Feminist Lives & Queer Trajectories Series: Presentation Archives
SPRING 2008
- Thursday, April 17
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Renee Nuener
Renee Neuner is the Girls Rock! Chicago Camp Director and Co-Founder and Center for Gender Studies alum (class of 2006). Girls Rock! Chicago is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to fostering girls' creative expression, positive self-esteem, and community awareness through rock music. Girls Rock! sponsors a rock n' roll summer camp for girls ages 9 to 16.
WINTER 2008
- Monday, January 24
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Linda Bubon & Ann Christopherson
Linda Bubon and Ann Christopherson are the owners and founders of Women & Children First Bookstore. Women & Children First is one of the largest feminist bookstores in the country. Bubon and Christopherson began the store 29 years ago to promote the work of women writers and to create a place in which all women would find books reflecting their lives and interests.
AUTUMN 2007
- Wednesday, November 14
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Women in Public Policy: Graduate Students at the Harris School of Public Policy
Katie King graduated from Kenyon College in Political Science and Spanish Studies. She was a management consultant for McKinsey & Company, where she worked with a variety of private and public companies and served on several Women's committees.
Elise Braun has a B.A. in Women's Studies and Journalism from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has worked as a white water raft guide, presidential campaign organizer, coalition builder, and non-profit management consultant.
Erin Barringer has a B.A. from the University of New Mexico in English. She has done research on population and reproductive health policy, including oral histories of ''movers and shakers'' of population policy. Barringer has worked as a consultant for the International Planned Parenthood Federation in London.
Tuesday, October 16
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Jessica Halem
Jessica Halem is a radical feminist, Jewish lesbian, stand up comedian from a small-town in Ohio. She has worked along side Bella Abzug in NYC, hung out with Hillary Clinton in China, infiltrated corporate America and the worlds of branding, marketing, internet start-ups, public relations, and as a temp. Also she has pushed the envelope for LGBT health and HIV/AIDS while running the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, raised money for democrats, abortion, and other favorites all while pursuing her career in comedy while living in Max Palevsky as a Resident Head and working at CAPS as a career adviser.
SPRING 2007
- Thursday, May 24
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Honorable Sebastian Patti
Serving as a judge since 1995, Patti made history by becoming the first openly gay man elected to an Illinois bench. Currently, he sits on the Circuit Court of Cook County. From 1996 to 1998 he served in the Child Protection Division. From 1993 to 1997, he was commissioner of the Supreme Court of Illinois' Committee on Character & Fitness. An avid bird-watcher, Patti has also been recognized for his commitment to protective environmental legislation.
Friday, April 20
Searah Deysach
Searah Deysach opened Early to Bed in 2001, Chicago's first
woman-owned, women-oriented, boy-friendly, queer and trans-positive sex
shop. In addition to providing "a place where people can come to
learn more about sex and themselves," Searah and Early to Bed
work hard to support the local women's and queer communities.
WINTER 2007
- Friday, February 23
Women in Science
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Dr. Peggy Mason
Peggy Mason, a neurobiologist, is a Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and the Chair of the Committee on Neurobiology, the primary graduate program in neurosciences at the University of Chicago. She received her BA and PhD from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California – San Francisco before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 1992. Her interests focus on brain mechanisms that defend important behaviors, such as eating and sleeping, from interruption.
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Evalyn Gates is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, working in the area of cosmology and particle astrophysics. She received her PhD in theoretical particle physics from Case Western Reserve University in 1990 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University before coming to the University of Chicago in 1992. She spent seven years at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, initially as Director of Astronomy and then as Vice President for Science and Education. Her first book, “Einstein’s Telescope: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Search for What the Universe is Made of” is scheduled for publication in early 2008, and she has recently written several articles on the topic of women in physics.
Dr. Evalyn Gates
AUTUMN 2006
- Thursday, October 19
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Judith Levine
Judith Levine - Journalist, essayist, activist and author who has written about sex, gender, and families for two decades. Director of the National Center for Reason & Justice. Author of Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping and Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex.
Monday, November 20
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Rabbi Benay Lappe
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Rabbi Benay Lappe was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and is the first openly lesbian Conservative rabbi. She is Rosh Yeshiva (director) of SVARA (which defined itself as “a queer yeshiva dedicated to the serious study of the Talmud”) in Evanston. She is an award-winning teacher and is nationally known for her unique approach to the Talmud, which she has taught at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, and The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Rabbi Lappe is an Associate at CLAL—The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a cutting-edge Jewish think tank in New York City, and is the Resident Rabbinic Scholar at Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living in Highland Park, IL.
SPRING 2006
- Wednesday, April 19
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Ali McDonald and Heather Lee Chappell of Estrojam
The Estrojam Music and Culture Festival is an annual 501C3 not-for-profit, community-based event that features internationally acclaimed and emerging musicians and artists, educators, activists, and community leaders in dozens of events, including concerts, workshops, panels, and a film festival. Estrojam is organized by women with a mission to help build and foster a supportive arts community that inspires, educates, breaks down stereotypes, and encourages bold creative expression.
Ali McDonald serves on the Board of Directors and is Director of Programming for the Estrojam Music and Culture Festival. She is a co-host of Think Pink, Chicago's only all-music radio show for the queer community. She has been DJing for the past eight years and performs out at clubs as DJ Reaganomix. Last year, Ali was selected as one of the Windy City Times' "30 Under 30" for her work with the queer community.
Heather Lee Chappell has been involved in innumerable queer, feminist, and arts organizations about town for the past seven years. These adventures include Estrojam, esoterica, Bloody Mary Productions, The International Drag King Extravaganza, and The Mobtown Moxie Revue. She was a co-founder and producer of the disbanded Chicago Kings and is currently employed as the Production & Artistic Coordinator for About Face Theatre. She has also had the joy of being part of stage management teams at the Lookingglass, Second City, The Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare, Court Theater and Blue Man Group to name just a few.
- Friday, May 19
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Rob Garofalo, M.D. Deputy Director, Howard Brown Health Center
Rob is the Deputy Director at Howard Brown, the Medical Director of Adolescent HIV Services at Children's Memorial Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Garofalo's clinical and academic career has been devoted to the care of HIV infected adolescents and other at-risk teen populations. At Howard Brown and Children's Memorial Hospital, Dr. Garofalo conducts federally-funded clinical and prevention-based research with HIV+ and LGBT youth. Since 2001, he has been actively involved in the Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group (PACTG) where he is a member of their Adolescent Research Advisory Committee. In 2003, Dr. Garofalo received a 3 year NIH-supported Mentored Clinical Scientist Award to pursue behavioral research specific to HIV and HIV prevention in at-risk youth populations. Dr. Garofalo also received an individual NIH award to test the utility of a Social-Personal theoretical model in explaining HIV risk behaviors in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth and is currently working with the NICHD-sponsored Adolescent Medicine Trials Network as the Principal Investigator on the Transgender Research Youth Project, a study examining coding and risk among man-to-female transgender youth.
WINTER 2006
- Friday, January 27
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Patricia M. Logue is a national family law expert for Lambda Legal, the nation's oldest and largest legal organization dedicated to the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV. Based in Chicago, Logue is one of the country's leading lesbian/gay rights attorneys. She has played a key role in several major cases before the Supreme Court and is especially well known for her pioneering work protecting and expanding the rights of lesbian mothers and their children.
Logue helped the US Supreme Court recognize the importance of balancing the rights of parents with recognition of the diversity of modern families, co-authoring Lambda Legal's friend-of-the-court brief for In the Matter of Visitation of Troxel. In the Midwest, her work has set favorable precedents protecting the interests of children of lesbian and gay parents. She has argued for second-parent adoptions in Illinois and child visitation rights for separated gay parents in Pennsylvania. Protecting young people from antigay harassment and abuse, Logue's work opened the door to the hundreds of gay-straight student alliances that have sprung up in recent years around the country. Active in opposing antigay initiatives and other efforts to undermine civil rights laws, Logue represented gay and lesbian employees in a successful defense of Chicago's domestic partner ordinance and has participated in similar cases in the Midwest.
Logue's past work includes serving as a staff attorney at Business and Professional People for the Public Interest in Chicago, a litigation and labor associate at the Chicago-based law offices of Jenner & Block and adjunct faculty member for the Northwestern University law school.
- Tuesday, February 28
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Laura McAlpine is the Principal of McAlpine Consulting for Growth, which she began in September 2001, providing organizational development, policy advocacy and leadership coaching to over 25 non-profit organizations. She served as Executive Director of the Chicago Women's Health Center from 1991-1997 and the Policy Director for the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health from 1997-2002.
Laura is a licensed clinical social worker and has a Master's degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. She is a board member of the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group and the Sankofa Safe Child Initiative. She is a community advisory board member of the Amundsen and Lakeview High School Health Centers and the CSA Learning Center of Angelic Organics. Governor Blagojevich appointed Laura in August 2005 as a Member of the Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes.
Laura has more than 20 years of management and leadership expertise in non-profit health and social service organizations. Her skills include strategic planning, program development, staff supervision, grant writing, organizational development, and public relations, through experience gained in positions as executive director, manager, and board member. She has worked in a variety of settings, including social service, academic, community, collective, and public/private partnerships. Laura is also a skilled policy advocate with a special focus on health access, maternal and child health, reproductive rights and anti-gay violence.
AUTUMN 2005
- Tuesday, October 25
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Anne Ladky is Executive Director of Women Employed, an organization that has been involved in every major employment advance women have made over the past 30 years. She holds appointments with the Illinois Workforce Investment Board, which oversees all state workforce development activity, and the Chicago Workforce Board, which advises the Mayor on employment training issues, and chaired the Governor's Transition Task Force on Workforce Development. Ladky is also a member of the Chicago Network and the Community Advisory Board of the Junior League of Chicago.
- Wednesday, November 9
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Evette Cardona is a Senior Program Officer at the Polk Bros. Foundation. She is a national board member of Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues and a member of the Executive Committee of Chicago Latinos in Philanthropy (CLIP). She is co-founder of Womyn of All Colors & Cultures Together (WACT), co-founder and current board co-chair of Amigas Latinas, a former board member of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project and a current board member and program committee co-chair of Chicago's first LGBT community center, Center on Halsted, scheduled to open in 2006.