WGSS Alumni Are Leaders in Their Fields

Loretta Addo-Danso '21 graduate certificate

As a current legal advocate for survivors, she has been able to apply the theories and lessons gained from WGSS in her work with survivors! She will also be starting her PhD in Criminology at the University of Delaware this fall. Loretta looka forward to conducting more research on gender based violence, feminism and intesectionality theory in hopes that her studies helps shape policy making and implementation in the country and worldwide.

Radiance Campbell '19 minor

Radiance Campbell (BS '19): Recently completed her first year at Georgetown Law and began her position as a Lane Evans Home Court Fellow at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. She is thrilled to continue working on issues of housing justice and becoming a part of the legal and organizing community Washington, D.C.! She is a Blume Public Interest Scholar.

Alexandra Daggett '19 minor

Alexandra just finished her first-year teaching at Eisenhower High School in Decatur. She is the new sponsor for the Gay-Straight Alliance, and a founding member of the new district LGBT committee. She is very proud to have been one of six teachers nominated for teacher of the year! She was the only first-year teacher to receive this distinction!

Kaitlyn Tossie '17 graduate certificate

Kaitlyn Tossie (MS '17) is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Kansas. She has also recently been appointed as Managing Editor of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. Her dissertation explores how American playwrights remember and memorialize twenty-first century American traumas such as 9/11, the war on terror, and the Sandy Hook shooting. She expects to graduate in Spring 2022.

Venise Keys '16 graduate certificate

Venise is a full-time visual art teacher at the Art In Motion Creative Charter School in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. Her writing has been published in Adjunct Riot, a 'zine crafted by Amy Fleming. She has also written "The People's Church of the G.H.E.T.T.O.," for Sixty Inches From Center. The article explore commemoration and healing through a Black Feminist burlesque performance honoring Audre Lorde. She is a member artist at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago and her art appeared in the TOUCH virtual exhibit in June 2020. Venise's virtual art show in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Rachel Cooper Gallery can be viewed here. She recently had her article'We Need to Have Black Feminist Ideas in Arts Education,' published in Hyperallergic, an online arts magazine. Venise is a new charter member of Gamma Xi Phi Professional Art Fraternity, Inc., Kappa Chapter is South Side Chicago.

Emily Johnston '16 graduate certificate

Emily Johnston (PhD '16) is the Associate Director of the Dimensions of Culture Writing Program at the University of San Diego, where she is also a lecturer. She has received two teaching awards. She was nominated for both the Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award and recently awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award (2021). Her co-authored study on teaching empathy in first-year writing courses was accepted for publication by College Composition & Communication .

Kevin Mell '16 minor

Started his first year in the DePaul University College of Law, where he is a student member of the National Lawyers Guild. He is also a trained Legal Observer who monitors police conduct during organized actions and ensures that activists who are arrested during a protest are given access to a pro bono attorney.

Fabiola Rosiles '16 minor

Currently pursuing her master's degree in women's and gender studies at DePaul University in Chicago, where she focuses on analyzing systems of oppression towars people of color in academic spaces and the experiences of Latinas in the academy.
Serves as graduate assistant with Take Back the Halls, a teen dating violence prevention and community activism program, and works with the DePaul Women's Center.

Brooke Barnhart '15 minor

Completed her first year in the Gender and Women's Studies Master's Program at University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Served as a teaching assistant for both Introduction to LGBTQ Studies and the Introduction to WGS course.

Emma Belz '15 minor

Emma is pursuing her Master's degree in College Personnel Administration at Illinois State University and is currently working as a graduate assistant in Heartland Community College's Office of Engagement. She is an intern in Health Promotion and Wellness working on survivor support services and violence prevention education. She also volunteers with Stepping Stones.

Malia Haanio '15 minor

Recently returned from China where she taught kindergarten and 1st grade English language.
Accepted a position in a domestic violence and sexual assault prevention organization in Denver, Colorado.

Matt Rillie '15 minor

Matthew works at Columbia College in Chicago as the Coordinator of Student Support and Engagement in Student Diversity and Inclusion. He works to create and grow networks of support and education to help students explore how their identities impact how they navigate the world. He also advises Columbia Pride and the Trans Student Union, the two main LGBTQ+ student support groups on campus. His WGSS education at Illinois State University has been a foundation of his work. He attests so much of his critical thinking and intentional work to his time in the program.

Flourice Richardson '15 graduate certificate

Has had a major publication in Communicating Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in Technical Communication by editors Dr. Miriam F. Williams and Dr. Octavio Pimental.
Completed doctorate in English Studies at ISU.
Served as an instrumental leader in the creation of Umoja: Celebration of Black Graduates on ISU's campus.

Tomas Bolivar '14 minor

Admissions Counselor at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. He uses his WGSS knowledge every day to craft diversity initiatives for a new recruitment protocol.
Recently accepted into the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Master's Program at Loyola.

Erin Frost '13 graduate certificate

Erin Frost, (PhD '13; MA '09) is an associate professor of English at East Carolina University. She recently co-edited (with Michelle Eble), a collection of article titled Interrogating Gendered Pathologies (Utah State University Press, 2020). The collection uses a range of complementary and intersectional theoretical approaches, to examine rhetoric's role in healthcare, how it differs depending on patient embodiment and the ways nonnormative bodies are pathologized.

Tyler R Flockhart '12 graduate certificate

Tyler R Flockhart (MS '12) credits his love of sociology to his time as ISU and the courses he took with Dr. Gerschick. He is currently an assistant professor of sociology at Viterbo University where he teaches a range of courses on family, sex and gender, race and ethnicity, juvenile justice, research methods, and institutional inequalities. His research interests include the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), racially conservative and extremist groups, inequalities in parent-LGBTQ child relationships, and homophobia and heterosexism in popular television shows.

Danny Matthews '11 minor

Assistant Director of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Resource Center within the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations at University of Illinois.

Erica Thurman '09 minor

Writes and manages grants and contracts with the National Partnership for Women and Families, in Washington, D.C.
Has had six book chapters accepted for publication in a three-book series on race and American television.
Blogs at Life Behind the Veil.

Jenna Goldsmith '08 minor, '10 graduate certificate, '20 Outstanding Young Alumni Award Winner

Jenna earned her PhD in English from the University of Kentucky in 2016. Jenna recently returned to ISU as the Assistant Director and Academic Advisor for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Previously, she was a Senior Instructor of Writing at Oregon State University Cascades in Bend, Oregon. She has published two poetry chapbooks: Genesis Near the River (blush books, 2019), and Suppose the Room Just Got Brighter (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming). This spring she returned to campus to receive the prestigious Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Visit her website.

Katelyn Wood '07 minor

Katelyn Hale Wood (BA '07) is an assistant professor in theater history and performance at the University of Virginia. She has a new book Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century United States . It was release in June and they tells us: 'It's been a joy to finally see the book out in the world!'

Andrew Anastasia '06 minor

Andrew was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor of English at Harper College. He was a member of the 2019-2020 Social Justice Leadership Cohort at Harper and completed his final project on developing equity-based, trauma-informed curricular infusions for faculty to implement across campus. Recent conference presentations and invited talks have included creating trauma-informed composition classrooms and working with white, heterosexual, cisgender fragility in the classroom through understanding psychosomatic responses to discomfort and cognitive dissonance.

Sarah Ehlers '04 minor

Sarah Ehlers (BA '04) is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Houston. She is the author of Left of Poetry Depression American and the Formation of Modern Poetics (2019) reports that she has spent the past year adjusting to online teaching. She recently began her term as the director of Graduate Studies in the English department at UH.

Jody L Herman '99 graduate certificate

Jody L. Herman (BA '99) was recently promoted to Senior Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute, a research center at the UCLA School of Law focused on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy. Her work focuses on the prevalence and impact of discrimination against transgender people. She's currently serving as co-principal investigator on the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey and is working on several papers examining the relationship between mental health indicators and access to gender-affirming care for trans adults. She is also working on updated estimates on the size and demographic characteristics of the U.S. trans population and two NIH-funded studies that seek to improve sexual orientation and gender identity mortality data and the health and experiences of nonbinary youth. Based in Los Angeles, she splits her time between LA and Peoria, IL, where she grew up.