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Meet the Esteemed Women Studies Conference Speakers

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Priyanka Tripathi

Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Patna
India

Priyanka Tripathi is an Associate Professor of English and former Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Patna (India). She is also the Associate Editor for the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Taylor & Francis). In the past, she has received prestigious fellowships like, Charles Wallace India Trust Visiting Fellowship (2024-25) at the School of History, University of Leeds, and IPD Visiting Research Fellowship (2022-23) at IASH, University of Edinburgh. Her monograph with Bloomsbury is titled The Gendered War: Evaluating Feminist Ethnographic Narratives of the 1971 War of Bangladesh (2022). Her forthcoming monograph with the National Book Trust of India is titled Mann Ki Baat & Bharatiya Art, Culture and Heritage. She works in the areas of Medical Humanities, Gender Studies, South Asian Fiction, and Graphic Novels.

Plenary Speaker

Prof. Nupur Ray

Department of Political Science
Kamala Nehru College
University of Delhi
India

Plenary Speaker

Title: "Women’s Reclamation: Breaking Free with the Ancient Wisdom of Creativism"

Dr. Indrani Margolin

Professor
School of Social Work
University of Northern British Columbia
Canada

Dr. Indrani Margolin is a leader; a researcher; a teacher; and the first female full professor in the School of Social Work, at the University of Northern British Columbia. She is honoured to live and work on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh. Dr. Indrani is also part of the Women’s & Gender Studies and Health Sciences graduate faculty. Established in Vedantic inquiry, which honours both ancient wisdom and contemporary understanding of unity (Advaita), she carries forward the Vedic mathematics that sound creates. As the protégé of Master Teacher Tulshi Sen, from a long lineage of Himalayan masters, she has learned the power of sound through being, thought and word to create Ex-Nihilo (out of no-thing) and applies this to her qualitative arts-based research and holistic, transformative teaching. As a proud recipient of the 2025 UNBC Teaching Excellence Award, she is recognized for her curricular contributions to spirituality & creativity in higher education and championing the interweaving of theoretical and experiential learning. The spirit of these teachings comes directly from Master Sen’s manifesto of Creativism. Her dedication to integrating spirituality into the fabric of social work and education is reflected in her co-developed Spiritual Practice Model (SPM) and Spiritually-Informed Pedagogy (SIP) and related classes. Since 2011, she has co-led Northern FIRE (Feminist Institute for Research & Evaluation) and committed to shaping programs and resources that support survivors of violence. She seeks to advance the discourse on creativity, wellbeing, posttraumatic growth, and spiritual development and champions women’s, students’, and helping professionals’ creative process encompassed by the four eternal truths termed Mahavakyam Meditation.

Plenary Speaker

Prof. Karen Carpenter PhD; CST; PGCHE

Managing Director
The MindSight Group Ltd.,
Clinical Director
Caribbean Sexuality Research Group (CSRG) Clinic
Psychologist/Clinical Sexologist
Jamaica

Karen Carpenter is Professor of Gender Sexuality & Psychology, a Licensed Counselling Psychologist in Jamaica and a Florida Board Certified Clinical Sexologist for over twenty years. Professor Carpenter is the Chief Operating Officer of The MindSight Group Ltd.,and Director of the Caribbean Sexuality Research Group (CSRG) Clinic, at the University Hospital of The West Indies.

Her books include: Love & Sex: The Basics; Questioning Caribbean Jewish Identity; Interweaving Tapestries of Sexuality & Culture volumes 1&2; and Language, Race & the Global Jamaican.

Plenary Speaker

Title: "Pedagogies of Authenticity as Decolonial Feminist Praxis in Higher Education"

Dr. Neziswa Titi

University of Cape Town
South Africa

Neziswa Vuyasande Titi (PhD) is a transdisciplinary scholar‑activist in the Department of African Feminist Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her work centers on decolonial, African‑centered and child‑centric methodologies, with a focus on gender‑based violence (GBV), child sexual trauma, and access to services grounded in feminist African Psychology praxis. She champions decolonial and multilingual pedagogies and integrates these frameworks into her teaching and supervision at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Dr. Titi’s contributions to the academia and institutional governance span from 2007 through positions at the University of the Western Cape, University of South Africa, the Medical Research Council of South Africa, Pearson Institute of Higher Education/Midrand Graduate Institute, and currently through the University of Cape Town where she teaches and serves in Student Discipline Tribunal of Appeal and research ethics and postgraduate admissions committees. Recognised as one of the most influential Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans (2021), her leadership regionally influences Pan‑African feminist activism (2019–current), and globally, the evaluation for the Ford Foundation’s Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice Program (2024–2025), and advisory work on the MenEngage (2023) decolonial agenda. She has also served within the Psychological Society of South Africa’s Division of Research Methodologies (2019–2021) the International Canadian Child Rights Partnership (2021–2022), and Lentegeur Psychiatric Hospital Board (2023-2024), alongside her ongoing engagements in global Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) dialogues for humanitarian settings (2023–present), adolescent mental health and access to education in townships (2022-present) and Board membership at Childline Western Cape (2021-current).

Plenary Speaker

Title: "Feminism and the Politics of Everything"

Dr. Fiona MacDonald

Associate Professor
Co-Chair, International Studies Graduate Program
University of Northern British Columbia
Canada

Dr. Fiona MacDonald (PhD UBC) is an Associate Professor specializing in Gender Politics. Dr. MacDonald co-edited the Finding Feminisms special issue of the Canadian Journal of Political Science (June 2017) which includes her article, “Knocking Down Walls in Political Science: In Defense of an Expansionist Feminist Agenda.” Her other publications can be found in the journals Hypatia, Citizenship Studies, Constellations, and Canadian Public Administration. Her article “Indigenous Peoples and Neoliberal ‘Privatization’ in Canada: Opportunities, Cautions and Constraints” won the 2012 John McMenemy Prize for the best article published in volume 44 of the Canadian Journal of Political Science. Her co-edited book, Turbulent Times, Transformational Opportunities? Gender and Politics Today and Tomorrow, was published with University of Toronto Press, Spring 2020. She is currently working on research related to the impact(s) of apology following medical error or mistreatment and a co-edited book titled, Feministing in Political Science: A Manifesta for Change.

Plenary Speaker

Dr. Mariame Racine Sow

Managing Director of FORWARD for Women
Germany

Dr. Mariame Racine Sow studied sociology and earned her doctorate in education at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Mariame Racine Sow moved to Germany from Senegal in 1989 and has been campaigning for women’s rights for decades. She is the Managing Director of the non-governmental organisation, FORWARD for Women. It wants to end female genital mutilation and offers advice to affected migrants. As a diaspora activist, she also supports women’s health projects in Senegal. Since 2011, she has been active in educational work, training women and men from 16 African organizations and associations on topics such as gender roles and parenting patterns. Among other things, they discuss the African understanding of parent–child roles, the role and mission of schools, and the responsibilities of the youth welfare office. In addition, she works as a social counselor at the ASB refugee shelter.

Workshop Speaker

Dr. Anke Reichenbach

Zayed University Dubai
United Arab Emirates

Dr. Reichenbach holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Leipzig, Germany, and focuses on urban anthropology, gender and Gulf studies. Her extensive fieldwork in Syria, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates informs her research on gendered urban spaces, heritage and identity, and forms of belonging in Gulf cities.

Workshop Speaker

Jaypee Yongco

Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise
Mindanao State University İligan Institute of Technology, İligan City
Philippines

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Conference Speakers

Meet the Esteemed Women Studies Conference Speakers

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Priyanka Tripathi

Plenary Speaker

Prof. Nupur Ray

Plenary Speaker

Title: "Women’s Reclamation: Breaking Free with the Ancient Wisdom of Creativism"

Plenary Speaker

Plenary Speaker

Title: "Pedagogies of Authenticity as Decolonial Feminist Praxis in Higher Education"

Plenary Speaker

Title: "Feminism and the Politics of Everything"

Plenary Speaker

Workshop Speaker

Dr. Anke Reichenbach

Workshop Speaker

Jaypee Yongco

Check out the special Features of WCWS 2026

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