Feminist Scholars Fellowship
Dr. Keisha Lindsay, Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies, and Political Science: Speaker and expert on how the intersection of race, gender, and class inequality shapes public schooling, gay rights activism, sexual harassment, and police brutality.
She has received numerous honors and awards for her teaching and research including the 2021 Exceptional Service Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the American Political Science Association’s 2019 Michael Harrington Book Award. In addition, she is the recipient of the 2019 Alex Willingham Paper Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the 2016 Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Teaching Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Keisha Lindsay is the author of the critically acclaimed In a Classroom of Their Own: The Intersection of Race and Feminist Politics in All-Black Male Schools, which examines the simultaneously anti-racist and sexist politics behind the push to establish separate schools for Black boys. Her second book manuscript in-progress explores how Anita Hill, Michelle Obama, and other self-defined Black ladies in the African diaspora use hyper-feminine grooming and demeanor to cast themselves as effective civic and political leaders in the fight against racism.
Keisha Lindsay is a member of the American Political Science Association’s Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession, serves on the editorial board of The National Political Science Review and Politics & Gender, and is the Review Editor for Politics, Groups, and Identities. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in gender and development studies from The University of the West Indies, and a bachelor’s degree in political science and Black studies from Amherst College.
Deborah A. Hobbins Graduate Student Award in Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice
Yasmine Ansari: (she/they/او) Abolitionist feminist scholar whose research lies at the intersection of the anthropology of reproduction, postcolonial studies of science, medicine, and technology, and Middle Eastern gender and sexuality studies. Yasmine is currently a PhD student in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She holds an MSc in International Relations of the Middle East from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and International Studies from Seattle University. Her research critically examines how colonialism and imperialism have shaped reproductive policies, discourses, and practices in the Middle East over the twentieth century, with a particular focus on modern Iran.
Project Summary: While there is a growing body of scholarship on the lived experiences of Iranian women political prisoners, no published study to date has examined menstruation as a distinct site of injustice through which state violence is enacted and contested within prisons and detention centers in Iran. #TalkAboutYourPeriod: Embodied Narratives of Incarceration and Menstrual Injustice During the Jina Uprising offers one of the first in-depth analyses of incarcerated menstruation in the Iranian context.
This project centers the narratives and testimonies of dissidents and protesters arrested and detained during the 2022–2023 Jina Uprising (also known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement), focusing on their experiences of menstruation within Iranian carceral institutions. The study investigates official regulations governing the provision of menstrual products in women’s prisons in Iran, as well as the ways menstruation shapes the lived experience of incarceration. It asks: What modalities of menstrual injustice do incarcerated menstruators encounter? How are affective dynamics associated with menstrual stigma – such as shame, humiliation, disgust, and distress -mobilized to discipline and control the gendered bodies of incarcerated menstruators? And what strategies do incarcerated individuals develop to manage menstrual distress, support one another, and resist carceral power?
To address these questions, the project analyzes a corpus of tweets shared under the hashtag #ازپریودبگو (#TalkAboutYourPeriod) by dissidents and protesters detained during the Jina uprising. In addition, it draws on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with former political prisoners, focusing on their experiences of menstruation during incarceration in the same period. Through reflexive thematic analysis of both tweets and interview transcripts, the project (1) identifies recurring modalities of menstrual injustice within Iranian carceral spaces, (2) analyze how the shame, humiliation, and disgust associated with menstruation are weaponized to punish, degrade, and discipline incarcerated menstruators, and (3) document the strategies that incarcerated menstruators develop to manage menstrual distress and discomfort and to care for one another under coercive carceral conditions. Ultimately, it suggests that such practices, imposed on gendered bodies of incarcerated populations, constitute a distinct form of gendered state violence and conclude by making a case for prison abolition.
Yasmine will use the award to support interview-based fieldwork and conference participation. She will also present aspects of this research at the Middle East Studies Association 60th Annual Meeting and as part of the Fall 2026 Colloquium series organized by the Center for Research on Gender and Women at UW–Madison.
John Clarence De Cleene Scholarship
Angeline Morgado: My research focuses on the gendered conditions and challenges affecting Venezuelan migrant women, particularly how social discourses and imaginaries shape their experiences of migration and inclusion. These narratives often influence how Venezuelan women in the diaspora are perceived, affecting their access to work opportunities, their social integration, and their exposure to discrimination and vulnerability. This includes examining heightened risks during migration routes and analyzing barriers in host countries, as well as the ways in which hypersexualizing stereotypes and criminalizing narratives position Venezuelan women differently from their male counterparts. I am interested in analyzing how these stereotypes influence social imaginaries of Venezuelan women, and how those are shaped by regional beauty standards and Venezuela’s historical association with pageantry culture. The grant will be allocated toward research materials, including books, archival and oral sources, as well as additional resources necessary to support this research project.
Irene L. De Cleene Scholarship
Viviane Graham: Social work student with a certificate in global health and gender and women’s studies. Viviane’s academic interests center on how systemic inequalities shape health outcomes, particularly for women and marginalized communities. Through her studies and upcoming graduate program, Viviane is exploring community-based approaches to care, with a focus on culturally responsive health practices. This award will support Viviane in furthering her academic and professional goals as a medical social worker.
Hyde Dissertation Research Award
Anupama Kumar: I will be using the Hyde dissertation award to support my ethnographic research in Kerala, India, where I will study a how women work with a private company and local government to collect and recycle plastic trash. I will follow the journey of different kinds of trash, from recyclable plastic, glass and cardboard, to refuse plastics such as cookie wrappers and labels, to hazardous trash such as diapers and menstrual products. By doing so, I will ask how trash collectors negotiate the relationship between “valuable” work outside the home (collecting and sorting recyclables) and “dirty” work inside the home (dealing with food waste and sanitary waste). This, in turn, will allow me to ask, what does a trash collection program need to do to empower women? My work as a sociologist sits at the intersection of gender, environment, development and politics, and I am very grateful for support from Professor Hyde’s generous award and the GWS department.
Worcester/Whatley/Leavitt Award
Emma Wathen: I intend to use the Worcester, Whatley, Leavitt Award to support myself as I draft my third dissertation chapter and prepare to go on the academic job market this fall. It will also help me attend my first ever History of Science Society conference this summer after being invited by a senior disability historian to share my research on a panel titled “Disability Sciencing: Measuring and Classification at Sites of Knowledge-Making.”
Project Summary: My dissertation, titled Willing and Disabled: Disability, Parenting, and Activism in the Postwar United States, explores parenting with disabilities in the postwar United States. Historical scholarship about reproduction has rarely focused on the perspectives of disabled people as parents. This gap in the literature may partially stem from the fact that disabled people in the United States have historically faced significant state and social constraints on their reproductive decision-making. Using historical analysis and feminist disability studies, my dissertation examines how disabled people created and maintained families between 1955 and 1995 while navigating legal, medical, and social resistance. My chapters focus on “polio mothers” who shared their child-rearing adaptations with home economists in the 1950s; Deaf and Little People couples who sought to adopt children diagnosed with deafness and dwarfism in the 1960s and ’70s; parents with cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities who fought to retain custody of their children in the 1980s; and disabled feminist activists who launched reproductive rights campaigns centered on the needs of disabled women in the 1990s. Ultimately, my dissertation illuminates a legacy of family-making and activism by disabled parents that combats their depiction as passive, dependent, and nonsexual.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Claire Hoppe: Along with using this award to support educational expenses, I will be utilizing it to support my summer research for a senior honors thesis. I will be investigating a case of vandalism on books from the San Francisco Public Library that were targeted due to covering LGBTQ+ topics. Instead of throwing the books away, the library disturbed them to artists, creating an exhibition known as Reversing Vandalism, turning destruction into creation. I shall be taking a historical lens to this event, considering how it may be emblematic of the way queer and trans communities have historically responded to hate with acts of creation. I am greatly looking forward to my research, and am honored to have received the Kaplan award to support my work and my education as a whole!
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Madelyn Jackson: This award will go toward educational expenses as I continue my education to pursue my Master’s in Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling. While continuing my education, I also plan to focus on my interest in the connections and intersectionality of disability and LGBTQIA+ communities, both academically and within my future career aspirations. With my ultimate goal of becoming a clinical rehabilitation counselor, I strive to continue to study the interaction of queerness, sexuality, and disability while creating space for the overlapping of these communities and themes within my future practice.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Katie Kramer: Sophomore at UW-Madison studying Psychology with certificates in LGBTQ+ Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. As a recipient of the generous Kaplan Scholarship, she intends to put the scholarship toward continuing her education within and beyond her undergraduate studies as she works toward licensure as a therapist. In her career, she hopes to work with and support marginalized individuals to reclaim their sense of identity and autonomy.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Camren Livermore: The Kaplan Award will fund the tuition for my final year as an undergraduate at UW-Madison.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Jacob Mertes: Junior at UW-Madison double majoring in Educational Studies and English with a certificate in LGBTQ+ Studies. As a queer individual, this award means a lot to me, and I plan on using the award money to help with tuition costs so that I can continue taking queer-inclusive classes. Eventually, I hope to become a teacher, and having a queer studies certificate would provide important skills and knowledge to become a better teacher and help vulnerable populations of queer students in school. This award helps bring me closer to achieving what I hope to accomplish, providing a classroom environment in which queer students can feel safe and confident in their learning.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Haley Michalski: This award will help support my educational expenses and allow me to continue pursuing coursework that genuinely inspires me. It gives me the flexibility to engage in classes that deepen my understanding of sociology while also expanding my knowledge as an LGBTQ+ Studies certificate student. Having this support means I can focus more on my growth as a student and continue working toward making a meaningful contribution to both my field of student and the world around me.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Nyx Morris: (they/them)
- Junior studying legal studies, gender and women studies, criminal justice and LGBTQ studies.
- Im working with the Wisconsin LGBTQ+ history project to document pro and anti LGBTQ+ legislation
- Im planning on writing a senior thesis on Anti-trans legislation next year
- I’m going to use this scholarship to help fund my summer term in order to help me continue my research of legislation without having to worry about financial hardships.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Carson Schwartz: I’ve spent the past year working on a qualitative analysis project identifying differences in sexual scripts bi+ women perceive with partners of different genders. I’ll be using the scholarship funds to help pay for an internship abroad, building data collection, interview and survey design, and mixed-methods analysis skills. These skills will be directly applied to my senior thesis in the fall; I will be expanding existing data pools to oversample LGBTQ+ populations and allow stronger analyses between historically underrepresented groups.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Venus Svec: This project served as a meaningful way to commemorate my journey thus far in LGBTQ+ Studies and to reflect on its implications on my prospective career and personal understanding of queer topics. I intend to use these funds to purchase necessary materials for classes in my last year of undergrad. This relieves a significant financial burden and allows me to focus more fully on my studies.
Kaplan Award in LGBTQ+ Studies
Cameron Young: I will be putting this award towards my tuition costs. As a disabled and queer student, this award means a lot to me and will help me greatly.