39 inspiring California fellow and grant recipients shared nuggets of their fascinating studies at four fall AAUW Fund virtual events. See what, and who, your AAUW Fund dollars support. Learn about sustainable environments, global migration, refugee studies, and other topics. Things can pan out for your branch too. You can file a claim asking one of these scholars to speak at your virtual or in-person event.
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| AAUW National – Katrina Sun Breese | 3:14:00 |
| Legacy Circle – Judy Horan | 9:27:00 |
| Zamira Abman | 14:28 |
| Karina Santellano | 26:16 |
| Melina Singh | 38:10 |
| Aishwarya Borate | 45:04 |
| Jessica Moss | 54:19 |
| Amira Hassnaoui | 1:03:44 |
| Chelsi Sparti | 1:11:55 |
| Romina Garcia | 1:19:23 |
| Meenen Lecce Giving Circle | 1:25:20 |
| Nadeeka Karunaratne | 4:12 |
| Jesica Fernández | 10:30 |
| Faheema Eissar | 17:29 |
| Patricia Martín | 25:52 |
| Estelle Reyes | 33:32 |
| Laiza Faria | 42:00 |
| Kara Ward | 47:43 |
| Nancy Morales | 54:38 |
| Legacy Circle – Charmen Goehring | 1:01:09 |
| Meenen Lecce Giving Circle | 1:05:25 |
| AAUW National – Katrina Sun Breese | 1:16:56 |
| Greta Casino | 4:05 |
| Brianna Banks-McLean | 12:38 |
| Christiane Assefa | 18:58 |
| Charmen Goehring – Legacy Circle | 26:55:00 |
| Mrinmoyee Bhattacharya | 31:04:00 |
| Maia ten Brink | 37:59:00 |
| Sharon Schuster Meenen Lecce Giving Circle | 44:31:00 |
| Janeth Jepleting | 48:35:00 |
| Shirley Ruiz | 56:41:00 |
| Kyndra Cleveland | 1:01:00 |
| AAUW National – Katrina Sun Breese | 1:13:35 |
Speaker Bios
| Last Name | First Name | Bio | Fund Event Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Abman | Zamira | Zamira Abman is an educator, a researcher, a historian by training and the director and undergraduate advisor for comparative and international studies (CINTS) at San Diego State University. She was born and raised in Soviet Tajikistan yet completed most of her education outside her native country. She grew up speaking three languages, Tajik (a dialect of Persian/Farsi), Russian and Uzbek. Her interest in history stems directly from the stories of women in her family. | October 15, 2022 |
 | Assefa | Christiane | Christiane Assefa’s research focuses on issues of race, gender and forced displacement to examine the everyday life and organizing work of Black refugee communities in San Diego. This place-based project bridges conversations between critical geography, Black diaspora studies and critical refugee studies to document the knowledge production and political stakes of the lifemaking practices of forcibly displaced and racialized communities on the U.S.–Mexico borderland. Upon completing her dissertation, she hopes to become a tenure-track professor. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Banks-McLean | Brianna | Brianna Banks-McLean professionally hopes to develop and implement new techniques in sustainable urban planning, fostering a holistic approach to sustainable urban design for future generations. As a career woman who became interested in architecture and engineering at home through her grandfather, she ultimately would like to travel back to the community and people who reared and inspired her. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Bhattacharya | Mrinmoyee | Mrinmoyee Bhattacharya’s work centers on the crossroads of literature, philosophy and political theory, with a particular focus on French Republicanism. She is currently finishing her manuscript on French Republicanism and its legitimation crisis. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Borate | Aishwarya | Aishwarya Borate studies environmental planning, resilience and risk management in developing countries. She focuses on the issues of justice in disaster-management processes. Her research explores the factors influencing the recovery of households impacted by large-scale flooding events in India. Prior to pursuing a doctorate, she worked on the preparation of a hazard-mitigation plan for Central Virginia. Through her research, she wants to work toward bridging the gap between academia and practice in disaster management. | October 15, 2022 |
 | Casino | Greta | In the first year of her master of social work program, Greta Recinto Casino is working with the geriatric community. She is advocating for their well-being by assisting seniors through their aging process. Her intention is to help ease their struggles by asking pertinent questions, to find the right resources and to problem-solve in order to make key decisions in their aging journey. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Cinco | Stefany | Stefany Cinco is a student in the master of advanced study in maternal and child nutrition, a graduate program that is part of the University of California, Davis. She is interested in supporting women during the pregnancy, postpartum and lactation period. After finishing the graduate program, she wants to become an international board certified lactation consultant and be able to guide parents and infants during lactation periods to achieve an optimal health status. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Cleveland | Kyndra | Kyndra Cleveland, a developmental psychologist, is currently pursuing her law degree at the University of California, Berkeley. She seeks to amplify the voices of parents and children navigating legal systems and to promote family well-being through research-to-policy translation. She also is dedicated to reforming policies surrounding access, promotion and opportunities for women and communities of color in higher education. She is pursuing her policy goals as a member of the Policy Advocacy Clinic at Berkeley. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Darrington | Deja | Deja Darrington is committed to overcoming barriers and disrupting negative stereotypes while opening doors for other women in marketing who look like her. For her MBA, she will focus on marketing courses like experiential marketing and marketing strategy. Her goal is to leverage data analytics, research and innovation to make strategic marketing decisions that inspire change and drive results. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Eissar | Faheema | This fellowship will assist Faheema Eissar in finishing the master of science degree in international and economic development. The program is heavily designed to give students skills in data analysis and research in economics. She has tremendously enjoyed her first year and is very much looking forward to her second year. She has focused and will focus on postconflict economic recovery for most of her researches and will do so for her thesis as well. | October 23, 2022 |
 | ElWardi | Amal | Amal ElWardi’s focus on deconstructing codified pedagogy, and applying embodied pedagogy, assists in repatterning human mechanisms toward energy-efficient neuromuscular capabilities, thereby stimulating injury or trauma rehabilitation and regrowth through proprioceptive awareness. Ushering treatments and outcomes in health, education and social justice, her research through Dynamic Embodiment™ and Body-Mind Centering™ discourses biophysics of everyday activity to guide emergence of body consciousness and mental health, using the power of words to encourage authentic expression for underrepresented youths. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Faria | Laiza | Laiza Faria works with marine microbiology and the environmental processes involved. Her new work on Antarctic microbial communities seeks to investigate how they respond to time and environmental changes. Her goal is to obtain a teaching position at a Brazilian university. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Fernández | Jesica | As a multidisciplinary scholar, Jesica Siham Fernández engages decolonial feminist epistemologies and a participatory action research paradigm to support the sociopolitical citizenship development and well-being of youth, student activists and Latinx immigrant women within community organizing, movement building and transformative justice spaces. As a teacher-scholar-activist, she is committed to achieving tenure and becoming a published author who is grounded in a decolonial feminist praxis of radical hope and liberation in action. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Garcia | Romina | Romina Garcia is a doctoral candidate in the department of ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside. As a doctoral student, her research focuses on examining the structural and administrative anti-Black violence that encompasses women of color, in particular, Black women within anti-violence work. Her research engages with ideas and practices of community and advocacy that fundamentally challenge, transform and ultimately eradicate the containment and violence that women of color experience. | October 15, 2022 |
 | Giligashvili | Tamar | Tamar Giligashvili’s artmaking practice dissects cyclicality of trauma and demands for more non-West-centric feminist movements and academic research. Her most recent documentary, A Very Happy Woman, investigates the tradition of marriage by abduction in Georgia and its effect on the way her mother and grandmother conducted both domestic and public selves. During her master of fine arts studies, she hopes to expand the scope of these stories and open a greater dialogue around such traditions. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Gomes | Patricia | Patricia de Nóbrega Gomes is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of performance studies at the University of California, Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in women and gender studies. Her dissertation focuses on the contemporary artistic production of Black and Indigenous artists in Brazil, whose works draw from intergenerational practices and non-Western bodies of knowledge. With the fellowship, she will continue this research and dissertation writing with the long-term goal of becoming a professor. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Goussen Robleto | Lesdi | Lesdi C. Goussen Robleto is a Ph.D. candidate in the history of art department at the University of California, Berkeley. During her fellowship year, she will continue writing and conducting research toward her dissertation, “(Un)mending Bodies: Patricia Belli and Feminist Artistic Praxis in Central America, 1986–2000s.” She hopes to finish her remaining chapters, which contextualize Belli’s work alongside other Central American women artists working at the nexus of social and political transition. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Hassnaoui | Amira | Amira Hassnaoui’s work aims to demystify marginalized performance idioms practiced by Black Tunisians. Born and raised in Tunis, Tunisia, she incorporates film and photography in her research, and she aspires to create a hybrid project that features a museum exhibition of the material culture of these idioms. In 2017, she received a master of arts in popular culture from Bowling Green State University, where she was president of the Graduate Student Senate and the Graduate Women’s Caucus. | October 15, 2022 |
 | Jepleting | Janeth | Janeth Jepleting, from Nairobi, Kenya, would like to thank the AAUW fellowship for this opportunity to help her achieve her goal: a master’s in public policy. Her interest has always been to bring positive change to our society and the world, and public policy is the first step. She is looking forward to empowering women and girls and wants to be their second chance like AAUW has been to her. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Ji | Xiaozhou | Xiaozhou Ji is a postdoc chemist with a research focus on organic semiconducting materials. Currently, she works in Professor Zhenan Bao’s group in the department of chemical engineering at Stanford University. During the grant year, she will continue work on developing liquid-like semiconducting polymers and investigating their potential as high-performance soft electronics materials. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Kuo | Jennifer | Jennifer Kuo is a programs manager at UCLArts & Healing, a non-profit organization operated by diverse women, whose mission is to transform lives through creative expression by integrating the innate benefits of the arts. She will complete her Master of Public Health degree with a focus on Community Health Education at the California State University, Northridge in the 2022-2023 academic year. It is her passion to promote arts in health, mindfulness, and community engagement. | Not Scheduled |
 | Kyo | Yi Yi Mon (Rosaline) | Yi Yi Mon (Rosaline) Kyo’s research on the role of art workers during the socialist period of the People’s Republic of China focuses on the representation of ethnic minorities by majority ethnic Han artists from the 1950s–1980s. Her new work on contemporary Tibetan artists examines the deconstruction of state-constructed ethnic, gender and racial identities through contemporary visual practices. Her goal is to finish editing her first book manuscript and obtain tenure at her current institution. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Lin | Yingyi | Yingyi Lin’s work situates population well-being in the broader and changing social contexts, across places and generations. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on child-health disparities in China, a country that has experienced dramatic demographic changes during the past several decades. Her involvement in various international research projects has led to her motivation in researching how the well-being of women and their children is linked to social policies that are often not written by women themselves. | November 12, 2022 |
 | Martín | Patricia | In her research, Patricia Martín examines the role of digital advertising strategies on college recruiting practices and college access. Her dissertation study explores inequities in college marketing and digital advertising and ways to remedy these harmful practices to create pathways to college for underrepresented students, particularly for girls and women of color. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Morales | Nancy | Nancy Morales is an Indigenous Latinx feminist scholar-activist, whose project examines Indigenous women and queer youth’s participation in building diasporic Indigenous communities to challenge U.S. settler colonialism. She is also a cofounder of Collective of Pueblos Originarios in Diaspora (CPOD), a new student campus organization that heightens visibility of Indigenous students (Maya, Mixtec and Zapotec) in diaspora at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her goal is to pursue various forms of scholar activism. | October 22, 2022 |
 | Moss | Jessica | Jessica Spence Moss is pursuing her Ph.D. in cultural studies focusing on the motivations, experiences and contributions of women and nonbinary individuals in local interfaith communities. Utilizing oral history methods and building on her personal engagement with community-based interfaith work, she hopes to provide a nuanced understanding of institutional as well as organic interfaith relationships. By doing so, she hopes to become a leading researcher in the field of interfaith studies. | October 15, 2022 |
 | Paramehta | Teraya | For her dissertation, Uzezi Okinedo will be exploring the African rice genome to understand its domestication process. She hopes to leverage her research findings in improving food security through the creation of more resilient rice varieties. She is also an assistant lecturer at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and an active member of girls’ empowerment initiatives like I Can Persist (ICP) STEM and Strong Women Strong Girls (SWSG). | November 12, 2022 |
 | Poudel | Isha | Isha Poudel is a graduate student studying international agricultural development with a focus on gender equities at University of California, Davis. In her current research she is examining the impact of climate change and other disasters on women farmers and vulnerable communities of rural Nepal. After completing her higher education, she intends to pursue her career as a research scholar and development practitioner with expertise on agriculture project management and gender equities in low-income nations. | November 12, 2022 |
| Ramatlapeng | Goabaone | Goabaone Jaqueline Ramatlapeng is pursuing her Ph.D. in earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Davis. She is investigating the spatial and temporal controls of river water chemistry in arid environments where water scarcity is a major challenge, focusing on the Okavango River flowing through the Okavango Delta in the Middle Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Her research findings are instructive for solute cycling, water-quality assessment and informing water-management decisions in dry regions. | November 12, 2022 | |
 | Reyes | Estelle | The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator’s (LACI) Middle School Girls in STEM Program aims to light a spark for middle-school girls—particularly those from underrepresented groups and in disadvantaged communities—to learn more about sustainability challenges at a young age and find their agency as problem-solvers. LACI’s MSG Program inspires girls through hands-on prototype development to address real-world problems, community engagement and, ultimately, solutions for global climate change. | October 22, 2022 |
 | Ruiz | Shirley | For 15 years, Shirley Ruiz has supported students with disabilities in several capacities in higher education. Most recently, she was the alternate media specialist, supporting students with disabilities in gaining access to textbooks and other course content in a format that is accessible to their assistive technology. She is dedicated to ensuring meaningful access for students with disabilities and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in organizational leadership & learning at Pepperdine University. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Santellano | Karina | Karina Santellano is a first-generation college student and Chicana Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at the University of Southern California. She uses research to amplify practices of joy and resistance of communities of color facing structural exclusion and disadvantage. She is examining upwardly mobile Latinx populations and cultural life through the site of Latinx-inspired coffee shops, many of which are owned by Latinas, in Southern California. | October 15, 2022 |
 | Singh | Melina | Melina Singh’s work examines how seemingly neutral social policies contribute to gender, race and class inequality. Her dissertation will investigate the role of health-care providers in enforcing laws that regulate and criminalize pregnancy among low-income women of color. After finishing her Ph.D., she plans to become a professor at a research university. | October 15, 2022 |
 | Sparti | Chelsi | Chelsi Sparti’s research examines how communities recover livelihoods and electric systems after repeated extreme events. Prior to entering graduate school, she served as a Fulbright scholar to Sarawak, Malaysia, and worked three years in the private sector and four years at a nonprofit advancing nuclear-waste policy. She is a master’s student in the energy and resources group at the University of California, Berkeley. | October 15, 2022 |
 | ten Brink | Maia | Maia ten Brink’s work focuses on how emotions, emotion regulation and sleep interact and influence one another in daily life. Her goal is to understand the dynamic processes that support psychological well-being and develop targets for interventions in healthy as well as clinical adolescents and adults. | October 23, 2022 |
 | Ward | Kara | EmpowHER will provide a pathway for broadening access and increasing STEM engagement with students identifying as women at Godinez High School, in Santa Ana, California. EmpowHER will work to achieve this goal through an in-person conference at University of California, Irvine (UCI) focused on student belonging in STEM followed by a series of hands-on activities that will reinforce STEM concepts taught at Godinez High School and a mentoring program that will pair high-school students with current UCI students. | October 23, 2022 |