2023-24 Team

Dr. Siobhan Byrne
Director

Dr. Siobhan Byrne is the inaugural Director of the Institute for Intersectional Research and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Dr. Byrne’s research and teaching are in the areas of feminist anti-war activism and peacebuilding in societies transitioning from conflict, with a special focus on Northern Ireland and Palestine/Israel. Dr. Byrne’s work has appeared in the International Feminist Journal of Politics, International Political Science Review, International Peacekeeping, and elsewhere. She is co-editor of the volume Power-Sharing Pacts and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (Routledge), and she is currently completing a book manuscript with Dr. Allison McCulloch titled Gender, Peace, and Power-Sharing (University of Toronto Press). Dr. Byrne earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Queen’s University and held a postdoctoral fellowship at University College Dublin, Ireland.

 

Dr. Samira ElAtia
Associate Director (currently on sabbatical leave)

Dr. Samira ElAtia is professor of Education and the Associate Dean-Graduate Studies at the bilingual Campus Saint-Jean of the University of Alberta. She specializes in the evaluation of competencies and language assessment. Her research interest focuses on issues of fairness in assessment, especially in bilingual contexts. She has served on experts' panels of several international testing agencies: Educational Testing Services in the US, Pearson Education in the UK, The International Baccalaureate Organization, Chambre du commerce et de l’industrie of Paris, Centre international des études pédagogiques of the Ministry of Education in France. She holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MA from Illinois State University. She is president of the Canadian Association of Language Assessment.

 

Dr. Adriana Rincón-Villegas
Research Associate

Dr. Adriana Rincón-Villegas holds a PhD in Global Governance and Human Security from University of Massachusetts Boston, as well as a MA in Geography from University of Georgia (USA), and a bachelor’s in law from Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (Colombia). Her research program aims to understand the gendered, racialized, and colonial narratives embedded in legal-political framings of violence, protest, and identities in contexts of violence and social injustice, with a focus on Latin America. Adriana is a recipient of the UMB-GGHS Excellence in Dissertation Research Award 2021, UMB-SSRC Transdisciplinary Dissertation Proposal Development program award 2017, and DAG Chandra Sriram Early Career fellow 2019 of the Dialogue Advisory Group in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Currently, Adriana works as a sessional instructor for courses in governance, human rights, and political science across multiple universities in Alberta. She enjoys spending time at home with her 22-month-old toddler, Sara, who loves books and music.