I do my best to be guided by my curiosity and my values. This is why I returned to graduate school for a master’s in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies - Feminist Practices for Social Change. I believe our social structures and norms need to be radically transformed, and I want to be part of solutions that create a more equitable, inclusive society. I focused my academic interests and research on the normalization of violence within society, culture, and media.

Relevant Courses

  • Women & Politics: Political theory and feminism

  • Indigenous Perspective - Feminist Theory and Practice: Indigenous knowledge and colonialism 

  • Feminist Global Advocacy for Human Rights - Climate Change: Human rights advocacy, policy, in regards to the climate crisis and Just Transition

  • Feminist Economics: Questioning ‘Value,’ the Care Economy, and Neoliberalism

  • Transformative Justice & Abolition Geography: Dismantling the prison industrial complex and centering community healing

Projects

Recipient of Rutgers University’s 2022/23 Master’s Award for Best Practicum

  • Feminist Media - Disrupting the Normalization of Gender-Based Violence: My graduate practicum project analyzed the role media, language, and communication play in reinforcing or disrupting the normalization of the global, systemic issue of gender-based violence. I grounded my analysis in colonialism, patriarchy, and racism. Specifically, I compared Missing White Woman Syndrome and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls to highlight how media bias reflects the bias of culture in the United States and in turn, influences what the public deems important. From my research, I helped develop the first stage of an educational app that would educate and teach journalists how to report on gender-based violence without replicating harm.