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Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty
From physiology to cinema and photography, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies is comprised of a wide variety of core faculty and staff. We want your education to cover all bases that effect every topic that you're passionate about!
Lisa Brooten, Professor
Radio, Television, and Digital Media
Lisa Brooten, PhD, is a Professor in the College of Arts and Media at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA. Her research and publications focus on authoritarianism and media, human rights and media, media reform and democratization, social movement media, community and indigenous media, and the interplay of journalism, media reform advocacy and affect and trauma. Her regional expertise is in Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand, where she has travelled and conducted fieldwork for many years, including a Fulbright Research Fellowship in 2007-2008, and an ASEAN Fulbright Research Fellowship in 2021-2022. She has consulted for Freedom House, Radio Free Asia Burmese Service and PEN American Center. She is an associate editor of Media Asia and lead editor of Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change (ISEAS, 2019).View Full Bio
Office: COMM 1050G
lbrooten@siu.edu
Jane Elizabeth Dougherty, Associate Professor
Dr. Dougherty is a scholar of Irish women’s literature of the eighteenth-, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. She teaches courses on Irish literature and culture, cultural studies, and composition.
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Office: Faner, Room 2262
Phone: 618-453-6843
dohugany@siu.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Laurel Jean Fredrickson, Associate Professor
Art History
Laurel Jean Fredrickson (Ph.D., Duke, 2007) is a historian of contemporary and modern art with a global emphasis. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on cross-cultural and transnational intersections of experimental art and political dissent from the 1960s to the present.
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Allyn Building 6D
618-453-4987
lfredrickson@siu.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Jaime Leigh Gray, Assistant Professor, History and Culture
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Allison Hammer, Assistant Professor and WGSS Coordinator
K. Allison Hammer is an interdisciplinary scholar and critic of American culture, gender, and sexuality in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Their work brings together a diverse archive of historical and contemporary literature, performance, film, and media. As a professor, they are interested in helping students understand and theorize the complexities of gender and sexuality in transnational contexts and the relationship to race, colonialism, and permanent war.
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Office: Faner 4034
Phone: 618-453-7147
kallison.hammer@siu.edu
Curriculum Vitae
José Najar, Associate Professor
José D. Najar is an Assistant Professor of History at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He received his B.A.s in Sociology and Latin American Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Ph. D. from Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a historian of nineteenth and twentieth-century Brazil and Latin America. His work focuses on whiteness and non-European diasporas in the Americas, gender inequality, imperialism, anti-colonial resistance, and transnationalism and transimperialism as historical methods.
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Faner Hall 3374
618-453-7872
jnajar@siu.edu
Heather M. O'Brien-Takahashi, Assistant Professor
Cinema
Heather M. O’Brien-Takahashi is an artist, filmmaker, and writer. She works in film/video, photography, and installation to build encounters with familial archives, constructs of nationhood, and the illusion of accurate memory.
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Office: COMM 1050B
heather.obrien@siu.edu
Website: heathermobrien.com
Sandy Pensoneau-Conway, Coordinator of Graduate Studies
Communication Studies
Sandy Pensoneau-Conway is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and serves as the graduate coordinator. She received a B.S. (cum laude) in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (1999), an M.S. in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2001), and a Ph.D. in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2006).
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Comm Building 2249
618-453-2215
sandypc@siu.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Rachel Whaley, Associate Professor
Dr. Whaley's research and teaching interests are in the sociology of gender and criminology and the intersection of the two subfields. Past research has examined the macro-level correlates of rape and female homicide victimization using data on US cities and micro-level correlates of adolescent substance use. Of particular focus is the role of gender as a social structure on both macro-level and micro-level phenomenon. Dr. Whaley is trained in quantitative research methods and statistical analyses. Current works in progress relate to men’s coping with obesity and how it relates to ideas about masculinity, subjective feelings about gender identity and belief in cultural gender stereotypes, criminal victimization and fear among people opting for life on the road, college students’ views about social inequalities, and explaining trends in traditional gendered expectations. Dr. Whaley also has experience working in applied research centers and is working on developing related courses.
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Office: Faner 3434
Phone: 618-453-7631
whaley@siu.edu
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Chris Wienke, Associate Professor
Dr. Wienke joined Sociology in Fall 2008. His work is primarily in the areas of mental health, family, gender, and sexuality.
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Office: Faner 3432
Phone: 618-453-7629
cwienke@siu.edu
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Hale Yilmaz, Associate Professor
Dr. Hale Yılmaz received her Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 2006. Her research and teaching interests center on Middle Eastern history, including Turkish history and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Dr. Yılmaz previously taught at the University of Montana.
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Faner Hall 3181List of all graduate instructors
| Name | Title | Bio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bailey Saldana | Graduate Instructor | saldana@siu.edu | Bailey Saldana is a doctoral student in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. She has also completed her graduate certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from SIU-C. Her teaching and research interests include violent and sexual victimization, offender and victim rehabilitation, criminological theory, and qualitative research methods. |