FemIDEAS

Dr Anna Bull is a Lecturer in Education and Social Justice at the University of York, and a founder and director of The 1752 Group, a research and campaign organisation addressing staff sexual misconduct in higher education. She is currently Principal Investigator on the ESRC-funded research project 'Examining Institutional Responses to Sexual Misconduct: Higher Education After #MeToo'. Her research interests include class and gender inequalities in classical music education; and sexual misconduct in higher education. Anna is a regular commentator in the media on sexual misconduct in higher education and has authored various academic and public-facing reports and articles in this area. Most recently she has co-authored The 1752 Group and McAllister Olivarius' Sector Guidance to address staff sexual misconduct in UK higher education.

Diana Ojeda is Associate Professor in sustainability, environment and development at the Interdisciplinary Center for Development Studies (Cider), Universidad de los Andes. Her research bridges political ecology, feminist geopolitics and studies of science in the study of socioenvironmental conflicts, particularly in relation to environmental conservation, climate change mitigation and nature tourism. She serves currently as Chair of the Disciplinary Committee Against Harm, Harassment, Threat, Discrimination and Gender Based Violence (MAAD) at Uniandes. Diana Ojeda holds a BA in Economics and a BA in History (Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia), and is MA and PhD in Geography (Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA).

Dr Elisabet le Roux is Research Director of the Unit for Religion and Development Research at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. To date, she has delivered a range of evaluation and formative research projects in 24 countries across four continents, with a particular focus on violence against women and girls, gender equality, women's participation and a critical lens on the important roles of religion and culture. She has done this research with and for intergovernmental agencies, government departments, development networks, faith-based organisations, non-governmental organisations and research networks. Elisabet has a proven track record in mixed methodology research including a series of longer-term, multi-country evaluations and studies. More recently, she has been prioritising the development and use of innovative, creative, participatory and feminist research methods, and she is increasingly assisting development organisations in developing their overarching strategic approaches to religion, culture and violence against women and girls.

MD, MSc, MEcon (c), and PhD in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (United Kingdom). Currently public health professor at Departamento de Salud Pública, School of Medicine, Universidad de Valparaíso (Chile). Previous associate professor at the Department of Health Promotion and Community Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut (Lebanon, from 2019 to 2022). Teaching and research interests in collective health, collective action and social movements in Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, and the development of Latin American Critical Thinking and Dialectical Methodologies in the field of Public Health. “Francisco Mercado” Award for best doctoral thesis in qualitative health research in Ibero-America in 2020, titled “Collective participation in health in Valle del Huasco, Northern Chile: a critical ethnography of institutional spaces for participation and social movements in a context of environmental conflict”.

Furaha Joy Sekai Saungweme is a lawyer, researcher, legislative drafter and gender activist. She is the founder of Africa End Sexual Harassment Initiative (AESHI), a law reform and social movement project. She is a fellow of Women Leaders for the World, a project of How Women Lead based in USA, California which is a champion for promoting women in leadership. Furaha sits on the Editorial Board of the Berkeley University Centre on Comparative Equality and Antidiscrimination Law and is part of the Berkeley COVID-19 Equality Law Working Group. She has published book chapters and journal articles on democracy, gender and socio-economic rights in Africa, presenting her research as an invited speaker at academic institutions in Africa, Europe and the USA.

Dr. J. Anitha Menon is a Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Zambia. She is currently a Visiting Professor of Psychology in The International Studies Department at the American University of Sharjah. Prof. Menon holds a Ph.D. in Psychiatry/Health Psychology from the University of Nottingham, UK. Dr. Menon is passionate about improving young people's and vulnerable populations' well-being. For more than 25 years she has been actively involved in various research and service-related projects on gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health. She is the team leader for various international projects and has more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Menon has been featured in various international media and has received many awards. Some of the prominent ones are, the Labor Day Award from the Government of the Republic of Zambia for Innovation and Excellence, the UK Alumni Award for Professional Achievement, and the African Women Leaders Award in December 2019. Recently, the International Council of Psychologists announced Dr. Menon as the 2022 recipient of the Denmark Gunvald award for Feminist Research and Service.

Dr Leena Pujari is a feminist sociologist and researcher who believes in teaching for social transformation and in nurturing critical and analytical minds. Currently she is Associate Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, K C College. Her research interests include Gender Studies in particular issues of feminist pedagogy, feminist resistance and feminist jurisprudence. She has chapters in edited volumes and articles in national and international journals including Sage and EPW. She has been invited for Consultations by UNICEF and has delivered invited lectures at Universities and colleges across India and has been a resource person at Certificate courses, Orientation, Refresher and short term courses conducted by University of Mumbai, Columbia Global Centre, Mumbai, SOAS University, London, IMPRI, New Delhi, Population First, UNICEF. As member of the Board of Studies in Sociology of University of Mumbai during 2012-2022, she has contributed extensively to curriculum design and development especially in the field of Feminist Sociology. She has also designed and developed two Certificate Courses that are offered by the Dept. of Sociology. One is a course in Gender Studies and the other on Law, Justice and Rights. Both the courses adopt an intersectional lens to take a critical look at complex social realities.

Dr Melany Cruz is a Lecturer in International Politics (Global South) at the University of Leicester. Her research interests include meanings of political violence in Latin America particularly looking at violence and nonviolence in resistance movements and civil disobedience. Her current research project 'Nonviolent resistance in the Chilean Feminist movement' explores the resurgence of the feminist movement in Chile observing two aspects: (i) the formation of feminist consciousness as a political project in a context of neoliberal crisis and (ii) understandings of the meanings of violence and civil disobedience within the movement i.e., political-sexual violence, feminicide, and the idea of precariousness of life. She is also broadly interested in the history of feminist political ideas in Latin America, political theory and theory of emotions.

Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi is a multi-award winning global gender equality advocate with experience in deploying solutions to challenge social barriers that promote violence against women and girls and utilises social and behaviour change communication to improve Sexual and Gender-based Violence knowledge and change attitudes and practices in order to achieve Gender Equality. She collaborates with state and non-state actors to implement policy and programmatic strategies to foster women's rights and safety. In 2019, she partnered with the BBC Africa Eye team on the #SexforGrades documentary to uncover the practise and scale of sextortion in Nigeria’s institution of higher learning, which led to the sack of some abusive lecturers, institutional changes and national policy action. As a young feminist and Founding Member of the Feminist Coalition, Oluwaseun is leveraging her voice to deconstruct sociopolitical structures that limit women’s rights, championing policy initiatives and empowering women and girls to fight inequalities in their daily lives. She is recognised as a 2020 Global Citizen Nigeria Hero, UN Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals, TIME 100 NEXT and serves as the Executive Director of Stand to End Rape Initiative (STER), a youth-led social enterprise advancing gender equality and fighting to end sexual and gender-based violence in Nigeria.

Radha D'Souza is a critical scholar, social justice campaigner, barrister, and writer from India. Radha teaches law at the School of Law in University of Westminster where she chairs the Law, Development and Conflict (LDC) Research Group. Her research addresses problems of colonialism and neo-colonialism, resources conflicts (especially land and water), and comparative theory and philosophy. Her publications transcend disciplines and genres. Together with visual artist Jonas Staal, she is the co-producer of Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (the CICC), a performative art exhibition based on her book What’s Wrong With Rights? Social Movements, Law and Liberal Imaginations (Pluto, 2018). Different iterations of the CICC were hosted in Amsterdam, Munster, Helsinki, Seoul and Gwanju (April 2023). Besides publishing extensively in a number of disciplines, and for non-academic platforms hosted by social movements, Radha has been part of theatre productions, published short stories and poems and translated Dalit poetry.

Dr Sabah Boufkhed is currently a Lecturer in Global Health at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at The University of Manchester. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL’s Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London’s Cicely Saunders Institute for Palliative Care and Rehabilitation. She is an interdisciplinary global health researcher committed to social justice. Her research topics include preparedness and response to public health emergencies, labour exploitation and migrant workers’ health, and global palliative care. She currently researches care workers’ labour conditions and exploitation and their impact on health during the pandemic in six countries in Europe and the Americas. Sabah supports a human-centred and social determinant of health approach to improve preparedness and response to public health emergencies. She is actively engaged outside of Academic. She co-founded organisations aiming at empowering and supporting women and ‘minorities’ in science and academia, is a Trustee for an NGO in Global Health and Development and a migration expert for an international development think-tank.

Silvana Tapia Tapia is Leverhulme Fellow at Birmingham Law School and Assistant Professor of Law at Universidad del Azuay. She is an interdisciplinary socio-legal scholar and activist working at the intersections of violence against women, international human rights, and criminal justice, with a feminist, decolonial and anti-carceral perspective.

Willice O. Abuya is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Moi University, Kenya. He obtained his PhD (in Sociology) from the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. His area of specialisation is in Gender (including GBV/IPV), Demography (including reproductive health and child survival) &Environmental Sociology. He has several publications to his name, with the most recent being “Gender Mainstreaming for Sustainable Mining in Sub-Saharan Africa: opportunities and challenges, 2022. In Yakovleva, N. and Nickless, E. (eds.) The Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development. Routledge, London”. He has been involved in several research projects, the most recent being with the University of California, LA (‘End Violence on Campus’- a GBV/IPV project), with the University of Leeds (on youth reproductive and sexual health), with the University of Rome at Sapienza, Italy (on biomass energy and sustainability), and with the University of Geneva (on violence against environmental defenders).

Louisa Acciari is a Senior Research Fellow at UCL and the Co-Director of the Centre for Gender and Disaster. Her research looks at gender in the world of labour through an intersectional and decolonial lens, and in particular, how marginalised and informal women workers organise to defend their rights. Before joining UCL in 2020, Louisa worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro for 2 years, and has extensive experience in conducting research, consultancy and training on gender and labour rights with the ILO, the International Domestic Workers’ Federation, Solidarity Centre and the OECD, among others. She has a Master in Comparative Politics - Latin America (Sciences Po Paris) and a PhD in Gender Studies (LSE).