Global Gender Studies - University at Buffalo

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Faculty & Staff

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Masani Alexis De Veaux, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Global Gender Studies; Ph.D. (American Studies); Adjunct, African American Studies (email: deveaux@acsu.buffalo.edu)

Professor De Veaux is an artist-activist-scholar whose work is nationally and internationally known. As an artist and lecturer, she has traveled extensively throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Japan and Europe; and is associated with a number of women's groups, professional, literary and activist communities servicing populations within and outside the United States.

Publications/Research Interests
A diversified writer, she is published in five languages-English, Dutch, Japanese, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish; her poems, short stories and articles have appeared in numerous anthologies and publications of black women's literature, women's literature, lesbian and gay literature. Professor De Veaux is the author of several notable works including a fictionalized memoir, Spirits in the Street (1973); Don't Explain, A Song of Billie Holiday (1980), a biography of the legendary jazz artist; two independently published poetry collections, Blue Heat (1985) and Spirit Talk (1997); and two award-winning children's books. In 1997, one of her poems was selected for the prestigious Christmas Broadside Series published under the auspices of the Friends of the University Libraries, SUNY at Buffalo. She is the author of the award-winning biography, Warrior Poet, A Biography of Audre Lord (Norton 2004). In other media, Professor De Veaux's work appears on several recordings, including the highly-acclaimed album, Sisterfire (Olivia Records); in 1986, she produced the independent video documentary, "MOTHERLANDS: From Manhattan to Managua to Africa, Hand to Hand," in association with the MADRE Video Project. Her primary research interests concern investigations of the intersections between literature, creativity, and social change as aspects of women’s agency.

Teaching Interests
Professor De Veaux teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. Her courses examine historic and contemporary analyses of women's experiences; focusing on subjects such as global literary discourses, black women writers and the re-imagination of American culture, autobiography and biography, Black Feminist Theories: Writing Women’s Bodies, writing as methodology. She also teaches the introductory course in Global Gender Studies.

Marieme S. Lo, Assistant Professor, Global Gender Studies; Ph.D. (email: mslo@buffalo.edu)

Visit the UB Reporter website for a recent article on Dr. Marieme S. Lo.

Marieme S. Lo recently joined the Department of Women’s Studies as assistant professor. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, a recipient of the Abner Cohen and the Institute of Gender Studies fellowship award. A graduate from Cornell University with a Ph.D. and MS, Dr Lo areas of specialization include gender and development with special emphasis on education and human development, economic planning and policies, and agriculture and rural development. Her research has been supported by various research and grant awards among which the Gender and Global Change Dissertation Award and the Robert D. and Elizabeth Havener grant. Dr Lo brings with her valuable experiences in teaching, research and development practice as a gender and development specialist who has contributed to institution-building of grassroots women’s organizations; the drafting and review of the Beijing Platform for Action; cross-national and cross-sectoral gender assessment and mainstreaming of development programs; and the elaboration of Country Strategic Plans and Policy Frameworks addressing the nexus between poverty and inequality, democratic governance, education and human development, health and economic growth in Africa.

Publications/Research Interests
Dr Lo’s research interests include the politics and economics of gender and development. She pursues an active and interdisciplinary research program including a study on the effects of social learning and diasporic social networks on women’s livelihood diversification, poverty alleviation, and social change. Additionally, she examines the social embeddedness of female entrepreneurship, a subtext in the growth of the informal economy, and the articulations between global economic shift, globalization, environmental change, and the dislocation and reordering of local economies in Africa. She also explores emerging paradigms in the intersection between development, disaster and human security.

She is currently finalizing a book manuscript entitled, Disjuncture between Theory and Practice: Accounting for Complexity and Heterogeneity in Female Entrepreneurship Development in Africa. The book is an adaptation of her dissertation that critically analyzes the social significance of female entrepreneurship and livelihood strategies in household welfare, decision-making, and intergenerational social mobility. It unveils the finance equity gap, intersectional subordination, and the pattern of consumption, accumulation, and reinvestment of women entrepreneurs’ assets to make a case for greater legal and social protection for women entrepreneurs involved in cross-border trade. Her second book project focuses on the gender dimension and human ecology of disaster and post-conflict reconstruction, the challenges of engendering human security in contexts in constant flux, and the mediating effects of social capital and social network in risk mitigation.

Teaching Interests
Dr Lo teaches the following undergraduate and graduate courses: WS 241 Women in Developing Countries: Socio-economic and Political Perspectives; WS 222 Gender Issues in Contemporary Africa; WS 560 International Organizations, Gender and Development; WS 561 Gender, Disaster and Human Security.

Piya Pangsapa, Assistant Professor, Global Gender Studies; Ph.D. (Sociology) (email: pangsapa@buffalo.edu)

Professor Pangsapa joined the GGS department in August 2001. She is former Director of Undergraduate Studies in GGS (formerly, Women’s Studies) and is an affiliated faculty member of the Asian Studies Program at UB. Her areas of specialization include gender, work and civic engagement in Southeast Asia.

Publications/Research Interests
Professor Pangsapa is the author of Textures of Struggle: The Emergence of Resistance among Garment Workers in Thailand (2007) published by Cornell University Press (Ithaca and London), Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8014-7376-0; Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8014-4591-0. Her book focuses on the experiences of Thai women who are employed at textile factories and examines how the all-encompassing nature of wage work speaks to issues of worker accommodation and resistance within various factory settings. For more information, go to http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4727 She is also co-author (with Mark J. Smith) of two forthcoming books, Environment and Citizenship: Integrating Justice, Responsibility and Civic Engagement, (Zed Books) Paperback ISBN-10: 1842779036 and Responsible Politics: Bringing Together Labor Standards, Environment, and Human Rights in the Global Corporate Economy, (Palgrave Macmillan) Paperback ISBN-10: 0230603939; Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0230603936; Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1842779033 Environment and Citizenship demonstrates how awareness of environmental hazards, injustices and new forms of risk is only effective when it generates strategies for political change and examines how environmental movements have become increasingly involved in governance processes at the national, regional and intergovernmental levels; Responsible Politics provides insights about the development of corporate responsibility into forms of corporate citizenship, and other potential stakeholders within policy making and considers the actual impact of the development of codes of responsible conduct and the implications of companies becoming signatories to the United Nations Global Compact.

Other notable publications include a contribution to a special Forum section for Global Social Policy titled, “Enslavement in Thailand: Southeast Asia as the Microcosm of 21st Century Slavery,” Global Social Policy Forum 7(1): 10-14, Global Social Policy 2007, Sage Publications, ISSN: 1468-0181; eISSN: 1741-2803; a theoretically informed co-authored chapter on methodology, “New controversies in phenomenology: between ethnography and discourse”, which appears in the prestigious Sage Handbook of Social Science Methodology, W. Outhwaite & S. Turner (eds.), Sage Publications (October 2007), ISBN 9781412901192; a reflective piece on identity and scholarship which appears in G. Beckett & G. Li (eds.), Strangers of the Academy: Asian Women Scholars in Higher Education, Sterling, VA., Stylus Publishing, LLC., (2006) ISBN 1-57922-120-3, and two forthcoming journal articles to appear in Journal of Contemporary Asia and International Migration.

Teaching Interests
Professor Pangsapa teaches classes related to the themes of women and work, gender and globalization, and ethnographic methods. Her ethnography class introduces graduate students to some of the research methods involved in conducting qualitative case studies such as studies that rely on oral testimony and oral histories, with a particular focus on feminist research work. Her other classes deal with women and work and women and global economic development. Her educational mission is to enable students to develop a deeper understanding of women’s roles in the local and global economy and to be able to critically look at the current processes of globalization and their impact on women and their families.

Professor Pangsapa has taught the following classes at UB: WS 540 New Ethnographic Methods: Researching Women’s Lives, WS 525 Women’s Movements: Contesting Modernities and Global Change; AMS 505/WS 517 Working Women in East Asia and the Global Economy; AMS 505 Working Women in East Asia: Labor Discipline and Resistance in the Factory; WS 466 Women, Work and Social Change; WS 401/WS 425 Women’s Movements; WS/AS 240 WS 375 Women in Contemporary Asia, WS 425 Women's Movements; WS 247 Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, and WS 205 Women in the Global System. Prof. Pangsapa offered a new graduate seminar, WS 560 Gender, Labor, and Environment in the Global Economy in Fall 2007.

Gwynn Thomas, Assistant Professor, Global Gender Studies; Ph.D (Political Science)
(email: gmthomas@buffalo.edu)

Please click here to download a copy of Professor Thomas's Resume (in Microsoft Word format)

Gwynn Thomas joined the Department of Women’s Studies in August of 2005 as an Assistant Professor after receiving her doctorate in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her areas of specialization include gender in state development, nationalism, citizenship, feminist and political theory, social movements, women in politics, and gender in Latin America. Given her interests, Dr. Thomas teaches classes on the intersection of politics, gender, and theory. Her classes include feminist thought, gendered theories of nationalism and citizenship, women in Latin America, gender and state development, and international feminist movements.

Publications/Research Interests
Dr. Thomas is currently revising a book manuscript entitled, Ties that Bind and Break: The Uses of Family in the Political Struggles of Chile, 1970-1990. Based on her dissertation, the project analyzes how beliefs about the family are often part of the strategies used by political actors in their attempts to gain control of the state, legitimate political projects, justify societal mobilization, criticize their opponents, and create a space from which to speak. Thus, the project examines how the family was used in the major political struggles of Chile from 1970-1990, namely the election of socialist president Allende, his overthrow and the establishment of the dictatorship of Pinochet, and the return of democracy in 1990. Dr. Thomas spent sixteen months in Chile researching her doctoral thesis. Her work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur and by a Tinker Research Grant. Additionally, she is currently examining the continuing role of maternal and familial discourse in defining the rights and responsibilities of citizenship not only for women, but also for men. In particular, she is analyzing the campaign of Michelle Bachelet, a member of the Chilean Socialist Party and the official candidate of the governing political coalition of the Concertación, who is poised to become Chile’s first woman president. Finally, a third large project centers on the how perceived consensus around gendered ideals facilitates the transmission of political discourses, policies and initiatives both within and between countries.

Barbara Wejnert, Associate Professor and Department Chair, Global Gender Studies (email: bwejnert@buffalo.edu)

Please click here to download a copy of Professor Wejnert's Resume (in Microsoft Word format)

Click here to read more about Professor Wejnert in the UB Reporter (HTML link)

Prof. Barbara Wejnert is Associate Professor and the Chair, and prior Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Women’s Studies. Prior to her appointment at the University at Buffalo she was a faculty at Cornell University, Georgia Southern University, University of Florida and Mickiewicz University in Poznan. She received PhD in political sociology and MA in sociology of family and gender from Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. She also pursued graduate studies at the University of Leiden, Netherlands.

Prof. Wejnert interdisciplinary research focuses on the world-wide diffusion of democracy and globalization of market, and their effect on gender equality, women’s health and gender policies. For this work she received grants from the Open Society Institute—the Soros Foundation (in 2005-07, 2003, 1996-1998), Ford Foundation (1996), Kosciuszko Foundation (1996), International Research and Exchange Board (2001-2002), National Endowments for the Humanities (1996, 1993), the Life Course Institute at Cornell (1995) and others.

Prof. Wejnert is an internationally known scholar in her filed and an award winning author of research papers. Her interdisciplinary research has been published in many leading peer reviewed journals. In addition to many published collaborative research, she is a sole author of publications in the American Sociological Review, the Annual Review of Sociology, the Marriage and Family Review, Journal of Consumer Policy, a monograph of the World Health Organization and others. She published two books Women in Post-Communism and Transition to Democracy in Eastern Europe and Russia. She has also created two research databases on Nations, Democracy and Development: 1800-1999 and its sub-set Gender, Democracy and Development 1970-2000, encompassing 200 years’ worth of information relating to more than 120 political, economic and social science indicators of 177 countries. She is currently preparing the database for broad scientific distribution.

Among her other current projects are preparations of two books on Diffusion of Democracy as well as Gender, Democracy and Development. She is also pursuing a rigorous field research program on gender policies, women’s well-being and health in democratizing Asian, Eastern European, and African countries. At University at Buffalo, she teaches courses on Contemporary Globalization, Quantitative Methods, Violence in Gendered World, and Gender and Society.

Adjunct Faculty

Catherine Collins, PhD, MS

Sherri Darrow, MS, PhD

Julia Hall, JD, MA

Bernadette Hoppe, JD, MA

Andrea B. Nikischer, M.S.

Catherine Collins, PhD, MS
Dr. Catherine Fisher Collins has an earned Doctoral degree from the State University at New York at Buffalo where she also received a Masters Degree in Allied Health Education, Evaluation and Curriculum Development. Dr.Collins completed her undergraduate studies at Buffalo State College were she received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Vocational Technical Education and at Trocaire College, where she graduated from the Registered Nurse Program. Dr. Collins is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and the first African American nurse practitioner to graduate from the University of Buffalo’s School of Nursing Nurse Practitioner program. In addition she holds three certifications in health education. In health career she has held professional positions in health as planning, education and administration. In education she has held positions as Assistant Academic Dean, Department Chair, Full professor, and currently she is an Associate Professor at SUNY Empire State College and Adjunct at State University of New York at Buffalo Women’s Studies Department. In these positions she works with undergraduate and graduate students in health and criminal justice. Dr. Collins has many honors among then SUNY Best Faculty Fellow, Community Services and Health Awards from the Governors of New York and New Jersey. She was the producer and host of WIVB channels 29, Health Service Information Program that aired for three years. She has over thirty awards among them: Urban League, Distinguish Alumni, AKA’s, Jaycees Attica Prison Branch, NAACP, Coalition of 100 Black Women, National Organization of Women, and Jack and Jill of America, Inc; Eastern Region. She served on the New York State Commission of Corrections Medical Review Board, the first nurse appointed by the governor to this position, which she held for over five years. In this capacity, Dr. Collins was charged with the review of all New York State prisoners’ health complaints and deaths. To her publishing credit are Sources of Stress and Relief for AfricanAmerican Women; The Imprisonment of African American Women the winner of the 1997 Outstanding Academic and Scholarly Award, and African American Women Health and Social Issues. While serving as National Editor for Jack and Jill of America. Inc; she produced two publications titled Up The Hill 1999 and 2000.She is under contract for three new books entitled African American Women’s Health and Social Issues Handbook (Greenwood Publishing Group), South Africa Women Prisoners and Prisoners: African American Women(McFarland Publishing Group). She serves as Field Reader of grants for the federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services and Reader for Educational Testing Service, College Boards Advance Placement Program. In 1999 she traveled to South Africa where she lectured at the University of South Africa Law School where Nelson Mendala received his law degree. During her visit she completed research for a book and video taped two women prisons. She has produced two South Africa videos that document her work/ visit. In 2000 she traveled to Nigeria to establish two Jack and Jill of America, Inc; chapters. Dr. Collins is a member of several community groups including BuffaloLinks, Naomi Chapters #10 Order of the Eastern Star PHA, Hadji Court #62, Daughters of Isis, NAACP Executive Board, and Buffalo Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc. She has served as president of the local Chapter of Jack and Jill and brought the Beautillion program that honors outstanding African American for their sponsorship. She has also held the following positions, Jack and Jill of American Eastern Region Director (1993-1995), National Editor (1998-2000) and is the immediate past National Vice President (2000-2002).

Sherrie Darrow, MS, PhD
After completing an undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies, I earned a Master’s of Science and Ph.D. in the jointly sponsored epidemiology program of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the School of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, at the University at Buffalo. My graduate research and postdoctoral research in women’s health included investigations of the relationships of women’s work, smoking and alcohol use, and sexual and reproductive histories, to the incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases. More recently, I have refocused my work to integrate feminist, epidemiologic, and public health methodology to investigate how science and bio-medicine constructs gender, race and reproduction, and how cultural discourses reflect and interact with pseudo-scientific ideas (i.e., “hormonal hurricanes” control women’s behaviors and limits women’s capabilities) to inform public policies and practices. Current research collaboration includes investigations of the reproductive lives of African American women with HIV/AIDS, the reproductive rights of women with mental and physical disabilities and the impact of tobacco industry campaigns on the health of women. Over the past three decades I have been an active member of the National Women’s Health Network and the American Public Health Association, a past member of the Coalition for Abortion Rights Against Sterilization Abuse and a founding member of the WNY Gay and Lesbian Jewish Mishpachah.

Bernadette Hoppe, JD, MA
Bernadette Hoppe, MA, JD, worked for 20 years in the public health and human services arena. Her experience includes HIV and perinatal program development and implementation for poor and underserved populations. She conducts trainings for health and human service professionals on a wide range of topics, including legal issues confronting high-risk pregnant women, screening for domestic violence in health settings, principles of harm reduction and the intersection statutory rape and child abuse laws. She has an extensive history in community organizing and board involvement, and is currently on the Board of Directors for the New York State Perinatal Association. Her community contributions have been recognized by a variety of organizations, including the Business First Forty under 40 award, Planned Parenthood of Niagara County’s Margaret Sanger Award and the National Organization for Women’s Women Helping Women award. She graduated cum laude from the University at Buffalo School of Law, with a concentration in health law. She is admitted to practice in New York. She also holds a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies, and she is on faculty in the Women’s Studies Department at SUNY/ Buffalo. She is currently working towards a Master’s in Public Health.

Andrea B. Nikischer, M.S.
Andrea Nikischer is an educator with over ten years of experience providing violence prevention training to schools, businesses and community groups. Andrea began her career as a Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Victim Advocate at Crisis Services of Western New York. She went on to become the Education Director of the Citizens’ Committee on Rape, Sexual Assault and Sexual Abuse (CORSA), and she served two terms as the Chairwoman of the Erie County Coalition Against Family Violence. Currently, Andrea is the Statewide Office Project Manager for the New York State Area Health Education Center System. In addition to teaching Violence in a Gendered World, Andrea teaches the Family Violence and the MedicalProvider unit of the Clinical Practice of Medicine (CPM 1) for UB’s School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Andrea has received awards for her work from the National Organization for Women and the Erie County Coalition Against Family Violence. Andrea completed her Masters Degree in Adult Education in December 2002. She has served as Chair of the YWCA of Western New York Racial Justice Committee since January 2003 and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Social Foundations of Education program in the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education.

African American Studies
Jessie Carter
http://wings.buffalo.edu/academic/department/AandL/aas/faculty/carter/carter.htm

Prof. Lillian Williams
http://wings.buffalo.edu/academic/department/AandL/aas/faculty/williams/williams.htm

Anthropology
Prof. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo
http://anthropology.buffalo.edu/Faculty/bacigalupo.htm

Prof. Barbara Tedlock
http://wings.buffalo.edu/anthropology/Faculty/tedlock.htm

Architecture
Prof. Hadas Steiner
http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/architecture/people/steiner.asp

Prof. Beth Tauke
http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/architecture/people/tauke.asp

Art History
Prof. Martin Berger (no website available at this time)

Prof. Elizabeth Otto
http://wings.buffalo.edu/academic/department/AandL/ahi/facultystaff/otto.html

Prof. Jolene Rickard
http://wings.buffalo.edu/academic/department/AandL/ahi/facultystaff/rickard.html

American Studies
Prof. Ruth Meyerowitz
http://www.cas.buffalo.edu/depts/americanstudies/meyerowitz_bio.shtml

Prof. John Mohawk
http://www.cas.buffalo.edu/depts/americanstudies/mohawk_bio.shtml

Classics
Prof. Susan Cole
http://www.classics.buffalo.edu/faculty.htm