legal operations of Siemens in the United States and Canada. Ms. Fairchild is an active business partner to the regional executive management of Siemens, enhancing business strategy and policy through pragmatic legal advice and the development of a strong, diverse legal organization across North America.
Ms. Fairchild is also the co-executive sponsor of the Women's Information Network at Siemens, or WIN@Siemens, a national network committed to promoting the inclusion, awareness and understanding of issues and challenges facing women within the Siemens workforce. The purpose for WIN@S is to heighten awareness and address the unique business needs of women at Siemens, which contributes to Siemens core values and supports the Siemens goal of inclusion by attracting, retaining and motivating a diverse workforce.
Janice Allen Jackson '80, Administrator
Augusta, Georgia
Ms. Jackson began her role as Administrator for the Augusta, Georgia Consolidated Government in November, 2014. During her career, Ms. Jackson has acquired a vast array of knowledge while serving in such governmental appointed positions as General Manager in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina; City Manager in Albany, Georgia; and Assistant City Manager also in Albany, Georgia. In addition, she is the founder and owner of a consulting firm, Janice Allen Jackson and Associates.
Over the years, she has been active in various civic and professional organizations including the United Way, International and Georgia City-County Managers Associations, the Women's National Book Association and the National Forum for Black Public Administrators just to name a few. She is a life member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and a Rotarian.
Ms. Jackson will be a Baxter-Ward Fellow, hosted by Government and Public Policy.
Marcia Bartusiak
Author and Science Journalist
Ms. Bartusiak is an author, journalist and Professor of the Practice of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She writes about the fields of astronomy and physics. She has been published in National Geographic, Discover, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Science, Popular Science, World Book Encyclopedia, Smithsonian and MIT Technology Review. She is a columnist for Natural History magazine. Ms. Bartusiak has twice won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award - in 2001 for Einstein's Unfinished Symphony and in 1982 for "The Ultimate Timepiece" in Discover Magazine.
She won the 2006 American Institute of Physics Andrew W. Gemant Award, which recognizes the accomplishments of a person who has made significant contributions to the cultural, artistic or humanistic dimension of physics. Her latest books are a revision of Einstein's Unfinished Symphony, on the history of gravitational-wave astronomy, Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved (2016). She will be meeting with the W&M Astronomy Club.
April Powell-Willingham
Constitutional Consultant
Ms. Powell-Willingham is an expert in governance and democracy, as well as a constitutional lawyer and legal drafter with a law and international development background and experience in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and South Sudan. She has been a senior executive managing complex, large initiatives with substantial budgets centered around peace building, state building, structural and institutional change in fragile and conflict-affected countries.
She is former Director, Office of Constitutional and Legislative Affairs (U.S. Embassy, Baghdad) and Former Head of the Joint Constitution Unit (UNDP Somalia/United Nations Political Office for Somalia). She will be part of the program on Women and Constitutions at the Law School.
Gresa Caka-Nimani, Judge, Constitutional Court
Republic of Kosovo
Judge Caka-Nimani was appointed a Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo in December, 2015.
Until her appointment, Judge Caka-Nimani served as a Senior Legal Advisor as a Team Leader for the Democracy and Governance Office at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Kosovo. During her service at USAID, she was responsible for supporting the development of USAID strategies in support of Kosovo's development; providing legal advice and drafting commentaries and opinions on applicable legislation and the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. Judge Caka-Nimani was also responsible for the management of USAID's rule of law portfolio, including programs supporting the independence of judiciary; professionalism, efficiency and accountability of judiciary; commercial law and property rights systems reforms; as well as the development and implementation of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. In exercising her duties, she has paid particular attention to the protection of human rights and implementation of inclusiveness policies, in particular as it pertains to women empowerment and minority community integration.
She will be part of the program on Women and Constitutions at the Law School.
Christie S. Warren, Professor of the Practice of International and Comparative Law
William & Mary
Professor Warren is the founding Director of the Center for Comparative Legal Studies and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Her areas of specialization include Comparative Law, Comparative Constitutional Systems, Public International Law, Post-Conflict Justice, International Human Rights Law, Civil Code Systems, Islamic Law, Transitional Justice and Advanced Applied International Research. She is a graduate of the Harvard Mediation Program and served as the 2016 – 2017 Fulbright Schuman Distinguished Chair at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
Professor Warren has designed, implemented and evaluated constitutional, judicial, legal and academic programs in more than 55 countries throughout Africa, Central and East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Russia and the Newly Independent States, the Balkans and East Timor.
Emily Rivest, Assistant Professor
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Flora D. Darpino, Lieutenant General (ret.)
United States Army
General Darpino received a direct commission into the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps in January 1987, immediately after graduating from Rutgers (Camden) Law School. Her first assignment was in Stuttgart, Germany, where she was a trial defense counsel and chief of the civil law division. She was later the training officer and assistant operations officer for the U.S. Army Trial Defense Service; litigation attorney, litigation division, U.S. Army Legal Services Agency; chief, Administrative Law, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; assistant executive officer, Office of The Judge Advocate General; chief, Judge Advocate Recruiting Office; staff judge advocate, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas and Tikrit, Iraq; deputy staff judge advocate, III Corps at Fort Hood; chief, Criminal Law Division, OTJAG; staff judge advocate, V Corps, in Heidelberg, Germany; and staff judge advocate, United States Forces – Iraq, in Baghdad, Iraq. She served as the commander of the United States Army Legal Services Agency, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and as the commander of the Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School.
General Darpino was the first woman to serve as the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, a position which she held from 2013 to 2017. She will be meeting with the Law School's Military and Veterans' Law Society.
Tanya Fickenscher Law ‘99, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel
Major League Baseball
Tanya Fickenscher enjoys challenges. That is probably why, after years in the pharmaceutical industry—as Head of Trademarks at Sandoz International in Holzkirchen, Germany, until 2015—she moved to New York City to become Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Major League Baseball Properties.
After four years in Germany, this move not only took her back home, but also to a completely new industry with a different focus. Ms. Fickenscher's daily responsibilities now include providing counsel to the 30 baseball clubs, as well as the global prosecution and enforcement of the thousands of well-known baseball brands, on the trademark registers and in the market place (on and offline). She also often works with other sports leagues, several of which have formed a coalition to leverage their interests against counterfeiters and infringers. She and her group also work with local law enforcement officials by conducting trainings throughout the year as well as providing "feet on the ground" support during "Jewel Events" (e.g., Opening Day, the All-Star Game and the playoffs), among her many other responsibilities.
Ms. Fickenscher will be the guest of the Law School's Student Intellectual Property Society and the Sports and Entertainment Law Society.
Lisa Palmer, Fellow
National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center
Ms. Palmer writes about science, the environment, agriculture and sustainability. Her writing has been featured in The Guardian, The New Republic, Nature journals, Yale e360, Slate, The New York Times, Scientific American and others. She is a fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center where she writes, publishes and speaks on socio-environmental issues.
Previously, she was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where she conducted research and interviews on global agriculture and environmental change for her book Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change. She has been a fellow at the Vermont Law School's Environmental Law Center, the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and a grantee of the Solutions Journalism Network. She will appear as a Pulitzer Center Grantee as part of the Sharp Seminar at the Charles Center.
Erin Murphy, Partner
Kirkland & Ellis
Ms. Murphy is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Her practice focuses on Supreme Court, appellate and constitutional litigation. She has argued four cases before the Supreme Court, including successfully arguing McCutcheon v. FEC, for which she was named American Lawyer's "Litigator of the Week," and successfully arguing on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives in Texas v. United States.
Ms. Murphy has been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the nation's "Outstanding Women Lawyers" and a "Rising Star"; has been ranked by Chambers & Partners as one of the nation's top appellate lawyers; has been listed as a "Rising Star" for appellate litigation by Law360; has been recognized by The Legal 500 U.S. for her appellate work; has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America for appellate practice; and was one of 10 lawyers featured on LinkedIn's list of "Top Professionals 35 and Under." She will appear as part of the H. Stewart Dunn, Jr. Civil Liberties Project.
Sabrina Jalees
Comedian, Writer and Keynote Speaker
Elizabeth Losh, Associate Professor of English and American Studies
William & Mary
Professor Losh is an Associate Professor of English and American Studies at William & Mary with a specialization in New Media Ecologies. Before coming to William & Mary, she directed the Culture, Art, and Technology Program at the University of California, San Diego.
She is the is the author of Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making in a Time of War, Scandal, Disaster, Miscommunication, and Mistakes (MIT Press, 2009) and The War on Learning: Gaining Ground in the Digital University (MIT Press, 2014). She is the co-author with Jonathan Alexander of the comic book textbook Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013; second edition, 2017). She published the edited collection MOOCs and Their Afterlives: Experiments in Scale and Access in Higher Education (University of Chicago, 2017).
She is co-editor of a forthcoming volume on feminist digital humanities from the University of Minnesota Press and author of a forthcoming book on the hashtag as a cultural object from Bloomsbury. Her current work-in-progress focuses on ubiquitous computing in the White House in the Obama and Trump administrations.
Mechele Dickerson, Arthur L. Moller Chair in Bankruptcy Law & Practice
Univ. Distinguished Teaching Professor, Univ. of Texas - Austin
Sylvia Chan-Malik, Associate Professor, Department of Women's and Gender Studies
Rutgers University
Professor Chan-Malik is a scholar of American studies, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. Her current research focuses on the history of Islam in the United States. More broadly, she studies the intersections of race, gender, and religion, and how these categories interact in struggles for social justice. She is the Faculty Director of the WGS Social Justice Minor.
Her book, Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color and American Islam (NYU Press 2018) offers an alternative narrative of American Islam in the 20-21st century that centers the lives, subjectivities and voices of women of color. In it, she bring together the stories of African American women and their engagements with Islam as social protest religion and spiritual practice; encounters between "Islam" and "feminism" in U.S. media and popular culture; the cultural production and political expressions of South Asian and Arab American Muslim women during the late-20th century; and finally, the diverse experiences of U.S. Muslim women in post-9/11 America. She will deliver the Hans Tiefel Lecture in Religious Ethics.
Calandra Jarrell, Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion, Global Human Resources
Bank of America
Ann H. Benjamin, Managing Director
Neuberger Berman LLC (Retired)
Mejdulene B. Shomali, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Gender & Women's Studies
University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)
Linda A. Malone, Marshall-Wythe Foundation Professor of Law
William & Mary Law School
Professor Malone is an elected member of the American Law Institute, serves on the Board of Directors for the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, and was an original member of the Environmental Law Academy of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). In 2013 she taught as a Distinguished Scholar in International Environmental Law at Ocean University in Qingdao, China.
She is the author of numerous articles in a wide range of publications and has authored and co-authored twelve books on international law, human rights and environmental law. She has written law review articles, casebooks, treatises, study aids, university press books, mass-market publications, magazine and journal articles, and on-line publications. Her book, Environmental Regulation of Land Use, has been the preeminent book in that field for over twenty years.
Alexandra Bracken '09
Author
Anne Marie Pace '87
Author
Catharine MacMillan, Professor of Private Law
King's College (London)
Professor MacMillan is engaged in researching the nineteenth and early twentieth century development of English private law. Recent publications have concerned the doctrines of frustration, mistake, privity and unconscionability. These publications provide an historical analysis of contemporary private law. She has a particular interest in the adjudication of mercantile disputes by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council within the nineteenth century British Empire. In connection with this she is currently engaged in writing a legal biography of Judah Benjamin, who served as a U.S. Senator and Confederate Attorney General and Secretary of War before becoming a prominent barrister in England.
Professor MacMillan will be the 2018 Marshall-Wythe Lecturer in legal history, speaking about the career of Judah Benjamin.
Alexa Alice Joubin, Prof. of English; Co-Director, Digital Humanities Institute
George Washington University
Professor Joubin teaches and writes about cultural globalization and arts and humanities in the context of international affairs. At GW she is also the Director of the Dean's Scholars in Shakespeare and affiliated with the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. Part of her work focuses on racial and national histories that connect imaginative writing to performances on stage and on screen. For example, her latest book, Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation, co-edited with Elizabeth Rivlin (Palgrave, 2014), explores the question of ethics in global appropriation of Shakespeare and local cultures.
She has served the Asian studies community in her roles as the Vice President of the Association for Asian Performance (AAP), Vice President and President of the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies (MAR/AAS), and book review editor of Chinese Literature Today. She will present her talk, East Asian Cinema's Occidental Eye: Fair Ophelia and Sweet Hamlet, to the Modern Languages and Literatures Department.
Rachel Oswald
Foreign Policy Reporter
Rachel Oswald is Congressional Quarterly's foreign policy reporter, where she has worked since 2014, covering the intersection of Congress and foreign affairs. Prior to that, she spent five years at National Journal's Global Security Newswire covering nuclear weapons issues.
Ms. Oswald is a two-time fellow of the Pulitzer Center and a past fellow of the International Reporting Project, the Japan Foreign Press Center and the National Endowment for Democracy. She has reported from Japan, Austria, Russia, Kazakhstan and the Dominican Republic. Ms. Oswald also serves as the vice chair of the National Press Club's Press Freedom Committee. She will appear as a Pulitzer Center Grantee as part of the Sharp Seminar at the Charles Center.
Beth Stelling
Comedian
Beth Stelling is a stand-up comedian and writer. She has performed in the Netflix series The Standups and currently serves as a writer for the HBO television series, Crashing. Ms. Stelling has released two comedy albums, Sweet Beth and Simply the Beth.
Ms. Stelling lived in Chicago for five years until 2012, when she re-located to Los Angeles after releasing her first comedy album, Sweet Beth. She made her television debut on Conan in 2014 and in 2016 was named a "Comic to Watch" by Comic magazine. She will appear as the Homecoming Comedian, sponsored by Alma Mater Productions.
Joan Biskupic
Author and Journalist
Joan Biskupic is an American journalist, author and lawyer who has covered the United States Supreme Court since 1989. She is a full time Supreme Court analyst at CNN. For the 2016–17 academic year, she was a visiting professor at the University of California (Irvine) School of Law. She was previously Editor in Charge, Legal Affairs for Reuters from 2012 to 2016. From 2000-12 she was the Legal Affairs Correspondent for USA Today.
From 1992 to 2000, she was the Supreme Court reporter for The Washington Post and from 1989 to 1992 she was a legal affairs writer for Congressional Quarterly.
Ms. Biskupic has written a number of books on the Supreme Court, including biographies of Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Sonia Sotomayor. Her most recent book is The Chief: The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts (Basic, 2019).
Pamela S. Karlan, Co-Director Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
Stanford Law School
Julie Copeland, Executive Director
Emerge Virginia
Jennie E. Burnet, Associate Professor, Global Studies Institute
Georgia State University
Professor Burnet's work explores the social, cultural and psychological aspects of war, genocide and mass violence and the micro-level impact of large-scale social change in the context of conflict. The majority of her research has focused on changing gender roles, the politics of memory and local coping mechanisms in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. She is currently conducting research on (1) organized resistance, rescuer behavior and rescuers during in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; (2) the long-term cultural, social and psychological consequences of gender-based violence during conflict on women's agency; and (3) women's social movements and women's roles in democratization, conflict resolution and peace building.
Her book, Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory & Silence in Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012) won the 2013 Elliot Skinner Award from the Association for Africanist Anthropology. Her research has appeared in Politics & Gender, African Affairs and African Studies Review. She teaches courses in peace and conflict studies, development and refugee studies, ethnographic and qualitative research methods, and African politics and culture. She will be speaking at the Program on Gender Equality in Elections, sponsored by the Law School's Human Security Law Center.
Wenheng Zhang, Assistant Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University
Brianna Reed, Musician
Bree and the Reeds
Caitlin J. Halligan
Lawyer
Caitlin J. Halligan is a litigation partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Co-Chair of Gibson Dunn's Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group. She has argued six cases and served as counsel of record for a party or amicus in more than 45 matters at the certiorari or merits stage in the U.S. Supreme Court. Ms. Halligan has argued dozens of cases before the federal courts of appeal, the New York Court of Appeals, and New York's intermediate appellate courts, and participated in litigation at the trial level as well.
Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Ms. Halligan served as General Counsel to the New York County District Attorney's Office. From 2001 to 2007, Ms. Halligan served as Solicitor General for the State of New York, where she represented the state in federal and state appellate courts and supervised a team of 45 lawyers.
Ms. Halligan is ranked as one of the leading appellate attorneys in the nation by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business and The Best Lawyers in America®. She has also been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as a "Litigation Star," and one of the "Top 250 Women in Litigation." She will appear at the Law School as part of the H. Stewart Dunn Advocacy Program.
Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law
New York Law School
Professor Strossen has written, taught and advocated extensively in the areas of constitutional law and civil liberties, including through frequent media interviews. From 1991 through 2008, she served as national President of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation's largest and oldest civil liberties organization. Professor Strossen is currently a member of the ACLU's National Advisory Council, as well as the Advisory Boards of EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and Heterodox Academy. When she stepped down as ACLU President in 2008, three Supreme Court Justices (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and David Souter) participated in her farewell and tribute luncheon.
Her book, HATE: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship, was published by Oxford University Press in May 2018. She will appear at the Law School as part of the H. Stewart Dunn, Jr. Advocacy Program.
G. Lynn Wingard '79, Research Geologist
U.S Geological Survey
Nancy Lauer '13, Science and Policy Fellow
Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, Duke Law School
Dr. Lauer's research focuses on issues of environmental health, water quality and science policy. Before joining the Clinic, was an associate in research in earth and ocean sciences at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, where she received her Ph.D. in 2018.
Dr. Lauer's graduate research focused on water quality and environmental health, including contamination arising from coal ash disposal, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), natural sources, and oil and gas wastewater spills.
Dr. Lauer's interests have been largely driven by communities seeking to understand threats to their water resources and to develop strategies to protect them. She has worked closely with tribal members in North Dakota on contamination from fracking and with residents in Pennsylvania on potential contamination to streams and roadways from oil and gas wastewater disposal. In both cases, community members alerted the lab that they believed contamination was happening, and Dr. Lauer and her colleagues provided a scientific assessment.
She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Symposium.
Vivian Hamilton, Professor of Law; Affiliated Professor, Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies
W&M Law School
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Professor Hamilton began her teaching career in the Clinical Program at American University Washington College of Law, as Director of the Women and the Law Clinic. She then taught as Associate Professor at West Virginia University School of Law.
Professor Hamilton joined William & Mary in 2007. She teaches Civil Procedure Family Law, Race & the Law, and Adolescent Law. She has served as Chair of the Section on Family and Juvenile Law of the Association of American Law Schools and now serves on its Executive Committee. Her work has been widely cited in academic journals and by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Most recently, Professor Hamilton assisted the Virginia legislature in the successful passage of a new law restricting underage marriage.
She will appear as a panelist at the symposium on A Place in History: Should Virginia Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Alicia Plerhoples, Professor of Law
Georgetown University
Professor Plerhoples' research and teaching interests include social enterprise law, nonprofit law, corporate governance and clinical legal education. Prior to going to Georgetown, Professor Plerhoples was the Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe Clinical Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
At Georgetown, Professor Plerhoples is director of the Social Enterprise & Nonprofit Law Clinic through which law students provide pro bono corporate and transactional legal services to social enterprises, nonprofit organizations and small businesses.
She will appear as a panelist at the symposium on A Place in History: Should Virginia Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Maya M. Eckstein
Lawyer
Ms. Eckstein is a Partner at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. Her practice focuses on complex commercial litigation, with a focus on intellectual property litigation, including patent, trade secret and trademark litigation.
Ms. Eckstein advises companies on how to protect their valuable intellectual property rights. She represents plaintiffs and defendants in these complex disputes and has significant experience planning, coordinating and executing the defense of complex litigation involving multiple defendants and jurisdictions. When allegations of infringement arise, or when clients believe that their IP rights have been infringed, Ms. Eckstein collaborates with clients to analyze the situation, assess the extent of potential infringement or damages, and to develop and implement an effective response. In addition to litigation, and when appropriate, she investigates and recommends alternative approaches to dispute resolution, including settlements and negotiation of licenses.
She will appear as a panelist at the symposium on A Place in History: Should Virginia Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, Member of the General Assembly (D-2)
Commonwealth of Virginia
Delegate Foy was elected in November, 2017 to represent the Virginia Second District. This was four months after giving birth to twin boys. Foy was born in Petersburg, Virginia and attended Petersburg High School. She received her bachelor's degree from the Virginia Military Institute, her master's degree from Virginia State University, and her J.D. from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Her professional experience includes working as an attorney and public defender, serving as an adjunct professor of criminal law at Northern Virginia Community College and serving as a magistrate. She founded a nonprofit organization called the Foundation for Foster and Orphan Children.
She will appear as the keynote speaker at the symposium on A Place in History: Should Virginia Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Carol Robles-Román, Co-President and Chief Executive Officer
ERA Coalition and Fund for Women's Equality
Carol Robles-Román is the Co-President and CEO of the ERA Coalition and the Fund for Women's Equality where she leads national efforts to advocate, educate and organize to ensure constitutional equality for women in the United States.
The ERA Coalition and the Fund for Women's Equality are sister organizations, founded in 2014 to work respectively for passage and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and for greater public understanding of the need for comprehensive, fair and equal treatment of women and girls under the law.
Ms. Robles-Román co-chairs the NYC Council Young Women's Initiative Advisory Council, is on the National Organization for Women Advisory Board, is on the boards of the Women's Forum of New York and Veteran Feminists of America. She is a member of the National Football League Domestic Violence Working Group, and is a former member of the Board and Executive Committee of the City University of New York. Her recognitions include the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence 2017 Sharon L. Corbitt Award, the National Women's Political Caucus 2015 Women of Courage Award, the SmartCEO 2014 Brava Award and designation as one of the "100 Most Influential Hispanics" by Hispanic Business Magazine.
She will appear as a panelist at the symposium on A Place in History: Should Virginia Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Elizabeth Wiley, Professor of Theatre
William & Mary
Professor Wiley is Head of Acting for the Theatre Department, as well as a director for William & Mary Theatre. She often serves as vocal and/or dialect coach for William & Mary Theatre productions, and has also coached dialects professionally for stage and film. She has appeared in numerous stage productions and on camera in commercials, industrial projects, television and film. Her current work is focused in voiceover acting and audiobook narration. Worldwide learners of US English listen to her voice on Rosetta Stone's language acquisition software; secondary students of American History hear her voice bring to life many women from history on Colonial Williamsburg's e-textbook, The Idea of America.
Professor Wiley is an award-winning audiobook narrator, with over 90 audiobooks, both fiction and non-fiction under her belt. In addition, she has taught Voice in Violence at a number of Stage Combat workshops in North America and Europe. She is a member of Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Voice and Speech Trainers Association.
Renee Frontiera, Assistant Professor, McKnight Land-Grant Professor
University of Minnesota
Yurena Yanes, Fenneman Asst. Research Professor
Geology Department, University of Cincinnati
Professor Yanes' research interests are primarily focused on the multidisciplinary study of modern and fossil land snail assemblages. She integrates disparate data from manifold disciplines, including isotope geochemistry, taxonomy, taphonomy, paleoecology, morphometrics and aminoacid dating. These data are used jointly to reconstruct changes in past environmental and ecological conditions, to evaluate the quality and fidelity of the fossil record, and to better understand organism–environment interactions.
Understanding how organisms have responded to ecological, environmental and anthropogenic variations is critical to comprehend present diversity and anticipate future outcomes (i.e., the past is the key to the future). Her main field research areas are low–latitude oceanic islands such as the Canary Archipelago and the Bahamas. Tropical islands exhibit outstanding land snail diversity in both space and time, and appear to be especially sensitive to human impact and global change. Ultimately, her research aims to help to protect terrestrial malacofaunas, which are declining in an alarming rate.
She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Lecture Series.
Tarana Burke
Founder, "Me Too"
Rebecca Green, Professor of the Practice of Law
William & Mary Law School
Professor Green is the Co-Director of the Election Law Program, a joint project of the William & Mary Law School and the National Center for State Courts. In that role, she oversees annual symposia and a speaker series and undertakes a series of projects designed to educate judges about election law topics. Most recently, Professor Green has begun work on a series of State Election Law eBenchbooks.
Other projects have included co-founding Revive My Vote, a project to assist Virginians with prior felony convictions regain the right to vote; producing Election War Games at state judicial conferences in Virginia, Colorado and Wisconsin, and supervising students on a variety of projects such as drafting an ABA report on 2012 election delays and research projects for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. Professor Green serves as the faculty advisor to the student-run State of Elections blog. She will appear at the Human Security Law Center Symposium: Gender Equality in Elections.
Mona Lena Krook, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Rutgers University
Erin Yu-Tien Huang, Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies & Comparative Literature
Princeton University
Paul Smith, Vice President, Litigation & Strategy
Campaign Legal Center
Halima Aden
Fashion Model
Ms. Aden is an American fashion model. She is noted for being the first woman to wear a hijab in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, where she was a semi-finalist. Following her participation in the pageant, Ms. Aden received national attention and was signed to IMG Models.
Soon thereafter, Ms. Aden made her New York Fashion Week debut for Kanye West on the Yeezy Season 5 runway wearing her hijab and a floor-length tan fur coat from the collection. It was a statement that not only turned heads, but got the industry buzzing about the stunning newcomer who stole the show on the catwalk. Since then, she's moved on to grace the covers of CR Fashion Book and Vogue Arabia, to name a few. On top of her fashion world successes, she's also become a vocal advocate for the rights of Muslim women.
Her appearance at W&M is sponsored by AMP – Alma Mater Productions.
Lauren Simkins, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences
University of Virginia
Professor Simkins' research focuses broadly on past changes in coastal, marine, and glacial environments and the processes that control those changes, primarily using sedimentological and geomorphological archives. She is a member of the Ice and Sea Level Group at UVA, which attempts to reconstruct the former advance and retreat of ice sheets, the processes that contribute to dynamic ice behavior, and environmental change along near-field and far-field coastlines.
She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Lecture Series.
Del. Marcia Price, Member of the General Assembly
Commonwealth of Virginia
Delegate "Cia" Price represents the citizens of Virginia's 95th district, which includes parts of the cities of Hampton and Newport News. Prior to her election to that position in 2015, she worked as a special assistant in the Virginia Liaison Office under then Governor Mark Warner and as a state coordinator for the NAACP This Is My Vote! Campaign for voter registration, education, and mobilization.
Now in her second term in the House of Delegates, Delegate Price serves on the Health, Welfare, and Institutions Committee (Subcommittee #1), the Privileges and Elections Committee (Constitutional Subcommittee), and the General Laws Committee (Subcommittee #2). She currently serves as Secretary of both the House Democratic Caucus and the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. She is also a member of the Hampton Roads Caucus, the Gun Violence Prevention Caucus, the National Conference of State Legislators and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.
She will appear as part of the Government Department's "Bringing New Voice to Virginia Politics: Reflections of Young Black Women in the General Assembly."
Del. Lashrecse Aird, Member of the General Assembly
Commonwealth of Virginia
Delegate Aird currently represents the citizens of the 63rd District, representing parts of Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Prince George, Hopewell and Petersburg. When she was sworn in as a member of the House of Delegates in 2016, she was the youngest woman ever elected to that body.
Professionally, Delegate Aird works at Richard Bland College of William & Mary, where she helps today's students become tomorrow's leaders. Delegate Aird is the recipient of the presidential medallion from Virginia State University and has been named a Top Leader Under 40 by the Virginia Leadership Institute.
She will appear as part of the Government Department's "Bringing New Voice to Virginia Politics: Reflections of Young Black Women in the General Assembly."
Tricia Vahle, Mansfield Professor of Physics
William & Mary
Professor Vahle, a longtime leader and scientist on Fermilab's NOvA neutrino experiment, was recently elected as its new co-spokesperson. She assumed her role on March 21, 2018.
Professor Vahle joined NOvA in 2008, when it was still in its infancy — designed, but not yet built. She was instrumental in the experiment's early years as one of the founders of a NOvA data analysis group. Later she became its analysis coordinator, overseeing teams focused on using the experiment's data to investigate different physics phenomena.
At the Physics Fall Colloquium, Professor Vahle will speak on "New results from accelerator neutrino oscillation experiments."
Kelly Grier, US Chairman and Managing Partner and Americas Managing Partner
Ernst & Young (EY)
As EY's US Chairman and Managing Partner and Americas Managing Partner, Ms. Grier leads the EY US firm and the EY Americas geographic area, which represents more than US$14.5b in combined revenues and more than 72,000 people in member firms in 31 countries. During her 28-year tenure with EY, Ms. Grier served some of EY's largest Audit and Advisory clients, developed a global mindset – having lived and worked overseas – and held a variety of leadership roles.
Prior to her current role, she served as Vice Chair, Central Region Managing Partner, where she led the approximately 10,000-person practice across 15 states and 17 offices. She also worked as a client service partner and senior advisor on several Fortune 500 accounts. She is a member of EY's Americas and Global leadership teams, including the US Executive Committee, the Americas Operating Executive, the Global Practice Group and Global Accounts Committee. She also served as EY Americas Vice Chair – Talent, where she focused on creating an exceptional experience for EY's people in the Americas.
She will give the keynote address at the 4th Annual Women's Stock Pitch and Leadership Summit, sponsored by the Boehly Center and the Mason School of Business.
Theresa Evans-Nguyen '00, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
University of South Florida
Professor Evans-Nguyen has a broad range of interests. Her long-term research goals focus on the advanced development of chemical sensing technologies, particularly with respect to mass spectrometry (MS) instrumentation. She has applications interests in space, biomedical and defense sectors which all make use of mass spectrometry. In the field of space applications, she is interested in improving chemical resolution analyses using robust, low power, digital electronics for ion trap mass analyzers. This work speaks to planetary science goals including the search for earth-like habitats. For biomedical applications, her interests include high spatial resolution chemical imaging for broadband analyses of cellular systems. Current MS imaging instruments are limited in speed and sensitivity which can be mitigated by elegant integration of optical methods including extraordinary optical transmission. Finally, defense applications leveraging MS analyses include chemical warfare agent detection, pathogen identification and radiological/nuclear isotopic characterization which may be conceived into various challenging analytical problems.
Professor Evans-Nguyen will present her work "Targeting Next Generation Mass Spectrometry" at the Chemistry Fall Seminar.
Claudia Turro, Dow Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Ohio State University
Professor Turro has been a faculty member at The Ohio State University since 1996. She received the Early CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation in 1998, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award in 1999, was named a 2010 Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and a 2012 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was elected President of the Inter-American Photochemical Society (2012-14) and Chair of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry (2016). She received the 2014 College of Arts and Sciences Susan M. Hartmann Mentoring and Leadership Award, the 2014 Award in Photochemistry from the Inter-American Photochemical Society, the 2016 Edward W. Morley Medal from the Cleveland Section of the ACS, and the 2016 Award of the Columbus Section of the ACS. Since 2016, she has been serving as Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Professor Turro will present her work "Targeting Cancer with Transition Metal Complexes: From Basic Science Toward Therapy" at the Chemistry Fall Seminar.
Lee Anne Fennell, Max Pam Professor of Law
University of Chicago Law School
Professor Fennell's teaching and research interests include property, torts, land use, housing, social welfare law, state and local government law, and public finance. She is the author of The Unbounded Home: Property Values Beyond Property Lines (2009) and co-author of Fairness in Law & Economics (2014) and Evidence and Innovation in Housing Law and Policy (2017).
She will present the 2018 George Wythe Lecture at the Law School, entitled "Property Beyond Exclusion."
Ashley Atkins Spivey Ph.D. '17, Director
Pamunkey Indian Tribal Resource Center, King William, Virginia
Dr. Spivey wrote her anthropology dissertation on the historic subsistence practices of her tribe — fishing, trapping, hunting, pottery making — and how the Pamunkey used those activities to engage the region's market economy. Dr. Spivey's research proves that by the time the Constitution established the United States of America, the Pamunkey had long since forged cross-cultural and economic relationships with their non-Native neighbors.
She will participate in the Lyon Gardiner Tyler Department of History Symposium, After Charlottesville: Memorials, Monuments, and Memories.
Claire Pamment, Assistant Professor of World Theatre
William & Mary
Professor Pamment's research focuses on South Asian popular theatre and performance, with interests in marginality, transgendering and Muslim cultures. Her articles have been published in TDR, Comedy Studies, Asian Theatre Journal and numerous books. She is the author of Comic Performance in Pakistan: The Bhand (Palgrave 2017).
Direction credits include Sarmad Sehbai's adaptation of Dario Fo's Can't Pay Won't Pay (Islamabad, 2010), which was selected for Tehran's International Festival of University Theatre (2011). More recently she co-directed with Iram Sana (Olomopolo Media) Teesri Dhun (The Third Tune), a devised documentary theatre about transgender struggles in Pakistan, developed out of her present research and supported by an SSHRC grant.
She will participate in a Roundtable discussion about her book Comic Performance in Pakistan: The Bhand, along with discussants/professors Laurie J. Wolf and Andrea Wright.
Setsuko Thurlow
Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner
Ms. Thurlow is a Japanese–Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. She was approximately 1.8 kilometers from the hypocenter of the blast. Eight of her family members and 351 of her schoolmates and teachers died in the attack. Thurlow is a leading figure in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons."
She will be a guest of the COLL 300 program.
Maureen E. "Molly" Brady, Associate Professor of Law
University of Virginia
Professor Brady's primary teaching and research interests are in property law, land use law, local government law, legal history and intellectual property law. Her scholarship undertakes historical analyses of legal rules and land use policies, using these analyses to account for developments in eminent domain law, to illuminate connections between property and other doctrinal areas, and to explore how different institutions respond to problems in city planning and governance.
Professor Brady received an A.B. summa cum laude in history from Harvard College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was awarded the Harvard-Radcliffe Foundation for Women's Athletics Prize for the top female scholar-athlete. Brady then obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was the two-time recipient of the Parker Prize for legal history scholarship and was awarded the Quintin Johnstone Prize in Real Property Law, the Jewell Prize (for an outstanding contribution to a Yale Law School journal) and the Cullen Prize (for the best paper written by a first-year student). During law school, she served as co-editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology and was a Coker Teaching Fellow in contract law. After obtaining her J.D., she earned a Ph.D. in law from Yale University.
She we recently named co-winner of the 2019 Scholarly Papers Competition sponsored by the Association of American Law Schools.
Zi-Xia Song, Assistant Professor, Mathematics
University of Central Florida
Professor Song received her Ph.D from Georgia Tech in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization. Before joining the UCF faculty, she was a Zassenhaus Assistant Professor at Ohio State University for one year.
Her primary interests are in Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Optimization and Algorithms. Her current interest is mainly in Structural Graph Theory, Graph Colorings, Gallai-Ramsey Numbers, Ramsey-minimal Graphs and Extremal Graph Theory.
She will present a Mathematics Colloquium: "Gallai-Ramsey Numbers of Cycles."
Nabiha Syed, Visiting Fellow
Yale Law School
Nabiha Syed has been described as "one of the best emerging free speech lawyers" by Forbes magazine. She is currently the Assistant General Counsel at BuzzFeed, where she handles publication, privacy, and access matters across the globe.
Prior to BuzzFeed, Ms. Syed was an associate at Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, a leading First Amendment law firm, and was named the First Amendment Fellow at The New York Times. She has worked on legal access issues at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; counseled on whether to publish hacked and leaked materials; and advised documentary filmmakers through the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. She is the co-founder of the Media Freedom and Information Access legal clinic at Yale Law School. She was named a "40 Under 40 Rising Star" by the New York Law Journal in 2016.
Jenny C. Aker, Professor of Development Economics
Tufts University
Professor Aker holds a joint appointment in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Department of Economics at Tufts University. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development, a member of the Advisory Board for CDA, Frontline SMS and the Boston Network for International Development (BNID). She also serves as the Deputy Director of the Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs at Fletcher. After working for Catholic Relief Services as Deputy Regional Director in West and Central Africa between 1998 and 2003, Professor Aker completed her PhD in agricultural economics at the University of California-Berkeley. She currently works on economic development in Africa, with a primary focus on the impact of information (and information technology) on development outcomes, particularly in the areas of agriculture, agricultural markets, adult education and financial inclusion; the determinants and impacts of agricultural technology adoption; and the impact of different mechanisms and modalities of social protection (cash and in-kind transfers). Professor Aker has conducted field work in Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, DRC, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Tanzania, as well as Haiti and Guatemala.
She will present her paper, "Communication, Search & Mobile Phones: an Experiment in Tanzania" in an International Relations Development Seminar sponsored by the W&M Global Research Institute.
Patricia L. Wiberg, Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences
University of Virginia
Professor Wiberg's primary research interests are in sediment erosion, transport and deposition in river, coastal and wetland environments. Current research topics include storm-driven transport and the formation of sedimentary strata on the continental shelf, erosion and deposition on tidal salt marshes, flow-sediment-vegetation interactions in shallow coastal bays, mud dynamics in meso- and macro-tidal flats, wave-formed ripples, impact of climate change on barrier-bay-marsh morphology and sediment associated contaminant transport.
She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Lecture Series.
Rebecca Flowers '98, Associate Professor, Department of Geological Sciences
University of Colorado
Professor Flowers uses thermochronology, geochronology and geologic observations to address problems in continental tectonics and mantle dynamics, with particular focus on understanding the coupling of deeper Earth and surface processes over extended (10s-100s Ma) timescales. Her geochronology lab also emphasizes the development and refinement of both conventional (e.g., apatite, zircon, titanite) and novel (e.g., conodonts, rutile, garnet) thermochronometers. She is especially interested in creative, collaborative applications of (U-Th)/He data to problems in fields in which the technique has not typically been utilized. For example, her group has dated lunar zircon to constrain the impact history of the Moon, dated perovskite to determine the timing of kimberlite emplacement and dated conodonts in an effort to decipher the thermal history of shales.
Professor Flowers will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Symposium.
Stacy A. Krueger-Hadfield, Assistant Professor, Biology
College of Arts & Sciences, University of Alabama - Birmingham
Professor Krueger-Hadfield is an expert in evolutionary ecology. In 2014, she became a regular contributor to the blog The Molecular Ecologist (TME) in which she writes weekly shorts (and sometimes longer posts) on the latest in molecular ecology. In 2016, she joined the faculty at UAB and was able to develop a science communication course for graduate students. This has also recently included chairing the Darwin Day events (2018-present). Her science communication work was recognized by the Ecological Society of America #MySciComm and her lab was recently highlighted by the Society for the Study of Evolution.
She will present her work "Exploring the Evolutionary Ecology of a Seaweed Invader in Virginia" at the VIMS Wachapreague Seminar.
Carla Merino-Rajme, Assistant Professor, Philosophy
University of North Carolina
Professor Merino-Rajme's primary interests are in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. She began her education in Mexico and received her Ph.D. from Princeton. In 2013, she was the recipient of the Inaugural Marc Sanders Prize in Philosophy of Mind, which included the publication of her paper "A Quantum Theory of Felt Duration" in the journal Analytic Philosophy.
She will present her paper "An Account of Felt Flow," at the Fall Philosophy Colloquium.
Susan Kern, Ph.D. '05, Executive Director, Historic Campus, Adjunct Associate Professor, History
William & Mary
After receiving her PhD in History from William & Mary in 2005, Professor Kern received a masters degree in Architectural History from the University of Virginia in 1990. In between she worked in the archaeology department at Monticello, including two years directing that research. Her research interests include how the material world influences human behavior and interaction; she is as interested in plantation field work, factory floor plans and tools, as she is in consumer goods and decorative arts. She also studies how museums and historic sites make use of the recent and distant past. Her courses include the Field School in Material Culture, Public History, History of Museums and Historic Preservation, Eighteenth Century Williamsburg and the NIAHD Internship for Credit. Her book The Jeffersons at Shadwell appeared from Yale University Press in 2010. That book won the Abbott Lowell Cummings Award for the book with the most significant contribution to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes of North America. It also won the Richard Slatten Award for excellence in Virginia biography from the Virginia Historical Society.
Professor Kern will present her most recent work, "William & Mary, Slavery, and the Civil War," in the historic Wren Building, sponsored by the Lemon Project.
Fabiola Gianotti, Director General
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Dr. Gianotti is an Italian particle physicist, the current CERN Director General, and the first woman to hold that position. Her mandate began in January, 2016 and runs for a period of five years. She is also an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh.
She is also a member of the Italian Academy of Sciences, a foreign associate member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a foreign associate of the French Academy of Science.
In 2009, Dr. Gianotti was elected as the project leader and spokesperson of the ATLAS project at CERN. ATLAS involved a collaboration of around 3,000 physicists from 180 institutions in 38 countries. ATLAS was one of the two experiments involved in the observation of the Higgs boson. On 4 July 2012, Dr. Gianotti announced the discovery of the particle. Until then, the Higgs boson was a theoretical part of the standard model in particle physics theory to explain how some fundamental particles acquire mass. Dr. Gianotti's deep understanding of many ATLAS aspects and her leadership were recognized as major factors in the discovery.
She will be a keynote speaker at the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) in January, 2019.
Jaime Settle, Associate Professor, Government
William & Mary
Professor Settle received her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Richmond and her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at San Diego. She is the director of the Social Networks and Political Psychology Lab and co-director of the Social Science Research Methods Center. Professor Settle teaches courses on various aspects of American politics, focusing primarily on topics related to political behavior, psychology and communication.
Professor Settle is broadly interested in how contentious interpersonal interactions about politics affect the way that individuals perceive conflict in their environment, evaluate other people and engage within the political system. Her book Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America (Cambridge University Press, 2018) explores the effect of social media communication on our polarized attitudes about the people with whom we disagree politically. In other work, she has used large-scale datasets derived from online social networks (such as Facebook) to refine an understanding of the effects of our social network on how we think, feel and behave politically. She also strives to incorporate data and methods from the natural sciences into her research to help explain fundamental aspects of political behavior, such as the influences on the way people talk about politics.
Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Professor, Philosophy
William & Mary
Ronald Schechter, Professor, History
William & Mary
Professor Schechter received his B.A. from the University of Michigan (1987), his M.A. from the University of Chicago (1988) and his Ph.D. from Harvard University (1993). His book, Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715-1815 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), won the American Historical Association’s Leo Gershoy Award and the Society for French Historical Studies' David Pinkney Prize, and it was a finalist for the Koret Jewish Book Award in the category of History. Professor Schechter is also the author (with Liz Clarke, illustrator) of Mendoza the Jew: Boxing, Manliness, and Nationalism. A Graphic History (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). His most recent book is A Genealogy of Terror in Eighteenth-Century France (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2018).
In 2017, Professor Schechter won the William & Mary Raft Debate in New York City. He will present the Spring Tack Faculty Lecture, "The Secret Library of Marie Antoinette."
Kay Coles James, President
The Heritage Foundation
Mrs. James is the President of The Heritage Foundation, America's premier conservative think tank. The Heritage Foundation is dedicated to formulating and promoting conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense. Mrs. James has also been a trustee of The Heritage Foundation for 12 years.
Mrs. James has an extensive background in crafting public policy and leading in nearly every sector of America's economy. She has worked at the local, state and federal levels of government under the administrations of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, (served twice between 1989-1993), former Virginia Governor George Allen (1994-1996), and former U.S. President George W. Bush (2001-2005), and she has also served dozens of organizations in the corporate, and nonprofit arenas
Carolyn Brinkworth, Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (uCAR)
In her work with NASA, Caltech and the American Astronomical Society, Dr. Brinkworth designed and led education programs, designed and wrote studies to assess campus climate for minorities, and wrote proposals and managed grants for education and outreach programs.
In 2013, Dr. Brinkworth was honored with the NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal: "For outstanding leadership, dedication and commitment, volunteerism, mentoring and coaching of underrepresented student groups through science education workshops and programs." Throughout her career and volunteer life she has demonstrated tremendous leadership and commitment to increasing diversity, building education programs and expanding outreach.
Dr. Brinkworth holds a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Southampton and a MA in Education from Claremont Graduate University with a focus on improving educational environments in higher education for LGBTQ students in STEM.
She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Lecture Series.
Seema Turner '93 PG, Senior Manager
Southern California Edison
Ms. Turner has over 15 years of experience in environmental investigations and analyses, with particular expertise in engineering geology and geotechnical engineering. She has managed several projects in southern California under the oversight of local agencies, including the Regional Water Quality Control Board – Los Angeles and Santa Ana (LARWQCB and SARWQCB, respectively) and the California Environmental Protection Agency Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). She has conducted low-flow, micro-purge groundwater sampling and monitoring, soil sampling, installation of soil gas probes and supervised installation of bedrock wells using air rotary techniques. Ms. Turner has also assessed indoor air quality for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in residential and commercial properties and schools in southern California. She has performed indoor air quality surveys by conducting chemical inventories and installing SUMMA™ canisters with flow controllers; sampled, monitored and traced surface water and groundwater; performed geologic analyses of field data and historical information; and prepared geotechnical cross sections and geologic presentations for reports, mediations and court presentations.
She is a California-licensed professional geologist and certified engineering geologist. She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Symposium.
Lynn C. Pasquerella, President
Association of American Colleges and Universities
Lynn Pasquerella was appointed president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 2016, after serving as the eighteenth president of Mount Holyoke College from 2010-2016. Ms. Pasquerella was the provost at the University of Hartford, from 2008 to 2010, and was the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Rhode Island, where she began her career as an ethics professor in 1985.
A philosopher whose work has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, Ms. Pasquerella is committed to championing liberal education, access to excellence in higher education and civic engagement. She has written extensively on medical ethics, metaphysics, public policy, and the philosophy of law and is the host of Northeast Public Radio's The Academic Minute. Ms. Pasquerella is a member of the advisory Board of the Newman's Own Foundation, sits on the boards of the Lingnan Foundation and the National Humanities Alliance and is president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She is a graduate of Quinebaug Valley Community College, Mount Holyoke College and Brown University. In addition, she has received honorary doctorates from Elizabethtown University and Bishop’s University.
She will appear at a Lunch & Learn session sponsored by the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS) program.
Teresa C. Younger, President and CEO
Ms. Foundation for Women
Ms. Younger has served as President and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the oldest women's foundation in the United States, since 2014.
A noted speaker, advocate and activist, Ms. Younger has been on the frontlines of some of the most important battles for women's health, safety and economic justice. She was honored by Planned Parenthood Federation of America as a Dream Keeper, given Liberty Bank's Willard M. McRae Community Diversity Award, and named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Philanthropy" by Inside Philanthropy. She currently serves on the board of several philanthropic and advocacy organizations and initiatives, including: Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC), Black Funders for Social Justice, the ERA Coalition, ACLU Awards Committee (2017), Essie Justice Project (Board Member), Funders for Reproductive Equity (FRE) (Board member) and Philanthropy New York (Board Member).
She will be a guest of Africana House, Africana Studies and the Society of 1918.
Hannah Rosen, Director of Graduate Studies; Associate Professor of History and American Studies
William & Mary
Profession Rosen received a B.A. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Her research and teaching have focused on the social and cultural history of the nineteenth-century United States, and particularly on African Americans and the intersection of race and gender in histories of slavery, emancipation and post-emancipation society. She is the author of Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Post-emancipation South (UNC Press, 2009, recipient of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians First Book Prize, the Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians and the Willie Lee Rose Prize from the Southern Association of Women's Historians).
Her current research explores African American experiences surrounding death and mourning during and after the Civil War and the increasing segregation of southern cemeteries in the post-emancipation period. She is also exploring historical memory and commemoration through black women's efforts to reclaim and restore African American burial sites.
She will participate in the Symposium in Honor of Professor Patricia Williams.
Amanda Gates
Violin, Virginia Symphony Orchestra String Quartet
Violinist Amanda Gates joined the VSO in 1996, and was appointed Assistant Concertmaster in 2002. A native of Reston, Virginia, she graduated summa cum laude from Catholic University in 1996, where she studied with Robert Gerle.
She has appeared as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Catholic University Orchestra and the Chautauqua Symphony Chamber Players. She has also performed as soloist in Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Vaughn Williams' The Lark Ascending and John Adams' Violin Concerto, all with the Virginia Symphony.
A versatile musician, she is proficient on guitar, mandolin, viola, cello, hammered dulcimer and well versed in many styles of music. She has performed for the VSO on electric violin on several occasions, covering Eric Clapton's "Crossroads," and accompanying a beatbox track, featuring her own arrangement. She has also performed solo electric violin in "The Music of Led Zeppelin" with the Phoenix, Minnesota and Louisiana symphonies.
Rebecca Gilmore Phillips
Cello, Virginia Symphony Orchestra String Quartet
Rebecca Gilmore Phillips, native of North Carolina, joined the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 1999. Currently she is Assistant Principal Cello with the VSO.
Prior to coming to Virginia, she performed as Principal Cellist of The Greensboro Symphony where she made her solo debut of Tchaikovsky's "Rococo Variations." Much earlier in her career she soloed with the Charlotte Symphony and the Charlotte Repertory Orchestra and the latter with which she performed Haydn's "Cello Concerto in D Major."
Around the Hampton Roads area, Ms. Gilmore Phillips has been a featured solo and chamber artist with the Virginia Arts Festival, The Virginia Symphony and the Norfolk Chamber Consort. Her cello career has traveled up the east coast to perform with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as well as in countries all over the world. Within the United States she has both taught and performed with numerous music festivals including the New England Music Camp (Maine), the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra, The Brevard Music Center, Garth Newel Chamber Music Center and the North Carolina School of the Arts' International Music Program.
Beverly Kane Baker
Viola, Virginia Symphony Orchestra String Quartet
Beverly Kane Baker, viola, began violin lessons at the age of six. After two years of study, she advanced to Elizabeth Chapman's studio. As a member of the Chapman Youth Ensemble, Ms. Baker performed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and at the capital building in Richmond. She traveled for two summers to England to participate in the Purbeck Music Festival with the noted Hungarian teacher Kato Havas. During her second summer, she was voted "Most Outstanding Musician" and won the concerto competition at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina. During her senior year in high school, she attended the Juilliard School of Music's pre-college division studying viola with Christine Dethier. In 1979, she received a Bachelor of Music degree in performance from the University of Missouri-Columbia, having studied with Carolyn Kenneson.
In 1983, Ms. Baker joined the Virginia Symphony as a section player. In 1987, she was appointed assistant principal viola. She won the principal position in 1994 and currently holds that position with the symphony as well as Virginia Opera.
Kirsty B. Green
Violin, Virginia Symphony Orchestra String Quartet
Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Kirsty Barnett Green has been a member of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra since 1996, where she has served as both core and Principal Second violin positions, and occasionally as concertmaster during the summer season. Ms. Green has appeared as soloist with orchestras in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland and the United States, as well as with her own orchestra, the VSO.
In addition to performing, Ms. Green is a dedicated teacher. She began her teacher-training formation at an early age first as assistant to Judith Berenson, and then in college where she held assistantships at both the N.C. School of the Arts and the Killington Music Festival. Shortly thereafter she formed her own studio at the Tanglewood Academy of Music in Clemmons, N.C. and went on to teach at Norfolk's Academy of Music. She has held adjunct positions at Christopher Newport University (where her position included teaching pedagogy, orchestral repertoire class and coaching the CNU orchestra), and Virginia Wesleyan College where she currently teaches. She has spent several summers performing and instructing at the Eastern Music Festival, and the Portsmouth Chamber Festival, and is a coach for Bay Youth Orchestras of Virginia as well as the Hampton Roads Chamber Players. Her students have won numerous awards, and many have gone on to successful careers in music.
Khiara M. Bridges, Associate Professor
Boston University Law School
Khiara M. Bridges is a Professor of Law and Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. She has written many articles concerning, race, class, reproductive rights, and the intersection of the three. Her scholarship has appeared or will soon appear in the Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. She is also the author of three books: Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization (2011), The Poverty of Privacy Rights (2017) and Critical Race Theory: A Primer (2019). She sits on the Academic Advisory Council of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, and she is a co-editor of a reproductive justice book series that is published under the imprint of the University of California Press.
She will participate in the Symposium in Honor of Professor Patricia J. Williams.
Janis Louie, Professor and Henry Eyring Fellow, Department of Chemistry
University of Utah
Accessibility to structurally diverse organic compounds such as carbocycles and heterocycles are of great importance to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. However the synthesis of these types of compounds require harsh conditions such as high temperatures and pressures. Dr. Louie's research aims to mediate these transitions via metal catalyzed reactions, mainly involving nickel catalysis. Dr. Louie and her team focuses on nickel-based systems not only because it is much less expensive than the more widely used palladium and platinum, but also because it offers a wider range of chemical activity, such as nickel, being a more electropositive transition metal which allows it to undergo oxidative addition readily; oxidize Nickel and lessens the electron density around the atom itself. This allows for the cross-coupling of electrophiles to occur which is pivotal in the formation of carbocycles and heterocycles.
Importantly, Dr. Louie's team strives "to do exciting and innovative chemistry while having a little fun in the process!"
Alison Booth, Professor, Department of English; Director, Scholars' Lab, University Library
University of Virginia
Mengying Xiao, Visiting Assistant Professor, Mathematics
William & Mary
Professor Xiao's research lies in numerical analysis and partial differential equations (PDEs), especially in developing efficient and accurate numerical methods to solve PDEs (primarily Navier-Stokes). She is also interested in solving other types of PDEs modeling physical processes (for instance, MHD, Cahn-Hillar Navier-Stokes, etc.).
She will be presenting her work "Algebraic splitting methods for solving saddle point problems arising in computational fluid dynamics," at a Mathematics Colloquium.
Saskia Mordijck, Assistant Professor, Applied Science
William & Mary
Professor Mordijck leads fusion research at William & Mary. She recently received a one-million dollar grant from the Department of Energy to study nuclear fusion as a future energy source. The grant will go towards hiring a fusion scientist and two graduate student researchers. Their plan? Learn how to fuel the plasma needed for fusion reactions, like those that power the sun.
She will present her work at an Applied Science Seminar, entitled "Particle transport from the bottom up."
Elizabeth L. Train '83, Rear Admiral U.S.N. (Ret.)
Special Business Advisor, Team Rubicon Global
Admiral Train has had an extraordinary career. She is Former Commander, Office of Naval Intelligence; former Director, National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office; former Director for Intelligence, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Director for Operations, Joint Intelligence Task Force-Combating Terrorism.
She will participate in the PIPS 10th Anniversary Women's Forum.
Heather LeMunyon-Bateman '09, Director, Catalyzing Investment
ACDI/VOCA
Ms. LeMunyon-Bateman specializes in socially responsible investing, business advisory, promoting sustainable and responsible supply chains, and agriculture and food systems. Countries of work: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Senegal, Zambia.
She will participate in the PIPS 10th Anniversary Women's Forum.
Amy Schafer '13, Research Team Leader
National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service
Ms. Schafer is a Former Research Associate, Military, Veterans, and Society Program, Center for New American Security. She received her M.A in 2016 in Security Studies from Georgetown University.
She will participate in the PIPS 10th Anniversary Women's Forum.
Nicole A. Saharsky, Co-head, Supreme Court and Appellate Practice
Mayer, Brown
Ms. Saharsky focuses her practice on briefing and arguing cases in the US Supreme Court and in the federal and state appellate courts and on developing legal strategy for the trial courts and agency proceedings.
She previously served for ten years as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the United States Department of Justice, where she was responsible for briefing and arguing cases in the US Supreme Court and overseeing government appeals in the federal courts of appeals.
Ms. Saharsky has argued more cases in the US Supreme Court than any other woman over the last decade. She has argued 29 cases, briefed 45 cases on the merits, and filed hundreds of certiorari-stage briefs and motions in the Supreme Court. Her cases involved a broad range of business issues, including securities fraud, intellectual property, labor and employment, bankruptcy, personal jurisdiction and corporate criminal liability. Ms. Saharsky frequently is asked to provide commentary on the Supreme Court by C-SPAN, Law360, Reuters and other national media outlets.
She will be one of the advocates in the moot court argument at the Supreme Court Preview.
Bei Xiao, Assistant Professor, Computer Science
American University
Professor Xiao's research focuses on how the human visual system estimate physical properties of objects in our surroundings. Another focus of her research is to apply results from human vision to develop robust computer vision algorithms. Specifically, she studies perception and recognition of material properties, 3D shape, tactile properties, of objects in dynamic scenes. She uses a combination of human psychophysics, crowd-sourcing, haptic force-feedback, computer graphics, machine learning, image processing and VR techniques.
She will present her work "Human and machine inference of material properties: cloth and translucent materials" at a Computer Science Colloquium.
Natasha Sriraman, M.D., Associate Professor, Pediatrics
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Dr. Sriraman speaks around the country on various topics: breastfeeding, postpartum depression screening in pediatrics, narrative medicine/physician burnout, cultural competency/cultural differences in infant feeding and social determinants of health. She has specialized training in pediatric psychopharmacology.
In addition to seeing patients, she is an associate professor of pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School and teaches medical students and residents daily.
She will be speaking to pre-med students and others: "An Indian American Doctor's Story: Cultural Competency & Health Equity."
Jamie S. Foster, Associate Professor, Microbiology and Cell Science
University of Florida
Professor Foster researches in several areas: Environmental microbiology, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, microbial ecology, host-microbe interactions and space biology. Her "big question" is this: How do microbes living in complex symbiotic communities adapt and respond to a changing climate (e.g. elevated carbon dioxide, lower pH) and environmental stress (e.g. UV radiation, desiccation, space environment and oxidative stress)? By examining how microbes interact amongst themselves and their environment, she seeks a greater understanding of how complex microbial communities may have originated and evolved throughout Earth's history. She also hopes to identify the required genetic and biochemical mechanisms by which microbial communities are initiated, established and maintained.
She will present her work "Impact of microgravity on beneficial animal-microbe interactions" at a Biology Fall Seminar.
Jennifer Dorand '09, Medical Physicist
ProCure Treatment Centers, Inc.
Dr. Dorand is a proton medical physicist working with IBA uniform scanning and pencil beam proton delivery systems performing plan and chart checks, assisting with treatment plan development, performing daily, monthly, and annual quality assurance, and troubleshooting clinical issues. She previously was a Medical Physics Fellow at the Mayo Clinic.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Arti R. Sarma, Psychologist
Phoenix VA Hospital
Dr. Sarma received her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2014 and completed her pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral residency at ASU Counseling Services. For nearly a decade, Dr. Sarma committed her research, teaching, and clinical work to helping young adults at educational facilities such as ASU and Phoenix Job Corps improve resilience and overcome barriers to academic and professional success. In her current role at the Phoenix VA, Dr. Sarma has been able to blend her passion for multicultural issues, resilience, trauma, and well-being to serve a culturally rich and diverse population.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Megan Phifer-Rixey, Assistant Professor, Biology
Monmouth University
Professor Phifer-Rixey specializes in evolutionary genomics with an emphasis on the genetics of adaptation and speciation. Her current research includes genomic and functional approaches to understanding environmental adaptation in wild house mice.
She will present her work, "Evolutionary genetics in wild house mice" as part of the Biology Fall Seminar.
Beth Brinkmann, Partner
Covington & Burling
Ms. Brinkmann is an experienced appellate and Supreme Court litigator who has served in high-level positions in the Department of Justice, most recently as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division. She has argued 24 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. Ms. Brinkmann also has argued in numerous federal and state appellate courts across the country.
As the Civil Division's top appellate lawyer, she was responsible for supervising much of the federal government's civil litigation in appellate courts, including constitutional challenges, administrative law issues, intellectual property matters and national security cases.
She will participate in the Law School's Supreme Court Preview.
Linda Greenhouse, Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence
Yale Law School
Linda Greenhouse is the Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law and Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence at Yale Law School. She covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times between 1978 and 2008 and writes a biweekly op-ed column on law as a contributing columnist. Ms. Greenhouse received several major journalism awards during her 40-year career at the Times, including the Pulitzer Prize (1998) and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University's Kennedy School (2004). In 2002, the American Political Science Association gave her its Carey McWilliams Award for "a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics."
She will participate in the Law School's Supreme Court Preview.
Cynthia Keppel, University Endowed Professor, Physics
Hampton University
Professor Keppel is an experimental nuclear physicist with a joint position both as faculty at Hampton University and as staff scientist at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab). She also has an interest in medical applications of nuclear physics, and currently serves as Director of the HU Center for Advanced Medical Instrumentation, and the HU joint medical physics program with the Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Her experimental nuclear physics group is very active at Jefferson Lab, performing electron scattering experiments to study the fundamental structure of the nucleon. In this, they are Spokespeople for over a dozen experiments, all aimed at high precision measurements of the proton and neutron structure functions. The group has led recent efforts to quantify and better understand a fascinating phenomenon known as quark-hadron duality.
She will be one of the Visionary Science Speakers at the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Karen Daniels, Professor, Physics
North Carolina State University
Professor Daniels received her BA in Physics from Dartmouth College in 1994, taught school for a few years, and then pursued a PhD in Physics at Cornell. After receiving her doctorate in 2002, she moved to North Carolina to do research at Duke University and then joined the faculty at NC State in 2005. Her lab at NC State investigates a number of problems in the deformation and failure of materials, from fluid flows, to piles of sand, to fracturing gels. When not working with her students on experiments in the lab, she likes to spend time in the outdoors, which has led her to contemplate the implications of her research for geological and ecological systems.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Nicole Byer
Charter Day Comedian
Deborah Golden, Staff Attorney
Human Rights Defense Center
Ms. Golden joined HRDC in September 2017, as the first staff attorney in the Washington, D.C. office. She is a national expert in prisoner human rights litigation against the federal Bureau of Prisons. She most recently served as the Director of the D.C. Prisoners' Project of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, where she focused on litigation about mental health care, sexual assault and disability rights. She has taught courses in prisoner rights at the University of Virginia School of Law and Georgetown University.
She will participate in the Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Nicole Tortoriello, Secular Society Women's Rights Advocate
ACLU of Virginia
Ms. Tortoriello joined the ACLU of Virginia as the Secular Society Women's Rights Advocacy Counsel in August 2018. She works to protect and expand the rights of women and girls throughout the Commonwealth through litigation and advocacy. Before joining the ACLU of Virginia, Ms. Tortoriello served as a law clerk to the Hon. Catherine C. Blake of the U.S. District Court for Maryland. Prior to that, she practiced at Arnold & Porter, LLP in Washington, D.C. She spent time during law school working at the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Educational Opportunities Section in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice.
She will participate in the Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Kati Kitts Dean, Associate Attorney, Women's Injury Law Center
Locke & Quinn
Ms. Dean graduated with a B.A. in English and a minor in Philosophy from James Madison University. She also holds an M.A. in American Literature from the University of South Carolina. Ms. Dean graduated from the University of Richmond School of Law in 2013. She is a member of the Richmond Bar, the Virginia State Bar, the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, the Equality Bar and the Metro Richmond Women's Bar Association.
She will participate in the Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Linda T. Coberly, Chicago Managing Partner
Winston & Strawn
Linda Coberly is the managing partner of Winston & Strawn LLP's oldest and largest office. She is a partner in the firm's Litigation Department and chairs Winston's Appellate and Critical Motions Practice. She also serves on the firm's Executive Committee.
Ms. Coberly focuses her practice on appeals and on critical motions that resolve complex commercial lawsuits before trial. She is known for her strong business sense, excellent briefs, and clear and compelling oral advocacy. She counsels clients on appellate and strategic issues at all stages of litigation, from before trial through and including proceedings before the U.S. Supreme Court. She has briefed and argued appeals in six different federal courts of appeals and a variety of state appellate and supreme courts.
She will participate in the Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Kate Kelly, Human Rights Attorney
Equality Now
Kate Kelly joined Equality Now in June 2018. During her legal career Ms. Kelly has had many opportunities including working as an Ella Baker Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a law clerk at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a research assistant to the Chair of the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Geneva, Switzerland, and a fellow at the Women's Refugee Commission. She has experience as an attorney through her work at the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights and was a legal advisor for Legal Action Worldwide, where she worked on sexual violence legislation in Somalia.
Ms. Kelly has litigated before the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and consulted on the United Nations High Commission on Refugees report titled "Women on the Run." Her career has involved extensive work on human rights and women's rights, including roles as Strategic Advocacy & Policy Counsel at Planned Parenthood and Legal Fellow for the Human Rights in the US Project at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights
She will participate in the Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Wendy Murphy, Adjunct Professor
New England School of Law
A nationally recognized expert on child abuse and interpersonal violence, Ms. Murphy has published numerous academic and pop culture articles, and provides legal analysis for CBS, CNN, ABC, Fox News and MSNBC. She is a co-host on WRKO radio, a newspaper columnist, and author of And Justice for Some (2007). Ms. Murphy began her career as a prosecutor in Middlesex County, handling child abuse and sex crime cases, and then moved into private practice, focusing on violence against women and children. She is an adjunct faculty member and helped establish the law school's Judicial Language Project, the first of its kind in this country.
She will participate in the Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Lila Sugerman
Documentary Producer
Lila Sugerman is a high school student in Los Angeles. She is also an associate producer of the film film "Period. End of Sentence." The film has been nominated for an Academy Award™ for best documentary short at the 91st Annual Academy Awards.
Ms. Sugerman will be screening the film during the W&M Global Film Festival She will also participate in a conversation about media, advocacy and development at the Global Research Institute.
Melissa Goodwin '11, Project Manager, Thriving Earth Exchange
American Geophysical Union
Melissa Goodwin is a Project Manager for AGU's Thriving Earth Exchange, responsible for developing and managing TEX community science projects that advance impactful solutions for challenges related to natural hazards, natural resources, and climate change. She is also a Coordinator for the Resilience Dialogues.
Prior to joining AGU, Ms. Goodwin worked as the Program Director of the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation. There, she was the lead staff member responsible for the development and implementation of programs that advance multi-disciplinary collaboration and policy solutions for critical environmental issues.
She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Lecture Series.
Morag Kersel, Associate Professor Anthropology, Director of Museum Studies Minor Program
DePaul University
Professor Kersel is an archaeologist with a doctorate from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and a master of Historic Preservation from the University of Georgia. Her research interests include the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of the eastern Mediterranean and Levant, cultural heritage protection, the built environment, object biographies, museums and archaeological tourism. Her work combines archaeological, archival and oral history research in order to understand the efficacy of cultural heritage law in protecting archaeological landscapes from looting.
Currently she is co-director of the Galilee Prehistory Project and the Follow the Pots Project - tracing the movement of Early Bronze Age pots from the Dead Sea Plain in Jordan.
She will present her work "Who Owns the Past, Competing Claims for Antiquities from the Holy Land," as part of the Archeological Institute of America speakers series.
Katherine L. Mansfield Ph.D. VIMS '06, Director, Marine Turtle Research Group
University of Central Florida
Professor Mansfield is a marine scientist and sea turtle biologist. Her research focuses on sea turtle biology, ecology, behavior, management and conservation. Using various census and telemetry methods, Professor Mansfield's research interests include sea turtle and other marine vertebrate movements, migration and habitat utilization. Her recent projects include testing and deploying small-scale, solar-powered satellite tags on young, oceanic stage sea turtles with the goal of describing early sea turtle dispersal and habitat use.
She will present an After Hours Lecture, "The Young and the Restless: Tracking the sea turtle lost years" at VIMS.
Vicky Chao '10
Video Editor
Vicky Chao is a Multimedia Designer and Editor for the award-winning short-documentary company, Freethink. Prior to working for Freethink, Ms. Chao worked as a producer, video editor and motion designer for global PR and marketing leader, FleishmanHillard. She also freelanced (and continues to freelance in her spare time) as a video producer, editor, motion designer and art director, frequently collaborating with design agencies like Workhorse. Over the past 8 years, Ms. Chao has worked with clients like the Smithsonian, Motorola, AT&T, Hallmark, and TEDxMidAtlantic. She graduated from William & Mary in 2010 after double majoring in LCST/Film Studies and English.
She will be conducting a workshop in Motion Graphics at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Lauretta Prevost '05
Cinematographer
For the past thirteen years, Ms. Prevost has worked as a documentary and narrative cinematographer, of feature length and short content. Her documentary interests are strongly rooted in social justice, as well as environmental, arts, and community work. An Inciting Incident for her was filming at Standing Rock, North Dakota for four months, contributing footage to Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera, The Real News Network, camp media and two feature documentaries screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Her first narrative feature was shot in 2008, and notable shorts are the heavily awarded 116, and Lady Hunters, which recently received a Best Cinematography award. Ms. Prevost is based in New York City and writes for outlets such as American Cinematographer, No Film School, ICG, Filmmaker Magazine and Al Jazeera.
She will conduct a workshop – Trials and Tribulations of a Working Cinematographer – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Cora Kessler '14, Marketing Manager
Touchstorm
With an unconventional upbringing on a commune, to an artist and a tofu maker, Cora Kessler has leveraged skills first learned when giving out samples at vegetarian festivals, towards her work in New York City art galleries, PR firms and tech startups. Today, Ms. Kessler holds the title of Influencer Marketing Campaign Manager, in Touchstorm's Richmond, Virginia office where she wrangles YouTube talent on a global scale. All of her current campaigns are in India and Finland.
She will conduct a workshop – Influencer Marketing – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Kristin Boos '08, Creative Director
TNT Brand Creative
Kristin Boos graduated with a double major in English and Literary & Cultural Studies from William & Mary, where she also worked at the Writing Resources Center and Swem Library Special Collections. After a fellowship with the International Radio & Television Society, she moved to Atlanta for a position at Turner Broadcasting, where she now leads as a Creative Director for TNT Brand Creative.
In her tenure at TNT, Ms. Boos has served as a writer, producer and director on promotional campaigns for The Alienist, Animal Kingdom and the upcoming premiere of I Am the Night. As the creative command center for each campaign, she is responsible for the theatrical trailers, behind-the-scenes featurettes, brand partnerships, and digital content supporting the series, and has earned multiple PromaxBDA and Clio Awards for her work.
Ms. Boos will conduct a workshop – Directing Creative: An Interdisciplinary Art -- and will also be participating in the W&M Women in TV panel discussion at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Megan Gilbride '00
Documentary Producer
Megan Gilbride is a two-time-Emmy-winning and Independent Spirit Award nominated producer of narrative and documentary films. She produced the Emmy award winning TOWER which screened on PBS's Independent Lens, was nominated for numerous prizes including a Peabody, PGA and Gotham Award and was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Academy Award. Other titles include Lovers of Hate, Where Soldiers Come From and Habibi. Ms. Gilbride is currently developing the feature doc Fathom and TV series Chilling in Austin and producing The Untitled Michael Brody Jr Documentary with Impact Partners and Topic. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Documentary Producers Alliance and a former Film Independent Fellow.
She will conduct a workshop – What is a Producer and Why Should You Want to Be One or Work With One? – will also be participating in the W&M Women in TV panel discussion at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Amelia Bane '12
Writer and Performer
Amelia Bane is a comedy writer, performer and teaching artist living in Brooklyn. She regularly performs at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and the Peoples Improv Theatre. She also serves on the board of Community Building Art Works, a charitable organization that provides arts programs and events for veterans to express themselves and connect with their communities.
She will conduct a workshop – Saying Yes to the Unexpected – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Sheri Bias '97, Casting Executive
Liquid Talent
Dr. Bias has 30 years of experience in Human Resources and possesses a PhD in Human and Organization Systems from The Fielding Graduate University and an MBA from William & Mary. She has served as casting director for feature films such as Captain Philips, Field of Lost Shoes, To Have and To Hold and most recently The Trump Prophecy. Additionally, she has cast TV shows such as Unmasked, as well as providing talent to A Haunting, Wicked Attraction and Fatal Attraction reenactments. Her client list includes such organizations as Virginia Lottery, Walmart, Pizza Hut, GEICO, Bon Secours, NASCAR, YMCA, Water Country USA, Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. She currently is the Agency Director and Owner of Liquid Talent based in Richmond, Virginia.
She will conduct a workshop – Putting the People Puzzle Together: The Importance of Talent to Productions – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Catherine Orr '05
Documentary Producer
Catherine Orr is the co-founder of StoryMine – a production company that creates documentary-style videos for mission-driven organizations and partners with media outlets and independent producers on documentary projects. StoryMine videos do more than just talk about an issue. They capture real stories and human moments that connect people to a cause and show them why they should care.
Ms. Orr received a BA in American Studies from William & Mary and an MA from the University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism. Her individual and collaborative work has been featured in The New York Times and National Geographic and recognized by SXSW Interactive, the Grantham Prize for Environmental Journalism, and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, among others.
She will conduct a workshop – Why Should I Care? Crafting Documentary Videos That Move People – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Victoria Belopolsky
Film Critic
Ms. Belopolsky began to work as a film critic for leading Russian media after graduating from Moscow State University in 1986. Over the years she has published more than 300 pieces on different genres in the Russian press.
In addition to being a film critic, she is also a programming director of ArtDocFest, the most influential Russian festival for creative documentaries and a member of the selection committee for Flahertiana, the only exclusively documentary film festival in Russia. She has pre-selected films made in Russia and the former republics of the USSR for the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival and has worked as a regional advisor (Russia) for the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) for 20 years.
She will conduct a workshop – Film Festivals and Government Funding – at the W&M Global Film Festival. She will also comment on the Russian Film, Core of the World.
Jill Twiss '98
Comedy Writer
Jill Twiss is the author of "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver Presents: A Day In The Life of Marlon Bundo," a New York Times #1 Bestseller. She is also a comedy writer who has won multiple Emmys, WGA Awards and Peabody Awards for her work as a staff writer on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. She writes sentences for the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ESPN and in her not-so-spare time is working on a musical about the women of the Seneca Falls Convention.
She will conduct a Q&A and also participate in the W&M Women in TV panel discussion at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Chitra Sampath '06
Writer and Producer
Chitra Sampath's writing and producing credits include Southland, Sleepy Hollow, Secrets & Lies and Good Behavior. Most recently she was a Co-Executive Producer on Are You Sleeping?, Apple's soon-to-premiere first series starring Octavia Spencer, Aaron Paul and Lizzy Caplan. Ms. Sampath resides in Los Angeles and has several other television and feature film projects in development.
She will conduct a workshop – From Staff Writer to Showrunner: What Do TV Writers Really Do? – and will also be participating in the W&M Women in TV panel discussion at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Caitlin Clements '11
Theatrical Producer
Caitlin Clements resides in New York City and works in theatrical producing as Associate Producer at Stacey Mindich Productions. She made her Broadway producing debut as a co-producer on the musical Dear Evan Hansen, for which she earned a 2017 Tony Award. She is now also a co-producer on the national tour of Dear Evan Hansen and is working on the upcoming international productions in Toronto and London.
Prior to her current position, Ms. Clements worked within a theatrical general management office, including time spent as the Assistant Company Manager on the 2012 Broadway revival of Annie – willfully disregarding the old adage about never working will children or animals. She also has experience working as a crew member for the past seven iterations of the Tribeca Film Festival.
Ms. Clements holds an MA in Cinema Studies from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and a BA in LCST/Film from William & Mary. She will conduct a workshop – All the Reasons Why You Non-Theater Majors Are Super-Qualified for Your First Job in Theater – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Hannah McCarthy '12
Documentary Producer
Hannah McCarthy is the Supervisor of Unscripted Development and Documentary Producer for Rooster Teeth in Austin, TX. Hannah has produced everything from behind-the-scenes shows to large-scale series and documentaries. Working in development through post-production, she has experience in all stages of content creation. Prior to joining Rooster Teeth, Ms. McCarthy worked on shows for the Discovery Channel, A&E, TNT, Animal Planet, TLC and PBS.
She will conduct a workshop – Digital Media: Where Old Meets New – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Chelsea Marotta '12
Development Producer
Chelsea Marotta is an unscripted development producer at Cineflix Productions. She got her first job in TV six years ago as a receptionist. Today she has contributed to the development of shows sold to HGTV, DIY, Food Network, CNBC, A&E, TLC and Investigation Discovery.
She will conduct a workshop – So You Want to Pitch Your Idea to a Production Company – at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Charlene deGuzman
Writer/Actor
Charlene deGuzman first garnered attention from tweeting her self-deprecating thoughts as @charstarlene. Rolling Stone named her one of the "Funniest People on Twitter Right Now." She went on to write and star in her own short films, and her most popular one, I Forgot My Phone, has over 51 million views on YouTube and was featured in The New York Times, USA Today, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, Vice, The Today Show and many more. She is an advocate for self-love and bringing awareness to sex and love addiction. She speaks publicly about her recovery, and has her own advice column with FLOOD magazine.
Ms. deGuzman wrote her first feature film, Unlovable, which premiered at SXSW in 2018 and received special jury recognition. It stars Ms. deGuzman, John Hawkes, and Melissa Leo and was executive produced by the Duplass Brothers.
She will be a special guest of the W&M Global Film Festival, screening her film Unlovable.
Kim Wilcox '88
Costume Designer
Kim Wilcox has been designing costumes for award-winning television series and motion pictures since 1995. She studied theatre and anthropology at William & Mary, drawing at The Art Students League of New York and earned an MFA in Costume Design from Brandeis University in Boston.
Most recently she joined the creative team for the Russo Brothers' Sony/Syfy pilot Deadly Class. She is also very proud to be part of the creative team for Season 2 of Matt and Ross Duffer's Golden Globe-nominated horror/sci-fi sensation Stranger Things. For her work on Stranger Things, Ms. Wilcox has been nominated for the 2018 Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Period Television.
In 2015, Ms. Wilcox helped create the world of Mr. Robot, a psychological cyber-thriller on USA. Starring Rami Malek and Christian Slater, the series won the 2016 Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Series as well as AFI, Critic’s Choice, WGA, Gotham and Peabody awards.
She will appear as part of the W&M Women in TV event at the W&M Global Film Festival.
Yu Amy Xia, Associate Professor, Business Analytics, Mason School of Business
William & Mary
Professor Xia's research interests include supply chain management, sustainability, sourcing planning, risk management and scheduling. She has published scholarly work in various journals such as Management Science, Production and Operations Management, European Journal of Operational Research, Omega and IIE Transactions.
She will present her paper "Achieving Sustainability and Cost Efficiency Through Sourcing Plan and Supplier Development" in a Mathematics Colloquium.
Sara Bon-Harper, Executive Director
James Monroe's Highland
Sara Bon-Harper is the Executive Director of James Monroe's Highland in Albemarle County, Virginia, focusing on strategic vision and museum leadership at the historic site, which is a department of William & Mary. She is an archaeologist with research experience in the historic period in Virginia, and on peripheries in the Roman world. The research she directs at Highland has recently transformed the understanding of the property, and contributes to new insight on James Monroe. Her focus at Highland is interpreting current research, including creating a new set of inclusive narratives about the past.
She will present her project "Perspectives on James Monroe's Highland," as part of the Anthropology Brown Bag Series.
Helen Alvaré, Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School
George Mason University
Professor Alvaré teaches Family Law, Law and Religion, and Property Law. She publishes on matters concerning marriage, parenting, non-marital households and the First Amendment religion clauses. She is faculty advisor to her law school's Civil Rights Law Journal, and the Latino/a Law Student Association, a consultor for the Pontifical Council of the Laity (Vatican City), an advisor to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (Washington, D.C.), founder of WomenSpeakforThemselves.com and an ABC news consultant.
She will speak at the W&M Law School on "Religious Liberty and Identity Politics." Sponsored by The Federalist Society.
Erin Webster, Assistant Professor, English
William & Mary
Professor Webster investigates the dialogue between scientific progress and fictional literary production in Early Modern England. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the figurative application of technologies of perspective in a body of texts by John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton.
She is currently working on a book-length project that examines the impact of the early Royal Society on Early Modern English literature, with particular consideration given to the socio-political dimensions of literary responses to experimental science.
She will speak on "Margaret Cavendish's Early Modern Ecocriticism" at a GSWS Lunch & Learn Session.
Jennifer Gauthier, Associate Professor, Communication Studies
Randolph College
Edward Said wrote "the job facing the cultural intellectual is … not to accept the politics of identity as given, but to show how all representations are constructed, for what purpose, by whom, and with what components."
Professor Gauthier firmly believes that this is part of her job as both a cultural intellectual and a teacher. In her communication and film studies classes at Randolph, she encourages students not to take anything for granted, but to ask questions about the historical, political, economic and social contexts of the cultural objects they examine.
She will speak on "Native Pacific Islander Cinema and the Ethics of Cinematic Sovereignty," sponsored by APIA, the Native American Resource Center, Native Studies, Anthropology and American Studies.
Kalina Hristova, Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
The Kalina Hristova Lab investigates the structure and assembly of biological membranes. The team conducts research on the structural and thermodynamic principles that enable membrane protein folding and signal transduction across biological membranes. Part of their work has involved developing new tools to study the structure of thermally disordered fluid membranes and the energetics of biomolecular interactions in biological membranes. Through their studies, they have established a better understanding of the physical principles behind complex biological processes and the mechanisms of disease development in humans.
She will present her paper, "Eph receptors: dimerization, structure and function" at an Applied Science Seminar.
Julia Kubanek, Professor and Associate Dean, Environmental Science and Technology
Georgia Tech
Professor Kubanek describes her work as follows: "Most organisms use chemical signals to assess their environment and to communicate with others. Chemical cues for defense, mating, habitat selection, and food tracking are crucial, widespread in occurrence, and structurally and functionally diverse. Yet, our knowledge of chemical signaling is patchy, especially in marine environments. Processes such as oceanic primary production affect global climate, human health, and our sustainable use of environmental resources. In our research the Kubanek group asks, "How do marine organisms use chemicals to solve critical problems of competition, predation, disease, and reproduction?" We use an integrated approach to understand how marine natural products function as chemical cues in ecological interactions - working from the molecular to the community level. We also use ecological insights about how marine organisms use chemical cues to guide our discovery of novel natural products for drug discovery."
She will present her paper "Ecological Impacts of Chemical Cues in Marine Systems" at VIMS.
Nicole M. Santiago, Associate Professor, Art & Art History
William & Mary
Professor Santiago is a figurative painter whose work has been exhibited by the First Street Gallery (New York City), the Shoestring Studio (Brooklyn), the ARC Gallery (Chicago) and Artspace (Richmond). She teaches Color & Drawing, Composition & Color, Narrative Drawing, Advanced Drawing, Life Drawing I,
Life Drawing II and Advanced Life Drawing.
She curated the 100th Anniversary alumnae art show "Art and Art History Alumnae Exhibition: 100 Years of Women at William & Mary."
Melissa Parris, Head of Collections and Exhibitions Management
Muscarelle Museum of Art
Melissa Parris holds both a B.A. and M.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in Art History, is a graduate of the Jekyll Island Management Institute (JIMI) in museum management training, and is a Certified Institutional Protection Specialist (CIPS) and Manager (CIPM) through The International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection. She served as Registrar for the Muscarelle Museum of Art in the mid-to-late 1990s before moving to London, England where she worked as a Registrar of Contemporary Arts at Martinspeed, Ltd. Upon her return to the States, she has worked for Art Services International as Registrar and at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation as Associate Registrar for Exhibitions and Loans before re-joining the staff at the Muscarelle Museum of Art where she is currently Head of Collections and Exhibitions Management and Curator of the President's Collection of Art at William & Mary.
Her areas of interest in art history include American modernism, history of photography, and contemporary art with an emphasis on Women, African American, self-taught and underrepresented artists.
She curated "Following in Their Footsteps: Women Artists from the President's Collection of Art," which was exhibited at the Sadler Center throughout 2018-19.
Irina Novikova, Professor, Physics
William & Mary
Professor Novikova's research interests are in experimental Atomic, Molecular and Optical physics (AMO). In particular, she studies coherent interaction of light with atoms to control and manipulate optical properties of atomic ensembles, such as Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT), slow and stored light, resonant Raman processes, etc.
She is active in the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) and was the primary organizer of the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) held at William & Mary in January, 2019.
Phoebe Williams, Visiting Assistant Professor, Biology
William & Mary
Dr. Williams' research interest centers on molecular pathways used by plants to respond to environmental stresses and how this understanding can be applied to current problems in agriculture.
She will be presenting her current work at a Biology Spring Seminar.
Jessica L. Ball '07, Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow
U.S. Geological Survey
Dr. Ball is a geologist and volcanologist who researches stratovolcano hydrothermal systems as a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, CA. Prior to that, she worked at the Washington DC policy office of the Geological Society of America, where she was a Science Policy Fellow. She is an expert in volcanic stability and hazards related to hydrothermal alteration processes. She also writes about her work and issues in the Earth and environmental sciences at Magma Cum Laude, a blog that is part of the American Geophysical Union's Geoblogosphere.
She will be appearing as part of the Geology Department's 100 Years of Women Geosciences Symposium.
Jamie C. Bartlett, Associate Professor, Music, Associate Director of Choirs
William & Mary
Professor Bartlett currently serves as Chair of the W&M Department of Music. A native of Massachusetts, she holds an A.B. in Music from Mount Holyoke College, a M.M in choral conducting from The Eastman School of Music and a D.M.A. in Choral Conducting with a minor in Musicology from The University of Wisconsin – Madison. At William & Mary, she conducts the Women's Chorus and the select Botetourt Chamber Singers ("the Bots"). She also teaches beginning and advanced conducting, Eurhythmics and introductory theory classes.
In honor of the 100th Anniversary of Women at William & Mary, Professor Bartlett has created two programs for the Bots – one each semester – featuring music composed solely by women.
Tara Leigh Grove, Professor
William & Mary Law School
Professor Grove received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Duke University, where she majored in political science. After teaching English in Japan for a year, she attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated magna cum laude and served as the Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review. Grove clerked for Judge Emilio Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and then spent four years as an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where she argued fifteen cases in the courts of appeals. Prior to joining the William & Mary Law School faculty in 2011, Grove was Assistant Professor of Law at Florida State University College of Law.
Professor Grove's research focuses on the federal judiciary and the constitutional separation of powers. She will participate in the Law School's Supreme Court Preview.
Pamela Harris, Judge
U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit
Pamela Harris is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, appointed in 2014 by President Obama. Previously, Harris worked in private practice as a Supreme Court and appellate litigator with the firm of O'Melveny & Myers. She served twice at the U.S. Department of Justice, as principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy from 2010 to 2012, and as an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel from 1993 to 1996.
Harris also taught constitutional law and criminal procedure at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Georgetown Law Center, served as executive director of Georgetown Law Center's Supreme Court Institute, and was a co-director of Harvard Law School's Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Clinic. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, she served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Harry T. Edwards of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
She will participate in the Law School's Supreme Court Preview.
Allison Orr Larsen '99, Professor
William & Mary Law School
Allison Orr Larsen is a professor of law who teaches constitutional law, administrative law and statutory interpretation. Since joining the William & Mary law faculty in 2010, she has received many awards honoring her teaching and scholarship. Professor Larsen has received the university's Alumni Fellowship Award, the Walter L. Williams Jr. Memorial Teaching Award, two university-wide Plumeri Awards, the inaugural McGlothlin Teaching Award and the state-wide Outstanding Faculty Award in the "Rising Star" category (the latter is Virginia's highest faculty honor, awarded by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia).
She will participate in the Law School's Supreme Court Preview.
Kara Thompson, Assistant Professor, English and American Studies
William & Mary
Kara Thompson is the author of Blanket (Bloomsbury 2018), Settler Contingencies, Indigenous Futures (Duke University Press, under contract), and essays in Tin House, The Atlantic, Avidly and The Philosophical Salon. Thompson currently teaches nonfiction writing at Northern Arizona University, and is also an associate professor of English and American Studies at William & Mary, where in 2017 she was the recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award. Professor Thompson's research and teaching interests include critical race theory, queer theory, Native American/Indigenous studies, environmental humanities, law, literature and political theory.
She will participate in the Symposium in Honor of Professor Patricia J. Williams.
Melanie Allen
Author
Ms. Allen is the author of Constitution Assessment for Women's Equality. Stockholm, Sweden: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2016), A practitioner's account: the 'Constitution Assessment for Women's Equality' in H. Irving (Ed.) and Constitutions and Gender, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited (2017).
She will present her work at the Law School Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment and also in the Symposium on Women in Constitutions at the Law School.
Julia Tanner, Founder and President
Virginia Equal Rights Coalition
The Virginia Equal Rights Coalition is a Virginia-based not for profit coalition of individuals and organizations supporting ratification by the Commonwealth of Virginia of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ms. Tanner has been working for ratification of the ERA in Virginia not only through the Equal Rights Coalition. She has also been active in "We of Action Virginia" (WofaVA), a northern Virginia political group, and chairs the ERA Committee of the Arlington League of Women Voters.
She will participate in the Law School Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Mitski
Singer/Songwriter
Mitski Miyawaki, known simply as Mitski, is a Japanese-American singer-songwriter and musician. She embarked on her musical career while studying at Purchase College's Conservatory of Music, during which she self-released her first two albums: Lush (2012), and Retired from Sad, New Career in Business (2013). After graduating, Mitski released in 2014 her critically acclaimed third studio album, Bury Me at Makeout Creek through Double Double Whammy. It was followed by Puberty 2 (2016) and Be the Cowboy (2018), released on Dead Oceans to further acclaim.
She will perform a solo acoustic set in a concert sponsored by WCWM 90.9 FM.
Jody Lynn Allen, Assistant Professor, History; Director, The Lemon Project
William & Mary
Professor Allen is the director of The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation, which is uncovering, making public, and addressing William & Mary's 326-year relationship with African Americans on the campus and in the Williamsburg and Greater Tidewater area.
Her research interests cover the U.S. Civil War through the Long Civil Rights Movement focusing on black agency. Her current manuscript, Roses in December: Black Life in Hanover County, Virginia During the Era of Disfranchisement, considers the consequences of and responses to the 1902 Virginia Constitution revisions that disfranchised most African American males. She is also working with a colleague to produce "The Green Light," a documentary film on the school desegregation case, Charles C. Green v. the School Board of New Kent County, VA.
She is the organizer of the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Paula Pickering, Associate Professor, Government
William & Mary
Professor Pickering's current research focuses on the impact of aid for democratization on local communities in culturally diverse post-socialist Eastern Europe. She also works on cross-regional research on the impact of efforts to improve the quality of local governance, with on-going, collaborative projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Uganda. Professor Pickering is an active member of the AidData Research Consortium. Additional research interests include ethnic politics, particularly in the Balkans; and state-building and refugee politics in post-conflict states in Eurasia. Through her mentorship of the award-winning international community engagement project, The Bosnia Project, she also supports student-led, collaborative research assessing informal educational activities that promote inter-cultural communication skills.
She will participate in a panel discussion on Ethics in Political Science, hosted by the William & Mary Social Science Research Methods Center.
Jenny Offill
Author
Jenny Offill's first novel Last Things was published in 1999 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and in the UK by Bloomsbury. It was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the L.A. Times First Book Award. Offill's second novel Dept. of Speculation was published in January 2014 and was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review. Dept. of Speculation was shortlisted for the Folio Prize in the UK, the Pen/Faulkner Award and the L.A. Times Fiction Award.
Her work has appeared in the Paris Review. She is also the co-editor with Elissa Schappell of two anthologies of essays and the author of several children's books. Ms. Offill teaches in the MFA programs at Brooklyn College, Columbia University and Queens University.
She will appear as one of the honored guests in the Patrick Hayes Writers Series.
Elizabeth A. Goldschmidt, Physicist
Army Research Laboratory
Dr. Goldschmidt is a physicist at the US Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, MD. After obtaining her bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 2006, she worked for a year at a public policy think tank in Washington, DC before going on to do a PhD at the University of Maryland. She did her graduate research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD on single photon technologies and quantum memory. She obtained her PhD in 2013 and stayed at NIST for a postdoctoral fellowship in ultra-cold atomic physics. She joined the Army Research Lab in 2015 and her research group, which includes University of Maryland undergraduate and graduate students, studies experimental quantum optics and quantum information.
She will be one of the Visionary Science Speakers at the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Renee S. Payne Baggott, Assistant Professor, Mathematics
Hampton University
Professor Baggott graduated with an Associate of Applied Science in Electronics Engineering Technology from Durham Technical College, a Bachelor of Science in Physics from North Carolina Central University, a Master of Science and Ph.D. in Physics with an emphasis in Optical Physics from Hampton University. Her graduate work focused on holographic data storage in cylindrical photorefractive crystals and tropospheric lidar.
Recently, Professor Baggott was recalled to active duty with the Navy to serve in Afghanistan. While there her positions included acting as the officer in charge of the Female Engagement Team (FET), Training Officer, Command Emergency Response Program (CERP) manager as well as truck commander and gunner. She was awarded the Bronze Star for her actions in support of combat operations.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Allyson K. Anderson Book, Executive Director
American Geosciences Institute (AGI)
Mrs. Anderson Book joined AGI in 2016 from the Department of the Interior, where she had served as the Associate Director of Strategic Engagement of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). Prior to joining BSEE she was a senior professional staff member on Chairman Jeff Bingaman's Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Prior to joining the Energy Committee staff, Mrs. Anderson Book was a petrophysicist/senior geoscientist at ExxonMobil Exploration Company in Houston, Texas and student/researcher at the Kansas Geological Survey.
She is a former President of the Association for Women Geoscientists and has been an active member and volunteer for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for more than 20 years.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Dahlia Sokolov, Staff Director
House Subcommittee on Research & Technology
Ms. Sokolov is the Democratic Staff Director for the Research & Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. In this role, she advises Committee Members on oversight and legislative issues regarding the National Science Foundation; the National Institute of Standards and Technology; interagency R&D initiatives, including the national nanotechnology and information technology programs; STEM education across the federal government; international S&T cooperation; federal policies for university research; all matters relating to competitiveness, technology, standards, and innovation; and R&D at the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Abigail Regitsky
APS Congressional Science Fellow
Dr. Regitsky is a 2018-2019 American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow in Senator Tina Smith's office. She serves as a legislative fellow working on energy and environment issues. Prior to her fellowship, Abigail earned her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT, where she used hydrogels to mimic nature's ability to make strong, tough biominerals in hopes of advancing the sustainable production of industrially-relevant materials. She was active in the MIT Graduate Student Council, co-chairing both the Sustainability and the State and Local Affairs Subcommittees.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Kim Lee Hughes, Visiting Professor, Counseling
Clark Atlanta University
Dr. Hughes is an educator and counselor. She specializes in Multiculturalism, Social Justice & Advocacy. Qualitative Research, Sexuality (LGBTQIQ), Personal Empowerment, Women’s Issues, Depression & Anxiety, and Grief & Loss.
She will participate in a forum on Critical Discourse in Research, sponsored by the W&M Social Justice and Diversity Fellows.
Elizabeth Raposa, Assistant Professor, Psychological Sciences
William & Mary
Professor Raposa investigates how early life stressors influence trajectories of development, with a particular focus on biological (e.g., inflammation, HPA axis functioning) and social (e.g., peer selection, social stress reactivity) processes that are implicated in risk for physical and mental health problems. In addition, she is interested in how close relationships with parents, peers or others might mitigate the negative impact of early stressors on youth. One line of her research tests the effectiveness of interventions that attempt to harness the power of close relationships, such as mentoring, and explores adjustments that could improve the impact of these interventions.
She will participate in a forum on Critical Discourse in Research, sponsored by the Social Justice and Diversity Fellows.
Ella Mihailescu, Asst. Research Professor
Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, University of Maryland
Professor Mihailescu's research is focused on developing biophysical methods for investigations of the structural interactions of membrane proteins, membrane-active peptides and lipophilic drug molecules with lipid membranes. A major effort in the Mihailescu laboratory is directed toward advancing precision measurement of membrane protein structures in engineered lipid platforms.
She will present her work "Exploring membranes and membrane proteins with neutrons" at an Applied Science Seminar.
Marjorie Margolies
Former Member of Congress (D-PA)
Ann Marie Buerkle
Former Member of Congress (R-NY)
Mariaelana DiBenigno
Ph.D. candidate, William & Mary
Mariaelena DiBenigno is a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies Program at William & Mary. After several years as a middle school teacher, she completed her English M.A at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). At UNCW, her graduate thesis concerned the relationship between folklore, geography and tourism in the coastal Carolinas. At William & Mary, Ms. DiBenigno's dissertation looks at the connections between popular culture, public history and haunting power of place. As a complement to her research, Ms. DiBenigno also assists with exhibit design and installation, and archival processing for William & Mary's Special Collections.
She curated the exhibit "Game Changers" which was displayed throughout 2018-19 at Kaplan Arena.
Carmen Bolt, Oral Historian
William & Mary
Carmen Bolt is responsible for collecting the stories of the university's alumni/ae, faculty, and staff and making these stories available through university archives, digital platforms and exhibitions. She is currently focused on recording oral histories in connection with the 100 Years of Coeducation at William & Mary. She has compiled more than 50 oral histories of W&M Women.
She curated the exhibit "Narrating Herstory: Oral Histories Commemorating 100 Years of Coeducation at W&M" which was displayed throughout 2018-19 at Swem Library.
Serrin M. Foster, President
Feminists for Life of America
Ms. Foster is President of Feminists for Life of America, the creator of the Women Deserve Better campaign and editor in chief of The American Feminist.
Under her leadership, FFL successfully advocated benefits for poor and pregnant women through the State Child Health Insurance Program, worked in coalition with other women's organizations to defeat the mandatory "family cap" and other punitive child exclusion provisions in welfare reform, and helped to prevent poverty and coerced abortions due to threats to withhold child support through passage of the Enhanced Child Support Act.
Ms. Foster served on the National Taskforce Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, which worked to pass the Violence Against Women Act, and she also testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in support of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as "Laci and Conner's Law."
She will present her talk, "The Feminist Case Against Abortion" at the Law School at an event sponsored by Advocates for Life in conjunction with Federalist Society and Tribe for Life.
Marin K. Levy, Associate Professor of Law
Duke University Law School
Marin K. Levy's principal academic interests include civil procedure, judicial administration, remedies and federal courts. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Cornell Law Review and the California Law Journal, among others. Levy is also a co-author of Federal Standards of Review: Appellate Court Review of District Court Decisions and Agency Actions (2nd ed.) with Judge Harry T. Edwards and Linda A. Elliott.
Levy joined the Duke Law faculty in 2009, and received the law school's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2017. Prior to coming to Duke, she served as a law clerk to Judge José A. Cabranes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was an associate at Jenner & Block LLP in Washington, D.C.
She will participate in the Law School's Symposium on "The Role of Courts in Politically and Socially Charged Moments."
Margaret H. Lemos, Professor of Law and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research
Duke University Law School
Professor Lemos is a scholar of constitutional law, legal institutions and procedure. Her scholarship focuses on the institutions of law interpretation and enforcement and their effects on substantive rights. She writes in four related fields: federalism; administrative law, including the relationship between courts and agencies; statutory interpretation; and civil procedure. Her articles have been published in the Supreme Court Review as well as in the Harvard, New York University, Texas, Minnesota, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame law reviews.
Lemos was awarded Duke's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2013.
She will participate in the Law School's Symposium on "The Role of Courts in Politically and Socially Charged Moments."
Erin F. Delaney, Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Professor Delaney's research focuses on constitutional design and comparative constitutional law, with particular attention to the role of courts in multi-level governance systems. In 2014, she held the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in the Theory and Practice of Constitutionalism and Federalism at McGill University. She has also been a MacCormick Visiting Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Law School and a Wiener-Anspach Visiting Research Fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
She will participate in the Law School's Symposium on "The Role of Courts in Politically and Socially Charged Moments."
Mary-Rose Papandrea, Parker Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean
University of North Carolina School of Law
Professor Papandrea came to the University of North Carolina School of Law from Boston College Law School in 2015. Her teaching and research interests include constitutional law, media law, torts, civil procedure, and national security and civil liberties.
She will participate in the Law School's Symposium on "The Role of Courts in Politically and Socially Charged Moments."
Emily Rolen, Senior Technology Strategy Analyst
Capital One
Ms. Rolen has a bachelor's degree in Physics and Astronomy. She believes a background in physics can be a powerful tool for landing a job in almost any industry. Emily fell in love with observation and research during her time at the University of Wyoming's REU program, and with her senior thesis work at the KELT telescope. After college, Emily chose to explore "earth-based" career options in the finance industry. Today she works on Capital One's Technology Strategy team, researching and understanding emerging technology for use in banking. Emily enjoys doing physics outreach, and is currently working on a paper for publication in 2019.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Susannah Darling, Public Engagement Writer
NASA
Ms. Darling is an Applied Physics graduate from Christopher Newport University, now working at NASA HQ as Outreach Coordinator and Public Engagement Writer for the Heliophysics Division. She works on generating and gathering outreach materials for events and researching and writing scientific articles pertaining to the connection between the Sun and the Earth, including "Why the Parker Solar Probe Won't Melt" and "Voyager 2 May Soon be Joining its Twin in Interstellar Space." She previously had worked as a Technical Writer in DC, a Software Engineer in Richmond and had internships at Jefferson Laboratory and Space@VT. During her senior year capstone she 3D printed a nanosatellite to test for launch readiness.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Jennifer M. Mellor, Professor of Economics and Public Policy
William & Mary
Professor Mellor currently directs William & Mary's Schroeder Center for Health Policy. Prior to joining the William & Mary faculty, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Scholar at Yale University. Teaching responsibilities at the university include an undergraduate course in Health Economics, a COLL 150 course on the Economics of Bad Behavior, and a graduate seminar in Health Care Policy in the William & Mary Public Policy Program. Professor Mellor has published numerous studies on the social determinants of health, recessions and health, health risk behaviors, child obesity, and the use of economics experiments to measure risk preferences. Current projects include studies of provider payment in Medicare and the relationship between the Medicare and Medicaid programs, particularly pertaining to dual eligibles.
She will present a workshop on Working with CMS Data on Healthcare Expenditures.
Teresa Carver
MAMFT
Ms. Carver has worked for a non-profit company providing counseling and cross-cultural care for expats living and working in Asia and the Americas for over 13 years. She and her family lived over 10 years in Southwest China before returning to the U.S. in 2015. She graduated from Liberty University with her Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2015. In her current role, she continues to work with expats providing counseling, leading Renew Retreats for cross-cultural workers who have returned to the U.S. and working with Third-Culture Kids helping them to adjust and transition to life in U.S. and college upon their return to the U.S. after growing up overseas.
She will participate in the Conference on Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
Kelebogile Zvobgo
Political Scientist
Ms. Zvobgo is a Zimbabwean-born political scientist currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. Her primary research focuses on quasi-judicial bodies that have proliferated across the globe to fill the gaps left by domestic and international law and courts. Like courts, these accountability mechanisms collect statements from individuals who have been harmed by state or non-state actors, conduct an investigation, and enjoin appropriate reparative actions. Thus far, her research has extended to truth commissions and international development banks' compliance mechanisms.
She will participate in a panel discussion on "Ethics in Political Science," hosted by the William & Mary Social Science Research Methods Center.
Nadia Schadlow
Former Deputy National Security Advisor
Dr. Schadlow is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute. She was most recently U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy in the Trump administration. Prior to joining the National Security Council, Dr. Schadlow was a Senior Program Officer in the International Security and Foreign Policy Program of the Smith Richardson Foundation, where she helped identify strategic issues which warrant further attention from the U.S. policy community. She served on the Defense Policy Board from September 2006 to June 2009 and is a full member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her articles have appeared in Parameters, The American Interest, the Wall Street Journal, Philanthropy and several edited volumes.
She will be the keynote speaker in the program "National Security Today Through 2028: Women Leading the Next Decade," sponsored by the William & Mary Whole of Government Center of Excellence.
Amy Earhart, Associate Professor, English
Texas A&M
Professor Earhart teaches in the Department of English at Texas A&M University and is an affiliated faculty with Africana Studies. Earhart works with digital humanities, Africana and African-American literature, and 19th-century American literature and culture. Her work has appeared in DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly, the Emily Dickinson Journal, Scholarly Editing, The Oxford Handbook to Transcendentalism, the Chronicle of Higher Education/Prof Hacker, Textual Cultures, Debates in Digital Humanities, Scholarly Editing, and Between Humanities and the Digital among other venues. She has co-edited a collection of essays titled The American Literature Scholar in the Digital Age with Andrew Jewell (U Michigan 2010) and has written a monograph titled Traces of the Old, Uses of the New: The Emergence of the Digital Humanities (U Michigan 2015). Her digital projects include the development of the 19th-Century Concord Digital Archive in partnership with the Concord Free Public Library, White Violence and Black Resistance (with Toniesha Taylor), The Millican "Riot," and The Diverse History of Digital Humanities blog.
She will present a talk, "Resisting Archival Violence: Ethical Practices for Building Black Digital Archives," sponsored by GSWS.
Izetta Autumn Mobley
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Maryland
Ms. Mobley is currently a doctoral candidate in American Studies at the University of Maryland. In 2007, with Fallon Wilson, she launched an early digital campaign, Document the Silence, to address the assault of Megan Williams and silences around violence against women. Mobley's research focuses on disability, gender, race, public history, and material and visual culture.
She will present a talk, "Rihanna Says Work: Accounting for the Digital Labor of Black Women," sponsored by GSWS.
Becky Burke, Executive Director
Protect Our Defenders
Protect Our Defenders (POD) works to educate the public and policymakers on the crisis of sexual violence in the military. Founded in 2011, POD is the only national human rights organization solely dedicated to combating the epidemic of sexual assault and harassment in the US military, preventing retaliation against victims, and ensuring justice and support for survivors.
Protect Our Defenders provides free legal and other assistance for military sexual assault survivors, including active-duty service members, veterans and civilians.
Ms. Burke will participate in the Law School Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Bonnie S. Glaser, Senior Advisor for Asia; Director, the China Power Project
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Ms. Glaser is a senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at CSIS, where she works on issues related to Asia-Pacific security with a focus on Chinese foreign and security policy. She is concomitantly a nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a senior associate with the Pacific Forum. Ms. Glaser has worked for more than three decades at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics and U.S. policy. From 2008 to mid-2015, she was a senior adviser with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, and from 2003 to 2008, she was a senior associate in the CSIS International Security Program. Prior to joining CSIS, she served as a consultant for various U.S. government offices, including the Departments of Defense and State. Ms. Glaser has published widely in academic and policy journals, including the Washington Quarterly, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, International Security, Contemporary Southeast Asia, American Foreign Policy Interests, Far Eastern Economic Review, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, as well as in leading newspapers and in various edited volumes on Asian security. She is also a regular contributor to the Pacific Forum web journal Comparative Connections. She is currently a board member of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
She will present the W&M Confucius Institute Distinguished Scholar Lecture, "U.S.-China Relations at a Strategic Crossroads."
Joy Schreier
Pianist/Accompanist
Dr. Schreier is Pianist and Vocal Coach of the Cathedral Choral Society. She has been presented in recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the White House, Kennedy Center, National Museum for Women in the Arts, National Portrait Gallery, Phillips Collection, Cosmos Club, Strathmore Hall, the embassies of Austria, Russia, and Poland, Anderson House on Embassy Row, and at recital halls throughout the country.
Internationally, she has performed throughout Europe and Asia. She is assistant conductor for the Washington National Opera Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program and served as official pianist for the Washington International Voice Competition and Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She received her doctorate in accompanying and chamber music in 2003 at the Eastman School of Music, where she was the recipient of the Barbara Koenig Award for excellence in vocal accompanying.
She will accompany soprano Laura Strickling in the Ewell Concert Series.
Maria del Pilar Blanco '99, Assoc. Professor, Spanish American Literature
Fellow of Trinity College, University of Oxford
Professor Blanco has published on the haunted landscapes of the Americas, in particular the way in which processes of modernization create different narratives of haunting as well as how differing landscapes breed different ideas of ghosts and haunting.
Her current book project, Modernist Laboratories, explores the intersections between literary and scientific innovation in Spanish America between 1870 and 1910, particularly Mexico, Cuba and Argentina. She is co-investigator in the rch network, which focuses on early examples of popular science publishing in Spanish America and the links between scientific modernization and nation-building projects.
She will present a talk, "Spanish American Modernism & Arts of Queer Aging," sponsored by the Film & Media Studies Program.
Joanne M. Braxton, Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Professor Emerita
William & Mary
The Rev. Dr. Joanne Braxton, CEO and President of the Board of the Braxton Institute, is an ordained minister with full ministerial standing in the Eastern Virginia Association of the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ. She is also a writer, educator, scholar, administrator, public speaker and workshop leader. Braxton is the author and/or editor of several published books, including Black Women Writing Autobiography. Driven by the desire to serve, Dr. Braxton has earned degrees in ministry from the Pacific School of Religion and Virginia Union University, offering the practice of life-writing as a spiritual discipline for those in ministry as a tool of self-care and bulwark against depression and burn-out. Her seminary training included work in organizational systems theory, Social Ethics, Aging, Pastoral Care and end-of life issues. In addition, she has sought and received continuing education in narrative healing practices at the Duke University Center for Integrative Medicine and from Columbia University Medical School.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Nkechi Taifa, Founder & CEO
The Taifa Group
Ms. Taifa convenes and directs the Justice Roundtable, an advocacy coalition advancing progressive justice system transformation, and serves as Senior Fellow for the Center of Justice at Columbia University. She serves on the board of the Corrections Information Council, which provides oversight over District of Columbia residents imprisoned throughout the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Ms. Taifa served as Advocacy Director for Criminal Justice at the Open Society Foundations for 16 years, focusing on federal sentencing reform, law enforcement accountability, prison reform, reentry, executive clemency and racial justice. Over the course of her career she has also served as legislative and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's Legal Defense Fund; founding director of Howard University School of Law's award-winning Equal Justice Program; staff attorney for the National Prison Project; Office Manager and Network Organizer for the Washington Office on Africa; as a private practitioner representing adult and youth clients; and as a first grade teacher.
Ms. Taifa has spoken extensively across the country on justice reform and human rights issues, and has testified before the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the Council of the District of Columbia and the American Bar Association Justice Kennedy Commission. She has served on the boards of numerous organizations; as consultant to various groups and projects; and as an appointed commissioner and chair of the District of Columbia Commission on Human Rights.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Angelica Garcia
Singer/Songwriter
From The New York Times: "Angelica Garcia's songs take unexpected swoops. Sometimes it's the music, which is steeped in country-rock and blues, with flickers of indie-rock desolation; sometimes it's her voice, which is sure and conspiratorial, bendy and grounded. Most often, though, it's her words, which come together in surprising patterns, a blend of old-timey formalism and magical storytelling."
She will open for Mitski at a concert sponsored by WCWM 90.9FM.
Dorian-Patrizia Baroni '81, Executive Coach and Founder
Women Agents of Change.com
Ms. Baroni is an executive coach and organizational advisor. Her business experience has spanned a variety of industries - investment banking, global energy, consumer goods and art retail - and a number of countries - UK, US, Venezuela, Italy, Belgium.
One of her core beliefs is that a leader's individual journey towards wholeness is critical to addressing today's global challenges. She is committed to leveraging her systems thinking expertise in every coaching partnership as it is through seeing with fresh perspectives that every successful journey of change begins. And as a business woman, she is also particularly passionate about the role and power of feminine leadership to support the evolution of global mindsets, social systems and models of economic impact.
She will present the W&M Alumni Webinar: "Thrive 101 - How to hack your brain and quiet your inner critic."
Elaine Luria
Member of Congress (D-VA)
Ms. Luria is member of the United States House of Representatives for Virginia's 2nd congressional district. The district includes most of the heart of Hampton Roads, including all of Virginia Beach and Williamsburg and large portions of Norfolk and Hampton, as well as the Eastern Shore.
Prior to being elected to Congress in 2018, Luria served as a United States Navy officer for 20 years, spending her entire career on combat ships, and reaching the rank of Commander.
She participated in the Mason School of Business's half-day conference "Women in Venture."
Abigail Spanberger
Member of Congress (D-VA)
Ms. Spanberger, who formerly served as an American federal law enforcement agent and CIA operations officer, is a newly-elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 7th congressional district. The district includes several suburban and rural areas west of Richmond.
She participated in the Mason School of Business's half-day conference "Women in Venture."
Monique Adams, Executive Director
757 Angels
Motivating quote: "At 757 Angels, every day we work to make Hampton Roads a better place for entrepreneurs to do business. We need great innovators, investors, mentors, corporate partners and other contributors to achieve a truly supportive innovative culture that will not only retain existing businesses but also attract businesses to our region."
She participated in the Mason School of Business's half-day conference "Women in Venture."
Lara Merriken, Founder
LÄRABAR
In 2000, Lara Merriken was 32, recently divorced, and without a job when she decided to make energy bars by mixing cherries, dates, and almonds in her Cuisinart. Eventually, she perfected the recipe and launched her company: LÄRABAR. After just two years, the company was bringing in millions in revenue. In 2008, she sold to General Mills, but stayed on to help grow LÄRABAR into one of the biggest energy bar brands in the U.S.
Ms. Merriken was the keynote speaker at the Mason School of Business's half-day conference "Women in Venture."
Shuchi Sharma, Global Head of Gender Equality & Intelligence
SAP Software
Drawing on experience in strategic transformation, consulting, marketing, managing a P&L, design thinking, and sales, Ms. Sharma is working to move SAP towards the ambitious goal of growing women in management at SAP by 1% each year from 25% in '17 to 30% percent in '22 across +97K employees globally.
Achieving this goal is not a checkbox; it's about listening and understanding challenges women face every day and defining processes that ensure SAP is hiring and promoting the best people for the job. She implements strategy that is integrated into the fabric of SAP's culture, values and business model. She oversees programs like Activating Men for Parity (AMP) and SAP's Women’s Professional Growth Series.
She will participate in the Law School Symposium on the Equal Rights Amendment.
Faithe Norrell
Media Specialist (ret.)
Ms. Norrell, a retired media specialist from Richmond's public schools, is a proud student of African-American history and Richmond's history in particular. She was formerly married to the great grandson of Maggie L. Walker. Maggie L. Walker was the first female bank president of any race to charter a bank in the United States. Ms. Norrell, an artist herself, was a member of the Public Arts Commission's Site Selection Committee for the placement of the Maggie L. Walker statue in Richmond. That statue, which is now located at the intersection of Broad and Adams in Richmond, Virginia was dedicated in 2017 after many years of planning and work. It is a successful use of public art to tell one of the missing and yet significant stories in history honoring a civil rights hero.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Ann Keeling, Board Member
Old Brunswick Circuit Foundation
Ms. Keeling, a board member for the Old Brunswick Circuit Foundation, has degrees in biology from Emory and Henry College and the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Her career followed a health and science track including various positions in chemistry, and health care quality, promotions and informatics. After earning a degree in Public Administration from Old Dominion University, Ms. Keeling served as an analyst in a joint military healthcare organization. Her last position prior to retirement was as an analyst working under the Comptroller of Navy Medicine. Ms. Keeling got hooked on history working on family genealogy. She has enjoyed applying her analytical skills to historical research leading to writing histories of local communities, setting up historical exhibits, transcribing a handwritten Civil War diary, and composing and presenting a monologue in period costume depicting the life of an early 19th century, socially prominent woman through her three strategic marriages.
She will participate in the Lemon Project’s 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Constance Paige Young
Crime Victim Advocate, Anti-Racist Activist, Writer
Ms. Young is a rising voice for equality and a long-term advocate for survivors of sexual violence. As a survivor of multiple violent crimes (including the car attack in Charlottesville in August, 2017), she has found purpose and healing as a strong presence for others in crisis and recovery. Her work with community organizations, including RAINN's Speakers Bureau and the DC Rape Crisis Center has motivated her to help survivors find justice outside the often re-traumatizing criminal court system. To this end, she is exploring social entrepreneurship. A Louisiana native, she currently resides in Washington, DC.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Tricia Dunlap, Founder
Dunlap Law
Ms. Dunlap is a corporate attorney with experience in regulatory compliance, intellectual property, and sustainability. Following law school, she joined McGuireWoods as a member of the regulatory compliance, real estate, and sustainability groups. Following her firm experience, she founded Dunlap Law, a boutique corporate law firm in Richmond, Virginia where she specializes in business, intellectual property licensing, and regulatory compliance. Her practice primarily serves the Virginia and Washington, DC areas and offers sustainability counsel nationwide.
She will speak to The Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Legal Society (DPCLS) and the Student Intellectual Property Society (SIPS).
Tabatha Abu El-Haj, Associate Professor
Drexel School of Law
Professor Abu El-Haj's principal interest is in the American political process, with a focus on increasing the democratic accountability and responsiveness of government to ordinary Americans through both statutory reform and constitutional law. Her research is shaped by the conviction that American democracy must be understood as involving an array of political practices and that citizens' role in democratic politics does not begin and end on election day. She has thus written not only about political parties and campaign finance, but also about public assemblies (both historically and in relation to Occupy and Black Lives Matter) and civic associations (including unions) as critical mechanisms for ensuring democratic responsiveness and accountability. Her most recent essay, "Networking the Party: First Amendment Rights & the Pursuit of Responsive Party Government," appeared in the spring 2018 issue of the Columbia Law Review.
She will participate in the Election Law Society's Symposium "Geography, Identity & Campaign Finance."
Tara Malloy, Senior Director, Appellate Litigation and Strategy
Campaign Legal Center
Ms. Malloy joined CLC in November 2006. She litigates a wide range of campaign finance and election law cases in state and federal court, and has expertise in campaign finance, lobbying and congressional ethics issues.
She will participate in the Election Law Society's Symposium "Geography, Identity & Campaign Finance."
Jen Lawhorne
Documentary Film Producer
Focusing on the stories of African migrants in Sicily, Fata Morgana looks out to the struggles currently faced by migrants and refugees worldwide. Ms. Lawhorne shot her footage in 2015 while living in the port city of Messina, thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, and ultimately co-produced the film with two other recent arrivals, Ebrima (Gambia) and Toumani (Mali).
Ms. Lawhorne will screen her film and take questions from students.
Anne Coleman-Honn, Foreign Service Officer
U.S. Embassy of Moldova
Ms. Coleman-Honn has worked for the U.S. State Department for more than 16 years. She is currently the chief Political/Economic Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Chișinău, Moldova.
She will participate in a panel discussion on "Women in International Relations," sponsored by the Global Research Institute.
Sarah Glass, Acting Director, Center for Transformational Partnerships
U.S. Agency for International Development
Ms. Glass serves as the Acting Director of the Center for Transformational Partnerships at the U.S. Global Development Lab, which champions the Agency's efforts to engage the private sector to advance development outcomes.
Prior to being named as Acting Director, Ms. Glass led the U.S. Global Development Lab’s efforts to support USAID's overall Ebola Response and Recovery Strategy by employing the use of digital technologies, open innovation approaches, and partnerships with the private sector. She also manages some of the Agency's global relationships with multi-national corporations, and she works closely with USAID's field offices to advise on how to best engage with the private sector.
She will participate in a panel discussion on "Women in International Relations," sponsored by the Global Research Institute.
Felicia M. Davis
HBCU Green Fund
A staunch advocate for achieving measurable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency retrofits, green building and an array of sustainable practices, Felicia M. Davis established the HBCU Green Fund to help finance green infrastructure projects for historically black colleges. She serves on the leadership team for the NSF funded Science Education Resource Center InTeGrate Geoscience program advancing interdisciplinary teaching about Earth for a Sustainable Future and on the boards of Green 2.0, Chattahoochee Riverkeepers and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. In addition to a student-led HBCU sustainability campaign, Davis appeals to well-endowed institutions, particularly those with a history connected to slavery, to invest in the well-being of their under-resourced sister institutions. An author of the critically acclaimed Air of Injustice Report (2002), she also produced the UNCF MSI Green Report (2010), Sustainable Campuses-Building Green at Minority Serving Institutions (2012) and the 2014 HBCU Green Report.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Deborah Allen, Director, Diversity Engagement; Manager, Center for Inclusive Communities
Furman University
Ms. Allen serves as Associate Director of Diversity Engagement and Manager of the Center for Inclusive Communities at Furman University. In that role she is responsible for advising the Student Diversity Council which oversees Furman's seven multicultural and identity-based student organizations and coordinates Diversity and Inclusion programming within the Division of Student Life. She received her BA in Sociology from The Ohio State University, and her M.Ed. in Student Affairs and Higher Education from Wright State University. With 10 years of experience in Student Affairs, has experience in various functional areas including Student Conduct, Multicultural Services, Student Programming and First Year Experience.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Emilee O'Brien, Post Baccalaureate Fellow
Furman University
Ms. O'Brien is the Post Baccalaureate Fellow for Social Justice and Community-Engaged Learning at Furman University in Greenville, SC. Originally from Connecticut, Emilee is graduated from Furman in 2017 with a B.A. in Political Science and Poverty Studies. She now serves the campus and local communities through her two-year fellowship with the launch of an intergroup dialogue program and an alternative spring break experience.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Kathryn Bertine
Professional Cyclist, Author and Motivational Speaker
Ms. Bertine is a co-founder of Le Tour Entier, an organization campaigning for the re-establishment of the Tour de France Féminin and has been credited as "the catalyst for the movement to bring women back to the Tour." She was signed by the Wiggle Honda team in 2014, ahead of the inaugural running of La Course by Le Tour de France, a requirement imposed by the Tour de France organizers in response to Le Tour Entier's campaign. Ms. Bertine joined BMW p/b Happy Tooth Dental in 2015, making her debut with the team at Grand Prix cycliste de Gatineau in June of that year In November 2015 she was announced as part of the inaugural squad for the Cylance Pro Cycling team for the 2016 season.
Ms. Bertine also directed Half the Road, a documentary film about women's cycling.
Stephanie N. Morales Law '09, Commonwealth's Attorney
Portsmouth, VA
Ms. Morales was the first woman to be elected Commonwealth's Attorney for the City of Portsmouth and is the chief law enforcement officer for her city. She has established the Stephanie N. Morales Future Leaders Initiative where her office has hosted over 150 youth as Junior Commonwealth's Attorneys over the past several years. She also formed the Ctrl + Alt + Del Program to help restore felon rights and reduce recidivism. She is a member of the Portsmouth Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a member of the Portsmouth Chapter of the Links, Inc., Portsmouth Chapter of Jack & Jill of America, Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration (Founding Member,) the Young Elected Officials Network and the Portsmouth Democratic Committee.
She will be a featured speaker at the Black Law Students' Association annual symposium, "The Technological Impact of Police Brutality: The Then, The What, The Now What."
Mildred W. Robinson, Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation, Professor of Law
University of Virginia
Professor Robinson came to Virginia after 12 years on the faculty at Florida State, where she received the President's Award for excellence in teaching. At Florida State, she also served as associate dean for academic affairs.
Professor Robinson has served on the Law School Admission Council Board of Trustees. She was a member of the inaugural Board of Directors for Law Access, Inc. (currently The Access Group). She was a Commissioner from Virginia to the National Conference on Uniform State Laws from 1990-94 and was a member of the Board of Visitors for the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University from 1993-96. She served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools from 2000-2003 and continues to serve as a member of that organization’s Resource Corps. She is a member of the American Law Institute.
She teaches federal income tax, state and local tax, and trusts and estates.
She will be a featured speaker at the Black Law Students' Association annual symposium, "The Technological Impact of Police Brutality: The Then, The What, The Now What."
Genevieve Clutario, Assistant Professor of History
Harvard University
Professor Clutario is a cultural historian who specializes in interdisciplinary and transnational feminist approaches to gender, race and colonialism particularly in relation to Filipino diasporic histories. Her first book project, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism: Body, Nation, Empire, examines how colonial and nationalist projects used fashion, beauty regimens, and public spectacles to police Filipino women's bodies, while Filipino women used these same arenas to negotiate their own definitions of modernity, citizenship, and nation. She uses multi-sited and multi-lingual research that includes written, visual, and material evidence from the nineteenth century up until the early 1940s.
In her talk "Beauty Regimes: Regulating Modernity in Transimperial Philippines," Dr. Clutario will explore the beginnings of the fashion sweat shop industry propagated by American businesses in US occupied Philippines.
L. Eden Burgess, Partner
Cultural Heritage Partners
Ms. Burgess's law practice focuses on art, cultural heritage and museum law. She has represented museums, auction houses, major collectors, nonprofits, foreign states, tribes and other entities in a wide variety of matters. She has litigated and settled complex claims involving Nazi seizures, wartime looting, forced sales and thefts. She assists clients with the maintenance and management of their collections and provides advice on art and antiquity transactions, such as auctions, purchases and sales. She also works with clients to navigate the National Historic Preservation Act's Section 106 process, supports historic preservation efforts on the state and federal levels, and provides advice and representation in Indian tribe-related disputes. In addition, Eden writes and speaks about a broad range of art, cultural heritage, and museum issues, including museum governance, immunity from seizure, and Nazi-looted art.
Her talk "Culture Interrupted: The Pursuit of Looted Art & Antiquities," will be sponsored by the Muscarelle Museum, William & Mary Art and Cultural Heritage Law Society; Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm dedicated exclusively to serving cultural heritage clients; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Karen Daly, Registrar for Exhibitions, Co-ordinator of Provenance Research
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Sharon Powell
Immigration Attorney
Kathryn Cole, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology and Chemistry
Christopher Newport University
Professor Cole was recently awarded funding from the Commonwealth Health Research Board for her research on anticancer drug design. Her work in structural biology is part of a collaborative effort that also includes synthetic organic, biological and computational studies.
"Structural biology allows us to elucidate specific binding interactions between the inhibitor and enzyme target," says Cole. "This will allow us to design and develop more potent, second generation inhibitors."
She will present her paper, "Structure Determination of HDAC8-Depsipeptide Complexes: Towards the Development of New Anticancer Therapeutics" at a Spring Chemistry Seminar.
Charm Bullard, Director of Programs
Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities
Ms. Bullard is Director of Programs at the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities (VCIC), an organization that works with schools, businesses and communities to achieve success through inclusion. In her role, she designs and facilitates educational programs on diversity and inclusion for middle schools, high schools, colleges, workplaces and community groups. Ms. Bullard particularly specializes in VCIC's higher education, workplace and community programming.
She will present a program on Microaggressions, sponsored by the Black Law Students Association, the LatinX Law Students Association, the Muslim Law Students Association, the Women’s Law Society and the Student Bar Association.
Patricia Frost, Major General (Ret.)
United States Army
General Frost's most recent duty assignment prior to retiring from active duty service in 2018 was as the first Director of Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Information Operations for the Department of the Army. There she led the Army's development of strategy, policy and the budget ($3B) for these critical disciplines. In this capacity, she also led the Army's efforts to cyber harden its most critical weapons systems; built an operational cyber resiliency program for the Army's installations as the internet of things continues to evolve; and led the planning and development of the U.S. Department of Defense Persistent Cyber Training Environment.
She will participate in the Second Annual National Security Conference, "National Security Today Through 2028: Women Leading the Next Decade," sponsored by the W&M Whole of Government Center of Excellence.
Michelle M. Rose, Brigadier General
Virginia National Guard
General Rose of the Virginia National Guard was promoted to brigadier general in October, 2018. She now serves as the National Guard Bureau Director of Logistics and Engineering in a traditional Guard status. Her civilian job is as Headquarters TRADOC System Safety Engineer at Fort Eustis, Virginia.
She will participate in the Second Annual National Security Conference, "National Security Today Through 2028: Women Leading the Next Decade," sponsored by the W&M Whole of Government Center of Excellence.
Zainab Johnson
Comedian, Actor and Writer
Zainab Johnson, a stand-up comedian and actress, is quickly being propelled as one of the most unique and engaging performers on stage and screen. Zainab's comedy is based on her unique point-of-view, which was shaped growing up in Harlem as one of thirteen siblings in a Muslim family. After getting a degree in math and taking a job as a teacher, she quickly learned that she had a different calling. She can most recently be seen in her breakout appearance on HBO's All Def Comedy and has made appearances on NBC's Last Comic Standing, Arsenio, BET's Comic View, MTV's Acting Out, AXSTV's Gotham Comedy Live! and just recently starred in a new web series titled Avant-Guardians. She is a regular at the Improv Comedy Club in LA and the Comedy Cellar in New York.
She will be the Lodge 1 Comedian sponsored by Alma Mater Productions (AMP) in Spring, 2019.
Samantha Ramirez Herrera, CEO & Founder
OffThaRecord (OTR)
Samantha "Sam" Ramirez-Herrera is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, creative director, writer, mother, feminist and civil rights activist. While she wears many hats, at her core, Sam is a storyteller.
Storytelling is the heartbeat of her company, OffThaRecord.com (OTR), a creative content agency and digital magazine headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. At OTR, Sam has built a network of creative multicultural millennials who use their talents and technology to tell raw, uncensored and authentic stories to uplift marginalized communities and promote purpose-driven brands, nonprofits and change-makers.
She will share her story "Borderless Dreams," during DREAMers Week, March, 2019.
Mariam Shahin
Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker
Mariam Shahin has covered the Arab World since 1988 as a writer and documentary producer and director. She has covered war, peace, conflict and development in Cairo, Khartoum, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, Amman and Gaza for CBC, ZDF, ABC Australia and US, the BBC, PBS, SBS, NBC, and WDR before becoming a regular contributor to the AL Jazeera English Programming Department in 2006. She is the author of Palestine: A Guide (Interlink Books, 2006) and Unheard Voices: Iraqi Women on Sanctions and War, (Change Thinkbook, 1991).
She will discuss her award-winning film "The Gaza Fixer" at a screening sponsored by the program in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Caroline Mala Corbin, Professor of Law
University of Miami Law School
Professor Corbin teaches U.S. Constitutional Law I, U.S. Constitutional Law II, First Amendment, the Religion Clauses, the Free Speech Clause, and Feminism and the First Amendment. Her scholarship focuses on the First Amendment's speech and religion clauses, particularly their intersection with equality issues.
She will participate in the Bill of Rights Journal Symposium: "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts."
Deborah Hellman, David Lurton Massee, Jr. Professor of Law
University of Virginia
Professor Hellman's work focuses on equal protection law and its philosophical justification. She is the author of When is Discrimination Wrong? (Harvard University Press, 2008) and co-editor of The Philosophical Foundations of Discrimination Law (Oxford University Press, 2013) and several articles related to equal protection. She also focuses on the relationship between money and legal rights. This includes articles on campaign finance law, bribery and corruption, each of which explore and challenge the normative foundations of current doctrine. Her article "A Theory of Bribery" won the 2019 Fred Berger Memorial Prize (for philosophy of law) from the American Philosophical Association.
She will participate in the Bill of Rights Journal Symposium: "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts."
Nan Hunter, Professor of Law
Georgetown University
After graduating from Georgetown Law, Professor Hunter specialized in constitutional and civil rights law as a member of the national legal staff of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. She has taught as a full-time or visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School, Harvard Law School, the University of Miami Law School, and UCLA Law School, in addition to Georgetown. From 1993 to 1996, she was Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Professor Hunter is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine.
Professor Hunter's scholarship has been published in many law journals, and several of her articles have been selected for reprinting in anthologies. With William Eskridge, she wrote the first casebook to conceptualize sexuality and gender law as embodying a dynamic relationship between state regulation, sexual practices and gender norms. Her most recent law and social movement scholarship focuses on the ramifications of the same-sex marriage campaign for democratic theory. Her awards include the Pioneer of Courage award from the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
She will participate in the Bill of Rights Journal Symposium: "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts."
Elizabeth Sepper, Professor of Law
Washington University
Professor Sepper is a scholar of religious liberty, health law and discrimination. She has written extensively on the interactions between religion and reproductive and end-of-life healthcare. She also is one of the nation's foremost experts in the anti-discrimination obligations of public accommodations—that is, businesses, social service providers and organizations open to the public.
She will participate in the Bill of Rights Journal Symposium: "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts."
B. Jessie Hill, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Judge Ben. C. Green Professor of Law
Case Western University
Professor Hill joined the Case Western faculty in 2003 after practicing First Amendment and civil rights law with the firm of Berkman, Gordon, Murray & DeVan in Cleveland. Before entering private practice, Professor Hill worked at the Reproductive Freedom Project of the national ACLU office in New York, litigating challenges to state-law restrictions on reproductive rights. She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Karen Nelson Moore of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Her teaching focuses on constitutional law, federal civil procedure, civil rights, reproductive rights, and law and religion. Her scholarship has been published in the Michigan Law Review and the Texas Law Review, among others.
She will participate in the Bill of Rights Journal Symposium: "Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts."
Adrienne Petty, Associate Professor, History
William & Mary
Professor Petty's first book, Standing Their Ground: Small Farmers in North Carolina Since the Civil War (2013), won the H.L. Mitchell Award of the Southern Historical Association and the Theodore Saloutos Award of the Agricultural History Society. She now co-directs an oral history project, Breaking New Ground: A History of African American Farm Owners, with Mark Schultz, professor of history at Lewis University. She and Schultz are currently co-writing a book about black farm owners based on more than 300 interviews with black farmers and their descendants.
She curated the Lyon G. Tyler Lecture Series "After Charlottesville: Memorials, Monuments, and Memory."
Edna Greene Medford, Professor, History
Howard University
Professor Medford is current Chair, and former director of the Department of History's graduate and undergraduate programs. Specializing in nineteenth century African-American history, she teaches courses in the Jacksonian Era, Civil War and Reconstruction and African-American History to 1877. She lectures widely to scholarly and community-based groups and has presented to national and international audiences on topics that range from Alexis de Tocqueville's influence on American politics to community-building among American free blacks in Civil War-era Canada, to African American responses to Abraham Lincoln's wartime policies. Dr. Medford has served as the Director for History of New York's African Burial Ground Project and edited the volume Historical Perspectives of the African Burial Ground: New York Blacks and the Diaspora (volume 3 of the series, The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York).
She will present a talk titled "Facing Inconvenient Truths," as part of the Lyon G. Tyler History Department's After Charlottesville series.
Annie Blazer, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
William & Mary
Professor Blazer's courses cover religion in America from the colonial to contemporary period. In particular, her courses investigate the relationships between religions and American culture, paying attention to race, class, gender and sexuality. Professor Blazer's first book, Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry (NYU Press), was released in 2015. The book is an ethnographic exploration of the religious experiences of Christian athletes in the U.S. Professor Blazer's current research project investigates the effects of gentrification and re-urbanization on religious communities and focuses on the East End of Richmond, Virginia.
She will play one of the castaways at the Raft Debate, representing the humanities.
Susan Peterson, Wendy and Emery Reves Professor, Government & International Relations
William & Mary
Professor Peterson teaches courses on international security and US foreign policy. She is a Principal Investigator on the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project, the author of Crisis Bargaining and the State: The Domestic Politics of International Conflict (Michigan, 1996), and the co-editor of Altered States: Domestic Politics, International Relations, and Institutional Change (Lexington, 2002). She has published articles in International Studies Quarterly, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Security Studies, Foreign Policy, International Studies Perspectives, International Journal, Politics & Gender, and several edited volumes.
She will moderate a panel discussion on "Women in International Relations," sponsored by the Global Research Institute.
Daya
Singer, Songwriter
Grace Martine Tandon, professionally known as Daya, is an American singer and songwriter from Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. She is signed to Artbeatz, Z Entertainment, and RED Distribution, and released her self-titled debut extended play (EP), Daya, in September, 2015. It includes the song "Hide Away", which peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. She released her debut studio album Sit Still, Look Pretty in October, 2016.
She will appear, along with Misterwives, as the headliner for the 2019 Spring Concert, sponsored by AMP and the Student Assembly.
Ari Lennox
Singer, Songwriter
On July 16, 2018, Ari Lennox released the first single, "Whipped Cream," for her debut album, with an accompanied music video on September 5. On November 9, she released two more singles called "40 Shades of Choke" and "Grampa". On November 13, she then released two more singles called "No One" and "Pedigree." She then appeared on the Creed II soundtrack on a track entitled "Shea Butter Baby" on November 16, and released as a single on February 26, 2019 for her debut album of the same name. The release was accompanied by a music video on February 20, 2019 and surpassed 3 million views via YouTube within the first week.
Ms. Lennox describes her own voice as "vulnerable but soulful; imperfect but pretty." Referencing her artistry she explains, "Sometimes women are put in this box where we're only supposed to talk about certain things, I want to be braver and riskier. I think people want to hear that kind of honesty and frankness."
She will open the AMP Spring Concert.
Sarah Bowen, Associate Professor, Sociology and Anthropology
North Carolina State University
Professor Bowen teaches courses in Sociology of Food, Health and Inequality, Political Economy/Globalization, and Research Methods. Her funded research includes "A Multi-Level Approach to Prevent Obesity: Extension and Engagement in Four North Carolina Counties," "Contextualizing Family Food Decisions: The Role of Household Characteristics, Neighborhood Deprivation, and the Local Food Environment," and "Community-Based Approach to Reducing Childhood Obesity in Low-Income Populations: Research to Action."
Along with Professor Sinikka Elliott, she will present a talk, "Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It" in a program sponsored by the Department of Sociology.
Sinikka Elliott, Assistant Professor, Sociology
University of British Columbia
Professor Elliott's research interests lie broadly in the areas of family, social inequality, and social policy, where she pays special attention to intersecting inequalities. Following an intersectional perspective, she treats gender, sexuality, race and class as sociopolitical constructs.
With her colleague, Professor Sarah Bowen, she conducted longitudinal study of families' food practices and interactions. We followed 124 lower-income Black, white and Latina North Carolina mothers and their young children over five years employing diverse data collection techniques including interviews, time diaries and ethnographic observations. This research investigates questions such as: What does it take to put food on the table? How do food assistance programs and other state policies shape families' food access and practices? What are the meanings people give to food, cooking and family meals?
Along with Professor Bowen, she will present a talk, "Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It," sponsored by the Department of Sociology.
Alyson Lindsey Taylor-White, Certified Instructor
Univ. of Richmond School of Continuing Studies & Osher Foundation Institute
Ms. Taylor-White is a Certified Instructor at the University of Richmond School of Continuing Studies and Osher Foundation Institute. She has a professional background in journalism and museum education. She has researched and written about Richmond Virginia history and politics for many years as the editor of the Virginia Review. She is passionate about sharing these stories with others. She creates and teaches courses featuring Virginia's richly diverse history for students of all ages. She writes for a blog based at the Majes Branch Cabell Library at Virginia Commonwealth University and she is the author of the book Shockoe Hill Cemetery: A Richmond Landmark History.
She will present her paper, "Early African Virginian Philanthropy: Lucy Goode Brooks and the Friends Association of Children," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Ibé Bulinda Crawley
Storyteller
Ms Crawley is a retired history instructor in the Fairfax County Public Schools. She is now a storyteller, lecturer, educator and writer. She researches the Virginia State Library collection for authentic local stories which she performs, adding regional context and emotion.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Jane Parke Batten
Philanthropist and Civic Leader
Jane Parke Batten, together with her late husband, Frank Batten, Sr., founder and retired chairman of Landmark Communications, has played a major role in redefining the cultural and educational landscape of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Mrs. Batten has been active in a number of civic organizations. She sits on the Boards of E3: Elevate Early Education, the Slover Library Foundation, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. The CIVIC Leadership Institute presented her with the 2014 Darden Award for Regional Leadership, and in 2013 she was named one of the Most Influential Virginians by Virginia Business. The Norfolk Cosmopolitan Club declared Mrs. Batten as Norfolk's First Citizen and gave her the Cosmopolitan Distinguished Service Award Medal in 2010. Virginia Wesleyan University granted her an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2006.
Mrs. Batten established the Educational Achievement Fund in 2003 to improve scholastic opportunities in Southeastern Virginia. The fund led to the formation of the New E3 School in Norfolk, which teaches children ages 1 to 5 a specialized STEAM curriculum—science, technology, engineering, arts and math. Mrs. Batten's interest in the environment and environmental studies prompted her support of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Brock Center, the most sustainable building in Virginia and among the greenest in the world.
She will receive an Honorary Degree at the 2019 Commencement.
Sybil Shainwald '48
Lawyer and Women's Health Advocate
Ms. Shainwald is an attorney specializing in women's health law and an activist for women's health reform. She has represented thousands of women and their children in individual and class action suits against manufacturers of harmful drugs, devices, and procedures. She is a former chair of the National Women's Health Network, co-founder of Health Action International and a founding member of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
Ms. Shainwald graduated first in her class from William & Mary with a BA in history. She then taught public school while raising four children. She attended graduate school at Columbia University where she received her MA in history in 1972. That year, while working full-time, she began classes at New York Law School's evening division, where she earned her law degree in 1976.
Ms. Shainwald quickly became an expert in and a passionate advocate for women's health issues, especially those related to dangerous pregnancy drugs (diethylstilbestrol), medical devices (breast implants and Dalkon Shield intrauterine devices), contraceptives (Depo-Provera and Norplant), lactation inhibitors (Parlodel) and obesity compounds (Phen-Fen).
Ms. Shainwald has received numerous awards for her advocacy, including the President's Medal from New York Law School in 2007, the Dean's Award from Columbia University (2009), the Susan B. Anthony Award from the National Organization for Women, Doctor of Laws – Honorary Degree from New York Law School in 2000 and the New York County Lawyers Association's 2010 Edith I. Spivak Award.
She will receive an honorary degree at the 2019 Commencement.
Denyce Graves
Mezzo-soprano
Ms. Graves was born in Washington, D.C., the middle of three children. She was raised by her mother on Galveston Street, S.W., in the Bellevue section of Washington. She graduated from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, studied voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory. She worked at the Wolf Trap Opera Company, which provides further training and experience for young singers who are between their academic training and full-time professional careers.
She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1995 and has appeared at many opera houses throughout the world. Though her repertoire is extensive, her signature parts are the title roles in Carmen and Samson et Dalila.
She will receive an honorary degree at the 2019 Commencement.
Glenn Close '74, D.A. '89
Actor, Singer, Producer
Glenn Close is the recipient of numerous accolades, including three Tony Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and three Primetime Emmy Awards. Most recently, she received a SAG Award for her riveting role in The Wife. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for that performance, bringing her Oscar nominations to a total of seven.
Since her film debut in The World According to Garp, Close has starred in such enormously popular films as The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, 101 Dalmatians and Guardians of the Galaxy. Close co-wrote, with Man Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville, the screenplay for Albert Nobbs, a film on which she was also producer and lyricist for the Golden Globe-nominated song, Lay Your Head Down. She has starred in critically acclaimed TV series such as The Shield, Damages and even The Simpsons as the voice of Mona Simpson. Close has also performed on and off Broadway in shows, including The Real Thing, Death and the Maiden, Sunset Boulevard and most recently The Mother of the Maid.
She will be the Commencement Speaker at the 2019 Commencement and will also receive an Honorary Fellowship in the university, a distinction awarded only twice before in 326 years.
Leslie Cochrane, Senior Lecturer, English & Linguistics
William & Mary
Ms. Cochrane is a full-time faculty member in the W&M Linguistics Program. Her recent courses include: Language and Culture, Discourse Analysis and Sociolinguistic Field Methods. Her research interests include discourse analysis, identity, narrative and disability anthropology.
In a talk sponsored by the Anthropology Department, "My life in a chair: Narrative and identity in disability discourse," Ms. Cochrane will explore identity construction around physical disability in English narratives, drawing on data from people who use wheelchairs. She will highlight the ways in which participants talk about their wheelchair practices and understand themselves as members of a shared community.
Liz Doerr MBA '13, Management Consultant
Sandbox
Ms. Doerr is a partner in Sandbox, an outcomes-focused team of finance, operating and employee consultants helping companies launch, grow, and monetize their emerging businesses. Clients lean on Sandbox's expertise during periods of transformation such as new business or product launches, significant revenue growth, capital raises, acquisitions and exits. They offer "inventive, out-of-the-sandbox solutions and real-life experiences to guide clients through their business milestones."
She participated in the Mason School of Business's half-day conference "Women in Venture."
Evans McMillion, Executive Director
757 Accelerate
"757 Accelerate is a selective, mentor-driven startup acceleration program that connects promising startup founders with vetted mentors, investors, resources and educational opportunities to help [Hampton Roads] startups do more faster."
Ms. McMillion, a graduate of Dartmouth College and Duke University Law School, is the first Executive Director of this "hub" organization.
She participated in the Mason School of Business's half-day conference "Women in Venture."
Michelle Avery '98, President & Senior Managing Director
Veris Consulting
Ms. Avery has extensive experience leading major dispute resolution engagements, providing forensic accounting and expert witness services to prominent law firms in high-profile domestic and international civil litigation involving complex accounting, financial reporting and economic damages issues. Her work frequently involves allegations of misstated financial statements, inadequate disclosures, auditor malpractice and director and officer liability.
Ms. Avery is a member of the Financial Reporting Executive Committee, the senior technical committee of the AICPA for financial reporting. She also serves as a member of the AICPA National Association of Insurance Commissioners Working Group Task Force and has served on the International Association of Insurance Receivers Board of Directors.
She participated in the Mason School of Business's half-day conference "Women in Venture."
Artisia Green, Assoc. Professor of Theatre; Sharpe Assoc. Professor, Civic Renewal & Entrepreneurship
William & Mary
Professor Green's areas of expertise include African-American theatre history and the intersections of performance, direction and dramaturgy. She teaches a wide range of courses that allow her to share her expertise in these areas with students, including African-American Theatre History I & II, Theatre in a Post-Racial Age and The Black American Story. During the 2017-2018 academic year, Professor Green taught two classes for the Sharpe program: COLL 150: Reimagining Communities and COLL 300: August Wilson's Approaches to Cultural Sustainability. In 2018, she earned a W. Taylor Reveley, III Fellowship and a WMSURE Mellon faculty fellowship for her contributions to the university community. In 2016 Professor Green earned an Arts & Sciences Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence.
During the fall of 2019, she directed one of W&M Theatre's offerings, The Children's Hour, a play written by Lillian Hellman about a progressive all-girls boarding school headed by two women. Professor Green deliberately built "an inclusive ensemble with intentional regard for challenging perceptions around ability, color, gender expression, physical type and sexual orientation."
Zann Nelson
Historical Investigator, Writer, Public Speaker
Ms. Nelson concentrates her research on African American history, sharing her findings via articles, exhibits, events and public presentations. An award-winning freelance columnist since 2006, her work appears regularly in the Culpeper Times, the Orange County Review and on an online blog: www.historyinvestigator.net.
She will present her paper, "The Domestic Slave Trade: the forced migration of more than one million people: A Case Study" during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Kelly M. Westfield, Ph.D. Candidate
University of Tennessee
Ms. Westfield is a Teaching Assistant and Doctoral Student in the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee. Her research interests include the public historical geography of slavery as well as historical GIS. In particular, her research focuses on expanding the knowledge of enslaved life at house museums in Savannah and applying this research in both the academic and public history sectors.
She will present her paper, "An 1812 Jail Record and the Incarceration of the Enslaved: Challenging Slavery Myths and Historical Documents in Savannah, Georgia," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Paige Elizabeth Watts, Undergraduate Student
University of North Carolina
Ms. Watts is an Art History Major and Education Minor at the University of North Carolina, who plans to graduate in 2021. She works as an intern at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, where she conducts archival research, designs museum tours and presents them free to the public. Her research interests revolve around contemporary relations in the American South and its relationship to art education.
She will present her paper, "Loud Money: a Mural Shouting Students' Concerns," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Katherine C. Hughes '12, Peggy N. Gerry Research Scholar
Metropolitan Museum of Art
After receiving her M.A. from Sotheby's Institute of Art, Ms. Hughes continued her education through the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts and the University of Virginia. Most recently, she served as the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Intern at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Her current task at the Met is preparing the upcoming exhibition "Stories in Clay: Stoneware from Edgefield District, South Carolina," scheduled to open in 2020.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Tiffany Momon, Ph.D. Candidate
Middle Tennessee State University
Ms. Momon's dissertation, "Constructing Traditions: Architecture, Material Culture, and the Higher Education Experience at Spelman College, 1881-1925" explores how Spelman College effectively created a culture of acceptable refinement for African American women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her research interests include the architecture and material culture of historically black colleges and universities, African American architects and architecture, and post-emancipation African American communities.
She will participate in the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Joan Gavaler, Professor of Dance
William & Mary
In addition to teaching at William & Mary, Professor Gavaler is the Co-Artistic Director of Aura CuriAtlas Physical Theatre. The company creates innovative performances blending dance, theatre and acrobatics to tell stories. Their work embodies the qualities of lightness (Aura), curiosity (Curi) and strength (Atlas) to find enchantment in ordinary situations presented in unusual ways. Since 2014 Aura CuriAtlas has toured two shows, DREAM LOGIC and A Life With No Limits, to communities large and small in the Midwest, East Coast and Southern United States.
She will choreograph the movement in "…And Mary," a site-specific theatre performance at the Wren Building, exploring the layered histories of this space, with a focus on contemporary students looking back at the entrance of the first cohort of women at the university 1918-1919.
Alexis Sullivan '04, Chief of Staff, Bureau of International Information Programs
U.S. Department of State
Ms. Sullivan has been a member of the U.S. Foreign Service since 2005. Her current work focuses on connecting international audiences with U.S. Policy. Prior to this assignment, she served as a Senior Watch Officer in the State Department's Operations Center, serving as the Department’s senior after-hours official and leading the team responding to international crises as they happen.
She will speak at the program "National Security Today Through 2028: Women Leading the Next Decade," organized by the W&M Whole of Government Center of Excellence.
Kathryn H. Floyd, Director, Whole of Government Center of Excellence
William & Mary
Dr. Floyd has taught courses in the Government Department on terrorism and security, while conducting research on youth and adolescent developments prior to radicalization. She also serves as director of the e-internship program, W&M Global Research Institute.
She organized the program "National Security Today Through 2028: Women Leading the Next Decade," that included military leaders, diplomatic leaders and academic leaders in the national security field.
Lily Wang, Associate Professor, Statistics
Iowa State University
Professor Wang has a wide range of interests: non/semi-parametric modeling, statistical learning for complex and large-scale data, functional/longitudinal data analysis, imaging genetics, spaciotemporal data analysis, high-dimensional statistics, survey sampling and financial economics.
She will present her paper, "Estimation and Inference for Generalized Geo-Addictive Models," at a Mathematics Colloquium.
Monika Gosin, Assistant Professor, Sociology
William & Mary
Professor Gosin's primary research interests include: Afro Cuban and other Afro Latino immigration experiences in the U.S.; African American and Latino relations; immigrant incorporation into US society. Her current research focuses on the impact of two waves of Cuban immigration, the 1980 Mariel boatlift and the 1994 Balsero crisis, on the African American and Cuban exile communities in Miami. The project also foregrounds the experiences of Afro-Cubans in the U.S., a demographic which grew in the course of these migration waves. This work is the basis for a broader study utilizing data from interviews she previously conducted in Miami, Los Angeles and Cuba to examine the effect of migration experiences on Afro-Cuban notions of race and identity; experiences which challenge U.S. and Latin American racial and ethnic categories, as well as notions of whiteness, Pan-Africanism and of Pan-Latinidad.
Along with Professor Schug, she will present a program on "Intersectional Invisibility in Mass Media: Asian Men, Black Women, & Gendered Racial Stereotypes," sponsored by APIA: Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies, Sociology and Psychology.
Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Distinguished Professor and Chair, English
Northeastern University
Professor Dillon is Founding Co-Director of the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Data, Northeastern's digital humanities center. As Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Early Caribbean Digital Archive, she has spearheaded efforts to make the history and literature of the early Caribbean accessible to students and scholars across the globe.
Together with Alanna Prince, she will be presenting on "Decolonizing the Archive: Remix, Reassembly, and the Early Caribbean Digital Archive," sponsored by GSWS and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. She will also lead the workshop "Many Hands in the Archives: De/Re-Constructing Colonial Knowledge."
Alanna Prince, Ph.D. Candidate
Northeastern University
Ms. Prince's research centers on Black literature with a focus on archival theory, gender and sexuality, and visual culture. She is the Project Manager of the Early Caribbean Digital Archive where she takes a particular interest in equity, metadata and meta-archival discourses, as well as the potential for remix and re-assemblage of material in the archive.
Together with Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, she will be presenting on "Decolonizing the Archive: Remix, Reassembly, and the Early Caribbean Digital Archive," sponsored by GSWS and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. She will also lead the workshop "Many Hands in the Archives: De/Re-Constructing Colonial Knowledge."
Elena Calvillo, Associate Professor, Art & Art History
University of Richmond
Professor Calvillo's research and writing have focused on artistic service and imitative strategies in sixteenth-century papal Rome. She is broadly interested in theories of representation and cultural translation and brokerage in Italy, Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century.
She will be the keynote speaker at the First Annual Art History Symposium, sponsored by the Art & Art History Department.
Meredith Holmgren, Curator, American Women's Music
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Ms. Holmgren serves as Curator of American Women's Music at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Her research interests include intangible cultural heritage, ethnomusicology, anthropology, Asian studies, American studies, feminism and cultural policy. Before serving in her current role, she worked for six years as program manager for education and cultural sustainability initiatives at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
She will participate in "Washington Women in the Arts: A Symposium," sponsored by W&M DC Semester Program Students.
Lauren Onkey, Senior Music Director
National Public Radio
Ms. Onkey is the Senior Director of NPR Music in Washington, DC. In this role, she leads NPR Music's team of journalists, critics, video, and podcast makers, and works with NPR's newsroom and robust Member station network to expand the impact of NPR Music and continue positioning public radio as an essential force in music.
Prior to joining NPR, she was the inaugural Dean and Chair of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, where she created a program that provided civic engagement opportunities for students. She served as Vice President of Education and Public Programming at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum from 2008-2015, developing and managing the museum's award-winning education and community programs. She was the executive producer of the museum's Annual Music Masters series and oversaw the Rock Hall's Library and Archives.
She will participate in "Washington Women in the Arts: A Symposium," sponsored by W&M DC Semester Program Students.
Dwan Reece, Curator of Music and the Performing Arts
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Dwandalyn R. Reece is Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture and curated the museum's permanent exhibition, Musical Crossroads for which she received the Secretary's Research Prize in 2017. Reece has collaborated with other SI units on such programs as the 2016 NMAAHC Grand Opening Festival, Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration and the 2011 Folklife Festival program, Rhythm &Blues: Tell it Like It Is. She is chair of the SI pan-institutional group Smithsonian Music and is currently working on the NMAAHC and Smithsonian Folkways collaboration, The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and serving as co-curator of the Smithsonian Year of Music.
She will participate in "Washington Women in the Arts: A Symposium," sponsored by W&M DC Semester Program Students.
Jennifer Renner, Chief Development Officer
National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center
Ms. Renner has had a varied career in support of arts institutions, including the Hirshorn Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the John F. Kennedy Center Major Gifts office.
She will participate in "Washington Women in the Arts: A Symposium," sponsored by W&M DC Semester Program Students.
Lamisse Bajunaid
Attorney
Ms. Bajunaid is Of Counsel at the AlSindi Law Firm in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a Lecturer at the Law Department at Dar Al Hekma University, and an active contributor to Gulf Legal Advisor by LexisNexis Middle East Law.
She will speak from Saudi Arabia to the Law Students Intellectual Property Society (SIPS) on the mechanics of international IP agreements and how she successfully navigates the web of complex foreign IP laws and business realities to achieve solutions for her clients.
Holly Hazard '84, Legislative Director
Office of Delegate Kaye Kory
Ms. Hazard is an attorney, political and legislative specialist focused on animal protection, the environment, women's rights, energy and other progressive issues. She served for 14 years as Senior Vice President at the Humane Society of the United States, specializing in working with Senatorial and Congressional committees as well as working to draft, enact and enforce legislation.
She was the driving force behind and organizer of the Symposium "A Place in History – Should Virginia Become the 38th and Final State Needed to Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?"
Linda S. Hurry, Brigadier General
U.S. Air Force
Brig. Gen. Linda S. Hurry is the Commander, Defense Supply Center Richmond and Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Richmond, Virginia. Operating at 18 geographically separated sites, DLA Aviation is the combat logistics and supply chain manager for aviation and nuclear assets across the Department of Defense. General Hurry's DLA team is comprised of over 3,900 civilian and military personnel supporting more than 2,000 weapon systems as the U.S. military's integrated materiel manager for 1.2 million national stock number items, industrial retail supply and depot-level repairable acquisitions resulting in over $7 billion in annual sales.
She will be the keynote speaker at the "2019 Women in Leadership Summit: Understanding and Overcoming the Barriers and Biases Facing Women in Leadership Roles," sponsored by the Mason School of Business.
Jennifer Walkawicz, Garrison Commander
Joint Base Langley-Eustis
Colonel Jennifer (Jenn) Walkawicz, a native of The Plains, Virginia, graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) in 1995 as a Distinguished Military Graduate receiving her commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Adjutant General (AG) Corps. She assumed command of the 733rd Mission Support Group at Joint Base Langley-Eustis (JBLE) on 29 June 2018, where she serves in the Garrison Commander role. She came to JBLE from the Pentagon, where she served as the Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of the Army from 2016-2018.
She will be a speaker at the "2019 Women in Leadership Summit: Understanding and Overcoming the Barriers and Biases Facing Women in Leadership Roles," sponsored by the Mason School of Business.
Carolyn Hughes, Growth, Business Development and Marketing Executive
AECOM
Ms. Hughes is a leadership and business executive and former Army intelligence officer with a 20+ year record of demonstrated success leading $MM programs and driving client business strategy for multi-billion dollar pipelines annually. She has over 16 years' experience designing and developing growth solutions for clients in the information technology industry, serving in multiple capacities including Program Manager, AVP for product sales/marketing and business development/capture executive with Fortune 500 companies. She is committed to the ideals of community service and outreach as part of her personal responsibility as a leader and mentor in order to grow the next generation of leaders of service. She is a multi-marathon finisher and owner/steward of the Hughes family rural Virginia ancestral farm dating back to 1766. She currently works for AECOM, an $18B global company.
She will be a speaker at the "2019 Women in Leadership Summit: Understanding and Overcoming the Barriers and Biases Facing Women in Leadership Roles," sponsored by the Mason School of Business.
Dania Matos, Deputy Chief Diversity Officer
William & Mary
Ms. Matos is a 2003 graduate of Brown University and a 2009 graduate of the Catholic University School of Law. Before coming to William & Mary, she was the Executive Director of Latinas Leading Tomorrow and has also worked for the Office of the Federal Public Defender (Eastern District of Virginia) and Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. She currently serves on the Brown University President's Leadership Council, Brown University President's Diversity Advisory Council and Brown University Alumni Interviewing Program.
She will be a speaker at the "2019 Women in Leadership Summit: Understanding and Overcoming the Barriers and Biases Facing Women in Leadership Roles," sponsored by the Mason School of Business.
Dawn Edmiston, Clinical Associate Professor, Mason School of Business
William & Mary
Professor Edmiston is the recipient of the 2018 Thomas and Teri Dungan BBA Teaching Fellowship Award, 2017 Marketing Management Association Master Teacher Award and BBA Class of 2016 Faculty Excellence Award.
Her research has been featured in the International Journal of Educational Advancement, International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Marketing Education Review and publications of the American Marketing Association and Marketing Management Association. Her research on "Integrated Marketing Communication in U.S. Public Institutions of Higher Education" received the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Alice L. Beeman Award. She recently served as Special Issues Editor for the Marketing Education Review.
She will be a speaker at the "2019 Women in Leadership Summit: Understanding and Overcoming the Barriers and Biases Facing Women in Leadership Roles," sponsored by the Mason School of Business.
Julia Gossard, Assistant Professor, History
Utah State University
Professor Gossard specializes in early modern European and Atlantic history with an emphasis on gender, family, and childhood. With funding from the American Historical Association, the Newberry Library, the Society for French Historical Studies, and the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, Dr. Gossard wrote her first book, Coercing Children: State-Building and Social Reform in the Early Modern French World, which is under contract with McGill-Queen's University Press. Professor Gossard incorporates digital and innovative pedagogies into her classroom, including the use of digital timelines, mapping exercises, and the "Reacting to the Past" series. Her articles on public history have appeared in Age of Revolutions Blog, Notches, and AHA Today's Teaching with #DigHist.
She will present her paper, "Casket Girls, Convicts, and Filles du Roi: Trafficking Children to Build the French Empire," at a symposium sponsored by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.
Cheryl L. Dickter, Associate Professor, Psychological Sciences
William & Mary
Professor Dickter heads the William & Mary Social Cognition Laboratory. Her research interests are in social psychology with an emphasis on social cognition and person perception. More specifically, she studies the processes involved in stereotyping and prejudice. She is interested in the social categorization process and how contextual information affects social judgment. She also studies the factors involved in confronting prejudicial remarks, and she explores how confrontation can be a possible prejudice reduction strategy.
She will participate in a discussion titled, "Inside Out: Neural Pathways + Social Expressions of 'Otherness',"sponsored by the Boswell Initiative, Center for the Liberal Arts, and Arts & Sciences Annual Fund.
Joanna K. Love, Assistant Professor, Music
University of Richmond
Professor Love's interests include 20th and 21st century music with specializations in American popular music and music's role in advertising, video and film. Her teaching and research reflect an interdisciplinary focus on popular culture, media studies, music industry and aesthetics.
Professor Love will present her paper, "The Choice of a Neoliberal Generation: Pepsi and Pop Model the Perfect Consumer," as part of the Music and Culture Series sponsored by the Department of Music. This talk investigates how Pepsi-Cola's mid-1980s television commercials wielded the iconic music and images of Lionel Richie, Tina Turner and David Bowie to characterize the brand's "new generation" of consumers within a marketplace of rapidly evolving technologies, aesthetics and global distribution.
Jennifer Morris
Cultural Heritage Partners
Ms. Morris focuses on matters pertaining to museums, the art market, intellectual property and cultural heritage. She joined Cultural Heritage Partners as an Associate with a wide range of research and field-based experience, both at home and abroad, in non-profit organizations and academic institutions. Her work has taken her into places as diverse as German Wunderkammern (cabinets of curiosities), Czech archives, Appalachian churches, Greek convents, Sicilian archaeological digs and Lao temple ruins.
Her firm's experience in the areas of Nazi art seizures, wartime looting, forced sales and thefts has allowed it to resolve disputes on behalf of families, museums, auction houses and foreign governments.
Ms. Morris will provide commentary on a screening of the documentary "The Liberators," sponsored by the Muscarelle Museum of Art.
Elizabeth A. Andrews '84, Director, Virginia Coastal Policy Center
William & Mary Law School
Professor Andrews, who holds the title Professor of the Practice of Law at the William & Mary Law School, formerly served as Senior Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the Environmental Section of the Virginia Office of the Attorney General, where she oversaw a team of attorneys representing and providing counsel to the Secretary of Natural Resources and the natural resources agencies of the Commonwealth.
She will moderate the panel "Surveying Critical National Security Challenges," at the program "National Security Today Through 2028: Women Leading the Next Decade," organized by the W&M Whole of Government Center of Excellence.
Nancy Schoenberger, Professor and Director of Creative Writing, English Department
William & Mary
Professor Schoenberger is the author of Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood and A Talent for Genius: The Lives and Times of Oscar Levant. She is also coauthor with Sam Kashner of books on George Reeves, the Bouvier sisters and the relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Her most recent book is Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero (Nan A. Talese, 2017).
She is the author of Whitechapel Arias, which will hold its World Premiere performance at W&M in April. Whitechapel Arias portrays the five known victims of Jack the Ripper, in their own voices.
Caroline Schuster, Senior Lecturer, School of Anthropology & Archeology
Australian National University
Ms. Schuster's current research on insurance and weather catastrophes is based on anthropological fieldwork in Paraguay supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. It is hersecond major research project following a decade of engagement with the microfinance industry. Her first book, Social Collateral: women and microfinance in Paraguay's smuggling economy (University of California Press, 2015) is an ethnographic account of freewheeling frontier capitalism in Paraguay's triple-frontier with Argentina and Brazil. Taken together, these two research projects offer a sustained study of economic interdependency.
She will present her paper, "Weedy finance: The political life of resilience in the Paraguayan countryside," at an Anthropology Department Brown Bag Luncheon.
Nicole Lynn Lewis '03, Chief Executive Officer
Generation Hope
Ms. Lewis serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Generation Hope, an organization which she founded in March 2010. As CEO, she oversees all aspects of Generation Hope's operations.
Ms. Lewis founded Generation Hope because after completing college as a teen mother despite tremendous obstacles, she wanted to help other teen parents earn their college degrees and achieve stable and successful futures. She named the organization Generation Hope because in her own words, "hope is the number one, necessary, secret ingredient to anyone’s success."
In just five years, Ms. Lewis has created a truly unique and thriving organization that is gaining national attention for its sole focus on college completion for teen parents. She is emerging as a leader in the youth, higher education and teen pregnancy/parenting fields.
She will speak at the Alan B. Miller Entrepreneurship Center of the Mason School of Business as part of the Alumni Founder Series.
Melanie Dawson, Associate Professor, English
William & Mary
Professor Dawson's research interests include late nineteenth-century American literature, cultural studies, history and theory of the novel, early twentieth-century American literature, intersections of literature. material cultures and periodicals in American culture.
She will present her research on "Child Marriage: A Modern American Problem and a Research Solution," at a Lunch-and-Learn session hosted by the Gender Sexuality and Women's Studies Program.
Laura Hart, Technical Services Archivist
University of North Carolina
In her twenty-five years as an archivist, Ms. Hart has participated in nearly all phases of archival work including collecting, processing, digitization, reference and research services, grant-writing, exhibits, outreach and teaching. In her current role, she chiefly writes and edits archival description, and she is leading a conscious editing initiative to address cultural insensitivity, implicit bias and exclusionary language in existing archival description. In every role, Ms. Hart has sought to connect people with collections that will help them tell the stories they want to tell, share the stories that still need to be told, and amplify voices that should be heard.
She will present her paper, "The Problem of a Jim Crow Archive," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Chaitra Powell, African American Collections and Outreach Archivist
University of North Carolina
In addition to outreach, curating collections and exhibitions at UNC, Ms. Powell is serving as the project director for a three-year, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded grant designed to develop tools and strategies for institutions and individuals to pursue community-driven archives. This approach is intended to decentralize the institution and expand notions of why an item has "enduring value," who makes the call, and how/if those community curated collections can be preserved and made accessible.
She will present her paper, "Dismantling a Jim Crow Archive: The Why," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Lydia Neuroth, Masters Degree Candidate, School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina
Before attending UNC, Ms. Neuroth worked at James Madison's Montpelier in Orange County, VA, conducting documentary and genealogical research to interpret the site's enslaved community. She worked closely with members of the African American descendant community collecting oral histories. Ms. Neuroth is interested in the ways people discover and document their personal stories. She plans to use her library science degree to investigate ways in which cultural heritage institutions can facilitate documentary research and historic preservation by providing open access to records and streamlining research tools.
She will present her paper "Dismantling a Jim Crow Archive: The How," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Mary Helen Thompson, Volunteer
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Ms. Thompson is a retired civil servant. For nearly two decades, she has been researching her paternal roots in Culpeper and Rappahannock counties, Virginia. She has been particularly interested in the stories of family members who, after Emancipation, left Culpeper to migrate North to the small farming communities in upstate New York.
She will present her paper, "The Post-Emancipation Migration North: A Case Study" during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Kristin Oberiano, Ph.D. Candidate
Harvard University
Ms. Oberiano is a history Ph.D. student at Harvard University, studying in the history of Guam, the Pacific and the United States. Born and raised to Filipino parents on the island of Guam, she became aware of the lack of Guam history in American textbooks in her primary and secondary school education. Determined to contribute to the field of Guam history, she earned a BA with honors with distinction in History and American studies at Occidental College. Ms. Oberiano is primarily interested in the relationship between indigenous peoples and immigrants in the Pacific islands, and the historical and present effects on indigenous self-determination.
She will be presenting her talk "Building a Militarized Pacific: Asian Migration and Indigeneity on Guåhan (Guam)" to students in Asian & Pacific Islanders American Studies (APIA).
Linda Quarles Arencibia
Historian and Genealogist
Ms. Arencibia has pursued the study of African and African American history since her first (and unusual) exposure to these areas as academic disciplines in high school in the 1970s. The appetite was whet by her parents and Dr. Don Housely was then further stimulated as she pursued African Amreican Studies at the University of Virginia. As she has worked on her family history and genealogy, Ms. Arencibia has utilized the resources of regional historical societies and organizations. She most recently served as a volunteer with the Petersburg Preservation Task Force as docent for The Blandford Church. Ms. Arencibia currently resides in Louisa County, Virginia, just miles from the plantation on which some of her ancestors resided.
She will present her paper, "Through a Glass Darkly: African American Presence in Horsemanship," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Nicole Brown '13, Researcher, Interpreter, Performer
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Ms. Brown has been interpreter for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation since her graduation in 2013. Over the past two years, the topics of religion, education and slavery in colonial Virginia have been the focus of her research. Her work as a public historian has taken her around the world. In 2017, Ms. Brown was awarded a Fellowship at the International Center for Jefferson Studies in Charlottesville to research women's education in colonial Virginia. Last year. Ms. Brown spoke in Reims, France, at the National Association for Interpretation annual conference, discussing the efficacy of using character interpretation to discuss challenging topics. In 2019, she was awarded a Gonzales Grant by Colonial Williamsburg to study the Associates of Dr. Bray and the Church of England’s involvement in enslaved education in the United Kingdom.
She will present her paper, "Teaching Visitors About Religion, Slavery, and Education as Ann Wager," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Julie Richter Ph.D. '92, Interim Director
National Institute of American History and Democracy
After graduating from William & Mary, Dr. Richter worked in the Historical Research Department at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, focusing on learning about the lives of the enslaved men, women and children who labored and lived in 18th Century Williamsburg, and using her finding in training classes for interpreters. She has since returned to William & Mary to teach for the National Institute of American History and Democracy.
She will deliver her paper, "Education and the Bee Family of Williamsburg," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Stephanie Tsacoumis '78
Lawyer
From serving as managing partner of the DC office of an A-list international firm representing top Fortune companies, as general counsel and chief compliance officer of a $2 billion non-profit with international operations, and as a senior government official managing the legal function and multiple agency units, Ms. Tsacoumis has a wide range of operational, legal, government relations, compliance and governance experience.
She will speak on Economics and Law at a Roundtable discussion hosted by the Econ Club.
Amirah Ismail, Public Diplomacy Officer
U.S. Department of State
Ms. Ismail is a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State, currently serving as Desk Officer for Afghanistan. She has experience promoting public diplomacy programs as Spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers and in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; as a Desk Officer for Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria; and as Political & Consular Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Riga. Her experience also includes temporary duty at U.S. Embassies in Cairo, Rabat, Tallinn, Tbilisi and Tunis, as well as the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca. Prior to becoming a diplomat, Ms. Ismail worked at the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Cairo. She speaks Arabic, French, and Russian, and has performed as a violinist, pianist, and singer on stages in Algeria, Egypt, Latvia and the United States.
She will participate in "Washington Women in the Arts: A Symposium," sponsored by W&M DC Semester Program Students.
Mia Fuller, Associate Professor, Italian Studies
University of California (Berkeley)
Professor Fuller has published extensively on architecture and city planning in the Italian colonies, winning the International Planning History Society book prize for Moderns Abroad: Architecture, Cities, and Italian Imperialism. She also writes on Libya and the legacies of Italian colonialism there. She has also written about how Eritrea capitalizes on the built environment Italians left behind and the historiography of Italian architecture and the arts under fascism.
Professor Fuller is currently completing work on a book on the force (or lack of force) of old fascist symbols that still exist in Italy, especially in the Pontine Marshes area, where Mussolini's largest land-reclamation project took place in the 1930s, entailing the construction of five new towns and fourteen villages, and the settlement of over 3,000 families. This is a long-term project involving intermittent ethnographic fieldwork – started twenty years ago – as well as memory studies, the historical sociology of migration, oral history and theories of monumentality.
Professor Fuller will present the keynote address, "Decolonizing Despite Denial: Italy and Its Unfinished Colonial Business," at the European Studies faculty-student conference on decolonization, sponsored by the Reves Center.
Joanna Schug, Associate Professor, Psychological Sciences
William & Mary
Professor Schug's interests include culture and psychology, cross-cultural psychology, Japanese culture, social psychology and socio-ecological approaches to human behavior.
Along with Professor Gosin, she will present a program on "Intersectional Invisibility in Mass Media: Asian Men, Black Women, & Gendered Racial Stereotypes," sponsored by APIA: Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies, Sociology and Psychological Sciences.
Jennifer Rhee, Associate Professor, English
Virginia Commonwealth University
Stefanie Wuschitz
Public Intellectual
Ms. Wuschitz works at the intersection of research, art and technology, with a particular focus on feminist hackerspaces, open source technology and peer production.
She will present her talk, "Mz. Baltazar's Laboratory, Vienna" and talk about feminist hackerspaces, in a program sponsored by Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies and the Equality Lab.
Michaela Lieberman Law '18, Health Justice Legal Fellow
Legal Aid Justice Center, Charlottesville
Ms. Lieberman co-directs the Common Cause Medical-Legal Partnership between LAJC and the University of Virginia Health System, an initiative designed to strengthen the social determinants affecting the health of low-income patients through legal advocacy. She practices in the areas of health, housing, public benefits and civil rights law. She also co-directs UVA Law's Health & Disability Law Clinic, and serves as an adjunct faculty member at UVA's Public Health Sciences School.
She will speak at the Law School on health justice issues.
Ellen Bolen, Deputy Commissioner
Virginia Marine Resources Commission
Prior to her appointment at the VMRC, Ms. Bolen served as a Senior Advisor to the Administrator and the Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where she worked on fishery and coastal policies. She has also held roles as Director of the Fishery Conservation Program and Associate Director of Government Relations at the Ocean Conservancy, and as a field biologist at the Mote Marine Laboratory studying manatee population dynamics.
She will speak to the Law School's Student Environmental and Animal Law Society (SEALS) on environmental policy at the state and federal level.
Divas of Funk and Soul
Musicians
Born of four unique bands in the Hampton Roads area of Southeastern Virginia, these women came together to deliver the one-of-a-kind sound that only the Divas of Funk and Soul can provide. These knockout vocalists were brought together by Nouveau Groove Band Leader, Kiki Douglas, in May of 2017 and has been in high demand ever since.
They will performing at the first-ever Queen and King Ball.
The Accidentals
Musicians
The Accidentals are a female fronted, multi-instrumentalist, power trio. Their music is dynamic and intelligent, a blend of Neko Case lyrics, Jack White rock, and Queen influence throughout. It's edgy, indie folk-influenced, pop rock.
They will performing at the first-ever Queen and King Ball.
Kasandra Burgos, Technical Sales Specialist
10X Genomics, Inc.
Imaculée Ilibagiza
Author
Ms. Ilibagiza survived the Rwandan Genocide by hiding in a local pastor's 3x4 bathroom with seven other women. For 91 days she relied on fervent prayer and a rosary her father had given her. She emerged from her hiding place with little family and health, but the faith to forgive the people who had tormented her country. Today, Ms. Ilibagiza travels around the world, sharing her testimony about the power of faith, hope and forgiveness.
She will appear in a program sponsored by Catholic Campus Ministry.
Katarzyna Pieprzak, Professor, Francophone Literature
Williams College
Professor Pieprzak is Associate Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Francophone Literature, French Language, and Comparative Literature at Williams College. She is a specialist in contemporary Francophone literature and art from North Africa, and is the author of Imagined Museums: Art and Modernity in Morocco (University of Minnesota Press, 2010). She has published numerous articles and coedited Land and Landscape in Francographic Literature: Remapping Uncertain Territories (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), as well as Africanity in North African Visual Culture (a special issue of Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture 5: Spring 2010).
She will present this year's Fauvel Lecture in French & Francophone Studies: "Surface Feeling: Moroccan Art and the Politics of Whitewash in the City."
Elizabeth Mejia-Ricart Guerra, Undergraduate Student
University of Richmond
Ms. Mejia-Ricart is currently a Boatwright and Oliver Hill Scholar at the University of Richmond, part of the Richmond Scholars Program. She has been involved in various research opportunities in the past year, including conducting independent economics research titled "The Sustainability of Pioneer Black Banks in Richmond VA," funded through the University of Richmond Arts & Sciences Summer Fellowship and mentored by Professor of Economics Robert Dolan. Her previous research contributed to the Race & Racism at the University of Richmond project. She has presented her work at Imagining America at UC Davis, the Digital Humanities Symposium at UVA and the National Humanities Conference in New Orleans.
She will present her paper, "The Sustainability and Longevity of Pioneer Black Banks: Banks originating from black fraternal enterprises in Richmond, VA," during the Lemon Project's 9th Annual Symposium, "Celebrating Legacies, Constructing Futures: Four Hundred Years of Black Community and Culture."
Celeste McNamara '07, Assistant Professor, History
SUNY at Cortland
Professor McNamara's research focuses on the intersection between religion and culture, particularly in early modern Italy. Her first book, The Bishop's Burden: Reforming the Catholic Church in Early Modern Europe, explores the methods and processes of Catholic Reform with a focus on the diocese of Padua, in the northern Italian Veneto region. She is also exploring the long history of scandal in the Catholic Church. Her next major research project focuses on the policing of sin and crime in 16th-18th century Venice.
She will present her research, "Sin and Salvation: The Threat of Scandal in Early Modern Italy" in a public talk.
Kimberly Alexy MBA '93
Certified Financial Analyst
Ms. Alexy is a seasoned finance professional and corporate Board member. She has over 20 years of experience in capital markets, corporate finance and investments with expertise in exploring shareholder value creation strategies and executing mergers and acquisitions. She was a sell-side equity research analyst on Wall Street for nearly a decade specializing in technology stocks. Over the past 10+ years, she has been an active Board member at multiple publicly-traded and pre-IPO companies and has Chaired Audit, Compensation, Nominating and Governance Committees as well as a series of Special Committees.
She will be the keynote speaker at the 12th Annual From DoG Street to Wall Street event, co-sponsored by the Boehly Center for Excellence in Finance at the Mason School of Business, the Howard J. Busbee Finance Academy and the Cohen Career Center.
Andrea Wright, Assistant Professor, Anthropology and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
William & Mary
Professor Wright's areas of specialization are cultural anthropology, anthro-history, energy infrastructure, labor; migration, security, kinship, India, Pakistan, the Arabian Sea, 20th century British Imperialism, postcolonial states and human rights.
She will present her paper, "Building an Oilrig," at an Anthropology Department Brown Bag Session.
Danielle H. Speller, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Wright Laboratory
Yale University
Dr. Speller primarily works on low-temperature, rare-event searches for physics beyond the standard model, using large cryogenic detectors in underground laboratories.
She will present her paper, "Invisible Worlds: A Search For Axion Dark Matter with the HAYSTAC Experiment," at a Physics Colloquium.
Sreerekha Mullassery Sathiamma, Assistant Professor, Global Development Studies
University of Virginia
Professor Sathiamma joined the University of Virginia in 2016 to teach in the Global Development Studies track which is an interdisciplinary program focusing on development debates and categories such as social justice and sustainable development. Her first book, State Without Honour (Oxford University Press, 2017), explores the political economy of women's work in India.
She will present her paper, "Marriage in Times of Love Jihad," at an event sponsored by the Reves Center.
Vineeta Singh, Lemon Project Post-Doctoral Fellow, Omohundro Institute
William & Mary
Dr. Singh's dissertation research at the University of California San Diego traced U.S. higher education's contemporary 'diversity problem' to 1865 and the racialized and gendered notions of the public good, social mobility, citizenship, and self-determination that rose in the aftermath of Emancipation.
She will present her paper, "A Grounded Archive: Using Human Geography to Uncover and Explore the Hidden Histories of College Campuses in America," at an Emerging Scholars Series Lecture, sponsored by the A&S Graduate Center and the Williamsburg Regional Library.
Maureen Fitzgerald, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
William & Mary
Professor Fitzgerald has an MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in American History, with special emphasis on women, religion and immigration history. She authored the introduction to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible (Northeastern University Press, 1993) and is author of Habits of Compassion: Irish-Catholic Nuns and the Origins of New York's Welfare System, 1830-1920 (University of Illinois Press, 2006), among other publications. She teaches courses on American religious history with special emphasis on immigration, race, gender and sexuality, and social movements. She also teaches courses on African-American Religion, Immigration and Religion, American Religious Nationalisms, and Religion and Social Movements. She is currently researching and writing on American Religious Nationalisms.
Along with Professors Kirsch and Ogunnaike, she will participate in "Anti-Semitism and Racism in America after Pittsburgh: A Community Conversation," sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies.
Mary Fraser Kirsh '02, Visiting Assistant Professor, Judaic Studies
William & Mary
Professor Kirsh earned her B.A. in history from William & Mary, her MSt in Jewish Studies from Oxford University, and her Ph.D. in modern Jewish history from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Her research interests include Jewish childhood, gender and Judaism, and Jewish life in post-Holocaust Europe.
Along with Professors Fitzgerald and Ogunnaike, she will participate in "Anti-Semitism and Racism in America after Pittsburgh: A Community Conversation," sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies.
Jess X. Snow
Filmmaker and Poet
Ms. Snow is a queer migrant Asian-Canadian artist, filmmaker and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. She is currently a MFA candidate in writing/directing at the NYU Tisch School of The Arts. Her art has found home on the facades of seven-story buildings, the pages of children’s books and tiny lapel pins.
Ever since she picked up her first camera and paint brush, she has been crossing the borders between fiction, fantasy, documentary and poetry. In her films, after migration and trauma, her characters develop abilities to teleport, cross borders, regenerate and heal themselves and the planet.
She will screen and discuss her film Afterearth, at a program sponsored by the Asian American Student Initiative (AASI) and the Rainbow Coalition. She will also conduct a poetry and media workshop, sponsored by the Program in Asian and Pacific Islander American Studies.
David L. Eng, Richard L. Fisher Professor, English
University of Pennsylvania
Professor Eng's areas of specialization include American literature, Asian American studies, Asian diaspora, critical race theory, psychoanalysis, queer studies, gender studies and visual culture.
He is author with Shinhee Han of Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Lives of Asian Americans (Duke, 2018), The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy (Duke, 2010) and Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America (Duke, 2001). He is co-editor with David Kazanjian of Loss: The Politics of Mourning (California, 2003) and with Alice Y. Hom of Q & A: Queer in Asian America (Temple, 1998, winner of a Lambda Literary Award and Association of Asian American Studies Book Award).
Professor Eng will present the AMES Distinguished Keynote Lecture: "(Gay) Panic Attack: Coming Out in a Colorblind Age," sponsored by the Program in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Rebekah Rafferty and the Wakes
Musicians
Richmond artist Rebekah Rafferty writes melancholy lyrics and haunting melodies. When she's backed by The Wakes, her music is energetic, soothing, ethereal and soulful.
She will appear at one of the Fridays at Five performances sponsored by Alma Mater Productions (AMP).
Sophia Papaioannou, Professor, Latin Literature
National and Kapodistrian University, Athens, Greece
Professor Papaioannou is the author of numerous articles and chapters on Augustan literature (especially epic) and on Roman comedy, as well as two books on Ovid. She is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University.
She will speak on "Vespasian the Miracle-Worker: Myth, Religion and Politics in Imperial Historiography" as the last lecture of the semester in Classical Studies.
Denise Damon Wade, Associate Professor, Dance
William & Mary
Professor Wade is a teacher, performer, and choreographer with a passion for dance and theatre.
Her contemporary choreography has been presented by William & Mary, the American College Dance Festival, Dance Place, Fairfax Ballet, Gravity Optional, Kilmarnock Center for the Arts, the Sacred Dance Guild and TELOS Tanz Theatre. She also choreographs regularly for William & Mary Theatre and the Virginia Shakespeare Festival.
Along with Professors Gavaler and Glenn, she choreographed, produced and performed at the Dance Program's Women in Power production at DancEvent, 2018.
Leah Glenn, Program Director and Associate Professor, Dance
William & Mary
Professor Glenn's choreography has been presented by William & Mary, Hampton University and the Maryland School of Ballet and Modern Dance. Several of her original works have been presented at the International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference and more recently on the Millennium Stage of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (2016) and the Dance Place (2017) in Washington, D.C. She performed her solo work as part of the 50th Anniversary of African Americans in Residence at William & Mary.
Along with Professors Gavaler and Wade, she choreographed, produced and performed at the Dance Program's Women in Power production at DancEvent, 2018.
Tina L. Coleman, Director of University Web & Design
William & Mary
Many minds and hands created the content and visual "look" of the 100th Anniversary website. But the person who put it together, solved numerous problems, employed innovative techniques and brought the website "live" is Tina Coleman.
Her “day job” is overseeing the W&M website and keeping its many users well-informed and, often, delighted.
Amelia Rooks, Senior Designer, University Web & Design
William & Mary
Ms. Rooks joined University Web & Design in 2011, after several years as a freelance designer in the Richmond area. Prior to that, she served as an art director for a Philadelphia area ad agency. She does visual and graphic design work for a wide range of projects including print, web, social media and multimedia.
She is the designer of the posters, flyers, banners, programs and various items of swag distributed during the 100th Anniversary year.
Lisa Figueroa Crawford, Director of Video & Multimedia
William & Mary
Ms. Crawford is a graduate of the Broadcast Journalism program at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She joined William & Mary in 2013. During the 100th Anniversary year, she oversaw the scripting and production of the "Her Story" video, narrated by Glenn Close '74 D.A. '89, and the video stories of the six women featured in that video.
She also created the Honorary Degree videos for Jane Batten, Sybil Shainwald '48, and Denyce Graves, and the video honoring Glenn Close at Commencement 2019.
Jessica Flannery, Senior Graphic Designer
William & Mary
Karen Youshock, Administrative Coordinator, Alumni Engagement & Inclusion Initiatives
William & Mary
Jennie Davy, Exhibits Manager
W&M Libraries
Angela Owusu-Ansah, Provost
Ashesi University, Ghana
Rania Kassab Sweis, Associate Professor, Anthropology & International Studies
University of Richmond
Professor Sweis specializes in the Middle East and North Africa region. Her ethnographic research traces the long term social effects of international aid and global health interventions with vulnerable populations. She is currently finalizing a book manuscript that draws on over two years of fieldwork with homeless and at-risk children in Egypt and examines the ways in which young people consume, negotiate and reconstitute global healthcare in specific ways. In the aftermath of recent events, Professor Sweis is developing a new research project centered on the politics and ethics of emergency medicine in the Arab world, with a focus on the political identities of Arab medics and emergency healthcare workers.
Professor Sweis will present a brown-bag session, "Doctors With Borders: Syrian-American Medics and the Politics of Global Health," sponsored by the Anthropology Department.
Victoria Fanti, Doctoral Candidate
Johns Hopkins University
Ms. Fanti is currently writing her dissertation, tentatively titled Killer Queens, on homicidal women in Italian Renaissance tragedy. Other research interests include literary representations of madness, explorations of the liminal space between life and the afterlife, depictions of the monstrous and grotesque, and the gothic.
She will lead a discussion of the Florentine game of "calcio storico," a form of football that was invented in Renaissance Florence. Her talk, "The Beautiful/Most Dangerous Game: Calcio storico fiorentino" is sponsored by Italian Studies.
Didem Uca, Doctoral Candidate
University of Pennsylvania
Ms. Uca is a Teaching Excellence Fellow at the Penn Center for Teaching and Learning (2018-2019). Her dissertation analyzes child traveler, refugee and migrant figures in 20th- and 21st-century German literature. She has also earned graduate certificates in Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies and College and University Teaching. In 2016-2017, she was a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Institut für deutsche Literatur of the Humboldt University of Berlin and in 2017-2018, she was a Fellow at the Penn Graduate Student Center.
She will present a lecture on Keun's novel Kind aller Länder (1938), sponsored by the German Studies Program.
Yixin Sun, Doctoral Candidate
Princeton University
Ms. Sun is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Princeton. Her research focuses on building privacy-preserving and secure networked systems. The received the Information Controls Fellowship from the Open Technology Fund, the SEAS Award for Excellence from Princeton and the EECS rising star from MIT.
She will present her paper, "Providing Secure Internet Services with Insecure Infrastructure," at a program sponsored by Computer Sciences.
Anna Horáková, Visiting Assistant Professor, German Studies
William & Mary
Tamara Silbergleit Lehman, Doctoral Candidate
Duke University
Beth Holmgren, Professor of Polish and Russian Studies
Duke University
Professor Holmgren has published widely on Polish literature, theater, popular culture and film; Russian literature, film and women's studies; and Russian and Polish artists and performers in the North American diaspora. Her recent scholarship focuses on Polish Jewish cultural history of the interwar period. Her most recent book, Warsaw is My Country (2018), is a cultural biography of Krystyna Bierzynska, an acculturated Jewish Varsovian who survived the Holocaust and served as a 16-year-old orderly in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Professor Holmgren holds secondary appointments in Theater Studies and Gender/Sexuality/Feminist Studies. She is listed as a core faculty member for Jewish Studies.
She will present her talk, "Poland Today: the Good, the Bad and the Complicated," sponsored by the Program in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.
Xiaoqian (Joy) Wang, Doctoral Candidate
University of Pittsburgh
Ms. Wang's research interests span across multidisciplinary areas of machine learning, data mining, computational neuroscience, cancer genomics and precision medicine. She has published 21 papers in top-tier conferences such as NIPS, ICMI, KDD, IJCAI, AAAI, RECOMB and ECCB.
She will present her paper, "New Nonlinear Machine Learning Algorithms with Applications to Biomedical Data Science," sponsored by Computer Science.
Janise Parker, Assistant Professor, School Psychology
William & Mary
Professor Parker joined the W&M School of Education in 2017. In addition to her current appointment, she is a Licensed Psychologist and Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP).
Professor Parker's research primarily focuses on student engagement and motivation among adolescent males, and culturally responsive practice in school psychology. She will present her paper, "Promoting Self-Determination and Academic Engagement Among African-American Secondary Learners: Are We Asking the Right Questions?" sponsored by the School of Education.
Claire McKinney, Assistant Professor, Government
William & Mary
Professor McKinney's research focuses on the intersections of gender, politics and reproduction in the American context. She is working on a book manuscript that argues that the mainstream abortion politics in the United States limits the ways abortion is understood, to the detriment of thinking more critically about gender and citizenship. More broadly, Professor McKinney is interested in how the meaning of health has come to reorient political identity and citizenship.
She will interview Ana Navarro, the Hunter B. Andrews Fellow in American Politics in the Spring of 2019.
Christine Nemacheck, Associate Professor, Government
William & Mary
Professor Nemacheck's research focuses on judicial selection, judicial federalism and the role of the courts in a separation-of-powers system. Her book, Strategic Selection: Presidential Selection of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush, was published in 2007. Other work on judicial selection has appeared in political science and law review journals.
She is currently the Director of the Center for Liberal Arts and William & Mary's Pre-Law Advisor.
She will conduct public interviews of Selena Fox, one of the COLL 300 featured speakers, and Kay Coles James, President of the Heritage Foundation, a special guest of the 100th Anniversary of Women.