Graduate Student Profiles

Kat Davidson

Kat recently completed her BA in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at SFU. She graduated with distinction, and at the top of her department. Passionate about feminism and how it interacts in both social and academic settings Kat is thrilled to be pursuing her MA in the department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies so that she can explore these intersections further. She has a wide variety of interests that can be seen in her diverse volunteer experience; from volunteering as the transcriptionist for the SFU based Archive of Lesbian Oral Testimony (A LOT), to her recent experience helping to organize Vancouver’s Slutwalk. Kat intends to pursue the two extended essay option in the hopes that it will help to narrow her academic interests.

Karen Eggerman

Karen grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and attended the University of Saskatchewan where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. With the opportunity to travel Karen became interested in global migration flows and policies. Karen's area of interest lies within transnational migration policies and their effects upon women. Today, Karen is enrolled in the thesis based MA program in Women Studies in which she is assessing how the Canadian Immigration Act affects temporary migrant women. Karen is dedicated not only to research on the local level but the global level as well. She is interested in global political economy and global development issues. Before beginning graduate school, Karen gained volunteer and work experience in many non-profit organizations dedicated to fulfilling the lives of migrant women entering Canada. When she is finished her education, Karen would like to continue to work at the grassroots level while hopefully being able to change migration policy in the hopes of improving the living standards of women in Canada and around the world.

Sandra Martins

Sandra Martins has been at SFU since 2001.  In June of 2010 she graduated with a double major in Women's Studies and History.  A couple of years back she launched an after school program within a local high school, which focused on young female empowerment.  This experience, and the lessons she learned became a springboard for her MA work.  She is interested in how women's history/studies are integrated into the BC curriculum, and how Western media shapes taught education.  As well, she would like to explore the idea of positive teen female empowerment outside of mainstream media. Along her path of MA work, she is excited to be part of any bridgework between the GSWS department and local high schools.

Meghan Murphy

Meghan Murphy was born and raised in Vancouver and completed her BA in Women's Studies here at Simon Fraser University. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies and has recently been working as a research assistant on Dr. Jacqueline Levitin's 'Women in a Changing Downtown Eastside' website project. She is also active in a local feminist media collective, within which she acts as co-host and co-producer of The F Word radio show, a feminist program that airs weekly out of Vancouver's Co-op Radio on the Downtown Eastside. She is interested in both the study and production of feminist media, particularly radio and documentary forms. While Meghan feels conflicted about feminist blogging, she perseveres in the interest of mainstreaming subversive feminist dialogue. Her radio work and blog work can be found at www.feminisms.org

Congratulations on the success of your podcast/radio documentary (Radical Media) with Zoe Druick. Feel free to comment. For older browsers copy and paste http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/f-word/2011/04/where-have-all-radicals-gone-when-feminism-gets-moderate

Cara Ng

Cara Ng is thrilled to be part of the SFU Women's Studies Department.  She has undergraduate degrees in Women's Studies and Political Science from the University of British Columbia.  She's currently employed in SFU's Faculty of Health Sciences as Research Coordinator for the AVE Project, a study that explores issues of adolescent eating, dieting, and weight-focused behaviour from a feminist perspective.  She has myriad research interests which include: the politics of international adoption, feminist and other critical theories, female/male disordered eating, and the representation of bodily difference (i.e. size, race, class, gender) in popular culture.  Her M.A. thesis will focus on adolescent motherhood & body- and food-related anxieties.

Huai Bao Dhawa

Having lived, studied and worked in China, Canada and USA, Huai Bao Dhawa is now pursuing a Ph.D. at SFU under the supervision of Professor Helen Leung. His research focuses on the transgressive potential in theatre. He believes that, with theatre being the epitome of our reality, the core drive for all the arts is sexuality, which goes hand in hand with our gender consciousness and identity in a very complex way beyond our normal perceptions.

He is the author of the book, Vibrations (New world Press, 2010). His new book, Your Fate Is In Your Hands, a book with 42 chapters that deals with religions, sociology, philosophy of life and parapsychology, will be published by the New World Press in Beijing, China, in 2012. He has also produced and directed a full length feature film based on a true story that took place in China and Canada, Fearless from Red China, which has been released in DVD in the USA.  

Huai Bao Dhawa is a prolific writer and an avid researcher who also has three upcoming articles in one USA journal and two European journals.

Research Profile - Dean of Graduate Studies

Syeda Nayab Bukhari

Syeda Nayab Bukhari’s areas of interest include gender and international development; race, class and gender relations, immigration studies and management of social enterprises. She did her Masters in Journalism, MPhil in Mass Communications and a one year program in Social Enterprise Management, offered by Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in collaboration with McGill University Canada. She has extensive experience of teaching, advocacy and volunteerism with Public and Private Universities and grass root level as well as international NGOs in Pakistan. As a pioneer member, she has also been involved in setting up and organizing Gender Network, Lahore Chapter and Women Chamber of Commerce and Industries in Pakistan.

Novia Shih-Shan Chen

With an MFA in Film Production from Ohio University in 2008 and a BFA from National Taiwan University in 2003, Novia has worked as a filmmaker and a film and video instructor both in USA and Taiwan. Her short thesis film, Evelyn, completed in 2008 won the Betty Thomas Film Award from Ohio University and was screened at seven film festivals worldwide. Her recent documentary entitled Now He is a She, which explores the subjectivity, sexuality and familial relationships of a male-to-female transgendered teacher, has officially been selected and screened in several international queer and women’s film festivals from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan to France. Novia is interested in the practices of women serving interests of other women in localized settings past and present in Three China’s film history. Her research aim is to examine the representations of women’s roles of and by Taiwanese female directors. She also hopes to expand her focus on analysis of forms and themes in Hong Kong and Chinese cinema that signify third wave feminism as well as post-modern contexts. Her research interests include: gender and sexuality, queer theory, feminist film theory, transnational feminism and cultural studies. 

Silke Frischmuth

Silke is a PhD candidate of Department of Women’s Studies.

Silke did her BA in Latin American Studies at the University of Rostock in Germany and her MA in Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University (2005). The topic of her thesis is male violence against women in Mexico. Her research interests include violence against women; women’s health, particularly mental health and addictions; and motherhood. She was drawn to Women’s Studies by her personal experience of how difficult it is to reconcile family work with a paid occupation and academic interests. After finishing her PhD, she hopes to be able to combine academic research and teaching with community activism. Her research in Mexico aims to identify service needs for women who are victims of male sexual and physical violence, and to formulate policy recommendations regarding the need for and the design of prevention and intervention programs.

Trish Garner

Trish Garner is a PhD candidate in Women’s Studies. Before this, Trish did a Bachelor and Master of Engineering at Cambridge University in England, worked briefly as an engineer, and then went back to school for a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Gender Studies at Simon Fraser University. Trish’s research focuses on the construction of the (un)natural body through a comparison of gynecomastia surgery, transgender chest surgery and pregnancy. Hir research interests include queer theory, transgender theory, critical race and whiteness studies, feminist philosophies of the body, body modification, masculinity studies, and disability theory. Trish teaches within Gender Studies and has most recently taught a course on queer masculinities. Trish is also a research assistant with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and is currently working on writing a Poverty Reduction Strategy for BC. Ze volunteers with the anti-poverty group, Raise the Rates, the Advisory Group for the Transgender Health Program, and the programming committee for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. After graduating, Trish hopes to combine hir community activism with academic research and teaching.

Olena Guseva

Originally from Odessa, Ukraine, Olena is interested in the subject of Eastern European "mail-order brides" and female migration through family class. Olena completed her B.A. (with honours in English) and an Interdisciplinary M.A. at UBC, and is looking forward to taking her research to new heights at SFU. Currently, her interests are broadly geared towards international dating and the socio-economic and political power structures involved in the "mail-order" matchmaking process.

Elizabeth (Eli) Manning

Elizabeth (Eli) Manning is excited to be a doctoral student in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. Eli completed her first year of her PhD at York University with Dr. Miriam Smith, but came back to BC to be with her family.  Although she is originally from northern Manitoba, she now calls BC home after completing her Bachelor and Masters of Social Work at the University of Victoria.  She also holds a Bachelor of Arts (Major: Native Studies; Minor: Canadian Studies) from the University of Manitoba.  Having worked in an HIV community health centre for nearly a decade, she brings clinical experience to her research work in HIV epidemiology, gender, sex, and sexuality. Eli's Masters in Social Work thesis, "Who Are The Men in 'Men Who Have Sex With Men'?," won the Lieutenant Governor's Silver Medal award marking her work as the best thesis at UVic.  A piece of this thesis, entitled "Infected Deviants: Reading Epidemiology as Biopower in MSM Research" is published in the Canadian Review of Social Policy.  As a Universities Without Walls fellow (2010-11), she was also awarded the Canadian Association for HIV Research New Investigator Award in Social Sciences.  Her research interests include: public health policy; gender, sex, and sexuality; critical race theory; and feminist post-structuralist thought.

Natasha Patterson

Natasha holds a BA (Hons.) from Trent University and completed her (course-based) MA at Simon Fraser in Women’s Studies, with a concentration in gender and popular culture, and women and film. Using feminist qualitative research methods, her doctoral dissertation explores women’s participation in reality-based media, specifically competition-based reality TV programmes such as Canada’s Next Top Model and Project Runway Canada. Research and teaching interests include: women and popular culture, the cultural industries, gender and horror film, participatory media culture, and television studies. Journal publications have appeared in Genders, Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist Theory & Culture, and BC Studies. She also works as a Researcher for Women In View on their project Mainstreaming Media Diversity.

Beth Pentney

Beth Pentney grew up in Northern Ontario and has a background in English Literature. After completing a BA at Laurentian University and an MA from Wilfrid Laurier University, she moved into Women's Studies for her doctoral work, with a focus on cosmetic surgery studies, makeover reality TV, and online audiences. Her dissertation examines different online communities and their use of makeover culture discourses. Her research interests include feminist television studies, studies of postfeminism, and Somatechnics. Beth lives and works in North Bay, Ontario. She has taught courses on Women and Popular Culture, Writing, and University Skills Development.

Mary Shearman

Mary Shearman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia located on unceded Coast Salish Territories.  Mary pursued her BA (honours) in Theatre at the University of Ottawa and completed her MA (thesis: Betty Lambert’s Plays for Children: A Feminist Approach to Theatre for Young Audiences) in Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University. Mary’s current research explores the history of The Penthouse Nightclub in Vancouver, Canada's longest standing exotic nightclub. Mary is approaching the Penthouse as a case study that illustrates the relationship between dancers, the law and the larger community over approximately a fifty-year period. The Penthouse has survived numerous waves of moral crackdown and aggressive development in the city. It is an extremely important venue in local sex history.  Mary takes her role as instructor/facilitator just as seriously as she does her research and also teaches at Simon Fraser in her home department class.  She has been responsible for teaching and developing Showgirls: Performance, Embodiment and Sexuality as well as an introductory course called Feminist Action.  Mary also really enjoyed teaching Law and Human Reproduction where she probably learned just as much, if not more, than the students enrolled. Mary sits on the Planning Committee for FIRST, a group that advocates for the decriminalization of prostitution.  She is also an avid camper, and spends almost every weekend at Triangle Recreation Campground from May-October where she also sits on the Board of Directors. 

www.sfu.ca/gsws/MaryShearman

Photo credit: David Denofreo

Sarah Sparks

Sarah Sparks was born and raised in rural BC and came to Vancouver to pursue her post-secondary education in 1999 after she graduated from David Stoddart Secondary with the Governer General's Bronze Medal for Academic Excellence.  She holds a double major Bachelor of the Art's in Sociology and Women's Studies from the University of British Columbia and a Master of the Art's in Women's Studies from Simon Fraser University.  Sarah is presently pursuing her PhD in the department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at SFU.  Sarah has worked as a mental health adovcate on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, has assisted on a large public policy project with Canadian Center for Policy Alernatives surrounding disability benefits in BC, was a research assistant for transgender historian Dr. Susan Stryker, has assisted Dr. Jacqueline Levitin with her DTES Women and Health project and has worked as the project coordinator for the Patient and Community Voices Project at UBC.  Sarah's research focuses on subversive streel level art and women's involvement with it as it relates to the DTES, poverty, missing women, class division, gender, sexuality, performance, theartre, galleries, and traditional art.  Sarah is passionate about feminist and queer theory and has chosen to make the GSWS department her home because this department will allow her to pursue her academic goals. 

Joy Walcott-Francis

Joy Walcott-Francis holds a BSc in International Relations (Major) from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, 1999 and a MA in Gender and Development Studies from the University of Hull, England, 2002. As a PhD Candidate, her research interests include the social and cultural study of health in particular cardiovascular risks; health policy; women and migration; and gender, development and globalization.

www.sfu.ca/gsws/joywalcottfrancis

Saylesh Wesley

Saylesh is Tsimshian on her father’s side and Sto:lo on her mother’s.  She has completed both her B.Ed and M.Ed with the University of British Columbia and has pursued her doctoral work with Simon Fraser University’s GSWS program given her own teaching and lived experience.  She wishes to revitalize the cultural roles of transgendered people within the Coast Salish territory and how they have historically contributed any significant role to their communities pre-colonization.  She wishes to bring back the teachings of these specific ancestral roles, particularly for a knowledge base for the Sto:lo people.