April Bailey
April H. Bailey is a fifth year PhD candidate in the Psychology Department. She investigates how gender organizes the ways we think about and act toward others. Much of her work focuses on psychological forms of androcentrism, which is the tendency to center society around men more than women as a “gender-neutral” standard.
Grant Title: “Women are People Too: Gender Bias in Generalizations”
Abstract: People tend to think of men as being more representative than women of otherwise inclusive categories like humanity. I aim to test consequences of this way of thinking across three experiments. I plan to examine whether the lay public as well as social scientists themselves (over)generalize based on information about men more than women.
Riché Barnes
Riché J. Daniel Barnes received her BA in political science from Spelman College, her MS in urban studies from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, and her MA and PhD in cultural anthropology, with a certificate in women’s studies, from Emory University. Barnes is the author of Raising the Race: Black Career Women Redefine Marriage, Motherhood, and Community (2016), an ethnographic study of black women’s strategies for family and communal survival, which was considered for an NAACP image award and winner of the Distinguished Book Award for the Race, Gender and Class Section of the American Sociological Association (2017). Barnes previously taught at Spelman College and Smith College, was the assistant dean of social sciences and associate professor of anthropology at Endicott College, and is currently dean of Pierson College at Yale.
Grant Title: “School Choice? Black Women’s Strategic Responses to Public School Education Reform and its Related Challenges”
Abstract: For the last few years, while conducting research on the work and family decisions of the Black middle class and elite in Atlanta, I have also been watching another story unfold. As I talked with the women in my first book, Raising the Race: Black Career Women Redefine Marriage, Motherhood, and Community (2016), I learned, that despite a rhetoric of choice in the current education market, many moms, of all class backgrounds are struggling to find schools that are beneficial to their children’s education. This is not new. Education has become a paramount issue for most Americans. Indeed, it has been called the Civil Rights issue of our time. The current state of school “choice” is of particular concern for Black inner-city communities as public education and home ownership have been key to social class mobility. In this ethnographic project, I focus on one school and its community in Atlanta, Georgia recognizing and explicating the structural, systemic, and political implications of urban education reform, its intersections with housing inequalities, and the public perception of community, school, family, and student “failure.” In this paper, part of the larger ethnographic project, I center the experiences of two Black women to identify and analyze how Black mothers, employ “Black Strategic Mothering,” in their attempts to educate their children, maintain the safety and security of their homes, and improve communal outcomes.
Abbey Burgess
Abbey Burgess is a senior in Trumbull College, double majoring in Theater Studies and English. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue directing professionally. Throughout her time at Yale, she served as the Yale Drama Coalition President for two years, and has directed seven shows. Abbey is incredibly passionate about empowering the female voice through her artistic work, as well as creating theater that fosters accessibility and diversity on stage, challenges social norms of inequality, and pushes boundaries.
Grant Title: “Woman and Scarecrow: A Senior Project in Theater Studies”
Abstract: Woman and Scarecrow, by Marina Carr, is a play in which a dying woman—mother to eight children and wife to an unfaithful husband—considers her failed struggles to gain agency in her own life. All of Carr’s plays are focused on the scholarship of women - often looking at the trap of domesticity and maternity for women As a playwright, she has broken countless boundaries for female theater makers.
Emily Coates
Emily Coates is dancer, choreographer, and writer whose projects move across cultural and disciplinary divides. Over the course of her thirty year career in dance, she has performed internationally with New York City Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, Twyla Tharp, and Yvonne Rainer. Career highlights include three duets with Baryshnikov, and lead roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown, Mark Morris, Karole Armitage, Erick Hawkins, Tharp, and Rainer, among others. Her solo and collaborative work has been commissioned and presented by Danspace Project, Ballet Memphis, Performa, Carnegie Hall, Wadsworth Atheneum, University of Chicago, Yale University Art Gallery, and Works & Process at the Guggenheim. Her choreography for theater includes Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale (2014, 2018) directed by Liz Diamond, and The Square Root of Three Sisters (2016), directed by Dmitry Krymov. In 2017, she premiered her first evening-length piece, Incarnations, at Danspace Project. Her newest work, A History of Light—a multimedia performance that narrates a history of the universe through the contributions of pioneering women artists and scientists—was created in collaboration with visual artist Josiah McElheny and premiered at Danspace Project in November 2018. Her recent fellowships and awards include a 2015 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in the category Public Understanding of Science, Technology, and Economics (with particle physicist Sarah Demers) and a fall 2016 Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts. Her book Physics and Dance, co-written with Demers, is forthcoming from Yale University Press in January 2019.
She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in English from Yale ’06 and also holds an MA in American Studies ’11. She is currently completing a PhD in American Studies on touchpoints between dance and science. She is associate professor adjunct appointed in the Theater Studies program and Directing Department of the Yale School of Drama. She created and directs the dance studies concentration at Yale.
Grant Title: “Moving and Being Moved at the Intersection of Science and Dance”
Abstract: My project traces a series of embodied, kinesthetic ways of knowing across science and dance cultures. Focusing on sites in which dance artists and scientists collide, my goal is to craft epistemologies of movement that help us to better understand how our knowledge of the animate world is produced and circulated.
Sappho Gilbert
Sappho Gilbert, MPH is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow of the Yale Climate Change and Health Initiative. Her research interests include circumpolar community health, food security, nutrition, public policy, and climate change. Thanks to a Yale Women Faculty Forum (WFF) grant, Sappho and her local research partners in Nunavut, Canada were able to validate preliminary findings from their qualitative study of the community health effects and adaptations experienced during leaner times of traditional food harvest. Prior to her studies at Yale, Sappho worked at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics on multi-year National Institutes of Health and Wellcome Trust grants mapping the safe, ethical inclusion of pregnant women in the HIV/AIDS and Zika clinical research pipelines. Sappho earned her Master’s in Public Health from Dartmouth and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in biology and a minor in political science.
Grant Title: “Participant & community validation in a qualitative food security study in two Inuit communities in Nunavut, Canada”
Abstract: Climate change and non-climatic forces are imperiling harvest in the predominantly Inuit Canadian territory of Nunavut, leading to “bad” years or harvest of traditional foods like narwhal, caribou, and polar bear. This qualitative study aims to examine the drivers, effects, and coping strategies associated with these leaner times. In particular, one of the themes that has emerged in preliminary analysis is the vulnerability of key subpopulations, including elders, single parents (mostly women), and widows. Our next step in this locally-partnered project is to conduct respondent and community validation to ensure appropriate and accurate representation and identify actionable opportunities for supporting communities and harvesters during “bad” seasons or years.
Hadas Kotek
Hadas Kotek is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Yale. She received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is an active member of the Linguistic Society of America’s Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics.
Grant Title: “Gender Representation in Linguistics”
Abstract: Her WFF Seed Grant supports a study on the representation of women in linguistic example sentences, a major source of data in linguistics. Previous research has shown a bias toward male-centered examples in textbooks, perpetuating a variety of stereotypes. With a team of Yale graduate students led by Kotek, the current study examines published papers in top linguistics journals over the past 20 years, with the goal of uncovering current trends in research and devising guidelines for improved data creation and collection for the field of linguistics at large.
Allison Minto & Michelle Kemei
Allison Minto is a photographer born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. She holds a B.A. in Journalism from Buffalo State College and an A.A.S. in Commercial Photography from LaGuardia Community College. Her career started out as a backpack journalist for local news and then transitioned into media production for reality and documentary television shows. After years of working in television she decided to follow her passion and document stories through photography. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, PDN, PF Magazine, CUNY Matters, The Lit Magazine, Queens Museum, LaGuardia Gallery of Photographic Arts, The Photo Place Gallery and Project Basho Gallery. Allison is a 2020 MFA photography graduate student at the Yale School of Art.
Michelle Kemei is a photographer from Nairobi. She makes work about fashion, mental health and queerness. Her other interests include sampling teas from around the world and admiring striking architecture.
Grant Title: The Indispensable Project
The lens through which we see the world is dominated by white men. How we consume photography then becomes dependent on a particular kind of gaze, access and selection.We are compelled to change that. We will provide fifteen black female-identified, non-binary and gender non-conforming high school students with disposable film cameras sothey can go into their communities and produce their own narratives. An exhibition of theresulting images will be created to engage students, their families and the greater New Haven community. The exhibition of the students work at the Creative Art Workshop in New Haven from June 3-8th. Learn more here: http://creativeartsworkshop.org/gallery/upcoming-exhibitions/
Deborah Monti
Deborah Monti is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College majoring in History. Outside of academics she does improv with The Yale Exit Players and runs a small all-gender, unisex clothing line.
Grant Title: “Así se Baila: Situating Mexican Vogue Within Mexico’s Queer History and Artistic Identity”
Abstract: Her senior thesis examines the relationship between performed identity, movement, and queerness as it relates to Mexico City’s LGBTQ history and relatively new voguing scene. My thesis will attempt to ‘locate’ this history by understanding vogue and ball culture as a late form of neo-Mexicanism and as an integral piece to the formation of a queer Mexican identity.
Matt Nadel & Lily Weisberg
Matt Nadel is a film director from South Florida, currently completing his sophomore year as a History major at Yale. Matt’s work has been showcased by New York Times OpDocs, the Rhode Island International Film Festival, and the Pan African Film Festival. Matt is a recipient of the Burt Reynolds Scholarship in Film and was named a National YoungArts Winner in Cinematic Arts.
Lily Weisberg is a sophomore Humanities Major from New York City. She is the co-director of the Yale Student Film Festival, a three day long series of film screenings and speaker events. She has directed films that have screened at the All American High School Film Festival, the Big Apple Film Festival, and NewFilmmakers New York.
Grant Title: “1,000 Bright Young Men”
Abstract: The 2019-2020 school year will mark the 50th anniversary of undergraduate coeducation at Yale. At this vital moment, “1,000 Bright Young Men” answers a critical question: What is the state of gender integration at Yale 50 years later? Accomplished women professors of past and present share their perspective on screen—many for the first time.
Mariel Pettee
Mariel Pettee is a 4th-year PhD candidate in Physics at Yale University specializing in high-energy particle physics at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. As a choreographer and performer, she also uses theatre and dance work to research audience activation, duration, authenticity, fear, and playfulness. Her investigations into the intersection of art and science have included helping teach classes at Yale including the Physics of Dance and Technologies of Movement Research, interning with Arts@CERN, and developing an multimedia performance installation inspired by particle physics for her senior thesis at Harvard University. AB, Harvard University; MA, University of Cambridge. AB, Harvard University; MA, University of Cambridge.
Grant Title: “MACHINE WOMAN”: Documenting the Creation of AI Choreography”
Abstract: “Machine Woman,” the result of a collaboration between Mariel and a team of female filmmakers, will be a short experiential documentary film following Mariel’s process of generating choreography using machine learning techniques on 3D motion capture data of her own movements. The film will touch on themes including the preservation and publication of one’s own unique movement identity and choreographic thoughts, the role of memory in neural networks vs. our lived experiences, and the problem of encoding biases in machine learning on a broader scale.
Crystal Piper
Dr. Piper graduated from Smith College in 2005 and obtained a Masters of Science in finance from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008. She has a research background in infectious diseases and bio-defense, for which she did federal government consulting. She attended Yale Medical School and graduated in 2015. She completed a surgical internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and is currently a Yale Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Resident. Her recent research focuses on the role of gender in physician leadership.
Grant Title: “Cross Sectional Analysis of Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Program Director and Sections Head demographics in Radiology”
Abstract: We plan to describe gender and economic demographics of senior leadership of radiology, surgery and internal medicine. We will look at the career path of individual leaders and look for gender differences. We will look at the career path of individual leaders and look for gender differences. By deepening the understanding of how minorities may differ along their career path, we hope to elucidate a better understanding of how to address disparities.
Jillian Scheer
Jillian Scheer is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS in the Yale School of Public Health. Jillian received a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Boston College and has degrees in Mental Health Counseling, Psychology, and Sociology. Jillian’s program of research is on co-occurring epidemics (i.e., syndemics) surrounding sexual minority populations, including sexual minority women, with a particular focus on violence exposure and stigma-related stress (e.g., discrimination).
Grant Title: “The Price of Stigma-Related Stress on Violence-Exposed Sexual Minority Women’s Mental Health and Coping Strategies”
Abstract: Sexual minority women (SMW) are disproportionately exposed to trauma, including sexual assault, chronic and acute stressors stemming from societal devaluation of their sexual identity (i.e., minority stress), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This project aims to uncover trauma-exposed SMW’s unique needs and experiences.
Lolade Siyonbola
Lolade Siyonbola is an African Studies Master’s student at Yale. A recipient of the Gates-Cambridge Scholarship, Lolade will begin her doctoral studies at Cambridge later this year.
Grant Title: “Nigerian Women and Black Representation: Constructing Cross-National Identities through Film and Media”
Abstract: Her investigation of the assimilation trajectories of second-generation Nigerian immigrants includes an analysis of the role of film and media in the distinct identity development and assimilation experiences of Nigerian millennial women. She is particularly interested in the role Nigerian women filmmakers and content producers play in the development of Black cultural capital and how their identity experiences both inform their film and media work and are informed by the media they consume. Through this work, Lolade hopes to inject African experiences into global discourses on Black representation and ethnic identification.
Alvin Tran
Alvin Tran, ScD, MPH, CHES is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale School of Medicine. His research focuses on the intersection of body image, disordered eating behaviors, and racial and sexual minority health. Dr. Tran is an advocate for the prevention of eating disorders and was the 2018 recipient of the SPARK Impact Award for Activism and Issue Advocacy by the City of Boston. At Yale, he is currently conducting research to inform the creation of learning games aimed at promoting healthy behaviors among youth in Connecticut.
Grant Title: “Experiences with Appearance-Based Discrimination Among Broadcast Journalists”
Abstract: This mixed methods study aims to administer a cross-sectional, online survey to female broadcast news journalists (e.g., on-air reporters and anchors) working in the United States. The online survey will include open- and closed-ended questions to respectively assess the body image ideals and experiences with discrimination of these women.
