Current Graduate Students
Meet our amazing Gender & Social Justice Studies MA students!
Navarra Houldin
Navarra (they/them) holds a BA in History, Minor in Spanish and a Graduate Certificate in Instructional Design. Their research interests include history of gender and sexuality, digital humanities, and pornography studies. During their MA program, Navarra is looking at how digital tools can enhance literary analysis of Victorian print pornography by using OCRs and collocation tools as a starting point for examining how the genre both affirms and subverts contemporary power structures.
Aaron Kimberly
Aaron is a former RN with a specialization in psychiatric nursing. She’s been a staff nurse for the Psychiatric Stabilization Unit at St Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, BC, Nurse Educator for the BC Adult Tertiary Eating Disorders Program, Clinical Supervisor for Foundry Kelowna, and Clinical Instructor with the School of Psychiatric Nursing at Brandon University. Her academic focus is on applications of feminist scholarship to the transmasculine experience.
Syeda Bhumika Mahmud
Bhumika is a Master's student in the Gender and Social Justice program and currently serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. She holds a BA (Hons.) and an MA in Literatures in English and Cultural Studies from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. In her home country, she worked as a Senior Lecturer, Research Associate, Language Editor, and Club Moderator at International Standard University, and as a Programme Associate at the Centre for Policy Dialogue. In addition, she brings experience in freelance writing, creative content development, and translation. Bhumika has actively contributed to academic discourse through national publications and conference presentations. Her research interests include Gender Studies, Spatiotemporal Criticism, Feminist Critiques of Madness and Embodiment, and Chaotic Postcolonial Reading—areas that continue to evolve as she engages with new fields and interdisciplinary approaches. She aims to explore how literary narratives reveal the dynamics of gender, power, and social justice, using interdisciplinary approaches to examine their role in shaping identity and resistance.
Charos Nizomiddinova
Charos (she/her) earned her BA and MA in Journalism from the National University of Uzbekistan in 2018 and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Gender and Social Justice at the University of Alberta. Her research examines social, cultural, and political challenges faced by Central Asian women, including domestic violence, social inequality, and stratification. She also studies non-governmental and non-profit organizations in Central Asian countries that support and empower women during difficult times. As a mother of two daughters, she aims to improve the lives of women in Uzbekistan in the future.
Hoor Salous
Hoor Salous (she/her) holds a BA in English Language and Literature with a minor in Translation. Through her volunteer work and experience as a teacher, she witnessed firsthand the injustices faced by Palestinian women. This motivated her to pursue a Master's in Gender and Social Justice Studies. Her research interests include postcolonial and feminist literature, with a focus on Palestinian women's writing as a form of resistance against oppression, occupation, and patriarchy.
Maigan van der Giessen
Maigan van der Giessen is a multi disciplinary artist, justice advocate and community organizer, living in Edmonton-amiskwaciwâskahikan. Her work involves community-based arts and advocacy projects that witness, document and address human rights realities. Maigan’s currently engaged as a masters student in Gender and Social Justice, exploring resistance, justice and repair through art-based research and ritual.
Rachel Zukiwski-Pezim
Rachel Zukiwski-Pezim (she/her | ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ | Amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 territory) is a graduate student in the Gender and Social Justice Studies MA Program at the University of Alberta with a BA in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Dalhousie University. Her academic interests are extensive and include transnational feminist historiography, critical race theory, Black and Indigenous feminisms, decolonization in a transnational context, social justice praxis, and intersectional theory and practice across disciplines. She believes in dynamic and accessible academic research and writing, and thinks all academics should do variations on the Bechdel test when looking to create, review, and analyze data and sources - scan for BIPoC voices, queer and trans folks, (dis)ability frameworks, class strata, religious affiliations, and citizenship statuses, among others. For Rachel, part of the decolonialization of academia is allowing for new and radical digressions from and dismantling of the imperialist white supremacist capitalist colonial heteropatriarchy that invades and occupies every part of the neoliberal academic state. #LandBack.