Faculty & Staff
The Women's and Gender Studies Department is truly interdisciplinary. WGS has four core faculty that are each jointly-appointed to both WGS and a “home” department. Additionally, faculty from other Cal Poly departments also teach for WGS. All regular WGS instructional faculty serve together on the Women's and Gender Studies Advisory Board. Advisory Board members share their valuable perspectives and experience with the department and are dedicated to supporting WGS as it strives to enrich the curriculum and empower students. Please find below, first, the WGS core faculty, second, the list of faculty who constitute the additional members of the WGS Advisory Board, and finally, information about WGS staff.
Back Row: Elizabeth Adan, Jean Williams, Devin Kuhn, Tom Trice, and
Andrea Nash
Front Row: Kathleen Cairns, Catherine Waitinas, Rachel Fernflores, Chris Shea, Christina Kaviani and Jane Lehr
Not Pictured: Shawn Burn, Erin Echols, Christina Firpo, Camille O'Bryant and Renoda Campbell
WGS Core Faculty
Thomas Trice WGS Department Chair
Dr. Trice is the WGS Department chair and an Associate Professor in the History Department at Cal Poly. His primary research interests include death and dying in late imperial and early Soviet Russia, and the societies and cultures of the Black Sea littoral during the nineteenth century. Work in progress: The “Body Politic”: Death and the Politics of Representation in St. Petersburg, Russia, 1841-1929 (EDC: spring 2008). He teaches Gender and Sexuality in Modern Europe (HIST 458).
Rachel Fernflores (WGS core faculty)
Dr. Fernflores is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women's & Gender Studies (Ph.D., Philosophy, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada). Much of her work involves examining intersections between issues in philosophy of interpretation and feminist concerns about the adequacy of language to express the truth about women's experiences. Dr. Fernflores teaches Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (WGS 301), Feminist Theory (WGS 450), and Ethics, Gender, and Society (PHIL 336).
Devin Kuhn (WGS core faculty)
Dr. Kuhn is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Women's & Gender Studies (Ph.D., Women's Studies in Religion, Claremont Graduate University). Her research interests include women's moral agency, religion and popular culture, and ethics of social justice. Her dissertation investigated ways that transgressive forms of femininity are used to subvert patriarchal militarism and to develop an ethic of joyful resistance as a source of political transformation. Dr. Kuhn teaches Religion, Gender and Society (WGS/RELS 370).
Jane Lehr (WGS core faculty)
Dr. Lehr is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women's & Gender Studies. She is also Equity & Access Programs Director at the Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education (CESaME), Global Engineering/Cultural Advisor for the International Computer Engineering Experience (ICEX) Program, and Faculty Advisor for the new Women's & Gender Studies honor society at Cal Poly: Iota, Iota, Iota. Previously, she served as elected co-chair of the Science & Technology Taskforce of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) and as a Post-Doctoral Research Officer for the NSF-funded Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS), a collaboration between UC Santa Cruz, the Exploratorium, and King's College London (where she was based). Her PhD is in Science& Technology Studies and Women's Studies at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on gender, race, class, and nation in science and engineering education and scientific and technical decision-making practices. She teaches multiple courses in WGS, including WGS/ES 350: Gender, Race, Science & Technology.
Additional WGS Faculty Board Members
Elizabeth Adan
Dr. Adan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Design, where she teaches courses on modern and contemporary art history. She received her Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Contemporary Art, Religion, and Cultural Analysis with a Doctoral Emphasis in Women's Studies from U.C. Santa Barbara in 2006. She also holds an MA in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley and an MFA in Studio Art from U.C. Santa Barbara. In 2000-2001, she was a Critical Studies Fellow in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Prior to her arrival at Cal Poly, she taught in the Women's Studies Program (now the Department of Feminist Studies) and the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at U.C. Santa Barbara. Her research interests include modern and contemporary art, feminist and critical theory, and performance and ritual studies. Currently, she is also a Section Editor for the peer-reviewed online journal thirdspace: a journal of feminist theory and culture (http://www.thirdspace.ca/journal.htm).
Shawn Burn
Dr. Burn is Professor of Psychology and Child Development. She is the author of The Social Psychology of Gender (McGraw-Hill) and Women Across Cultures: A Global Perspective (Mayfield/McGraw-Hill). She has conducted research on gender as a social identity, tomboyism, gender conflict, and prejudice against gays and lesbians. Dr. Burn also works with Cal Poly's sexual assault risk reduction program (SAFER). Dr. Burn teaches Women in Cross Cultural Perspectives (WGS 320).
Kathleen Cairns
Prof. Cairns teaches in the History Department. Before coming to Cal Poly, she taught history and humanities at California State University, Sacramento. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Davis and is the author of three books: "Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920-1950;" "The Enigma Woman: The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison;" and "Hard-Time at Tehachapi: California's First Women's Prison." A fourth book, "She Wanted to Live: Barbara Graham and the Politics of Death Penalty in America" is under contract with the University of Nebraska Press.She teaches American Women's History From 1870 (WGS/HIST 435).
Christina Firpo
Prof. Firpo is an assistant professor in the department of History. She is currently revising book manuscript titled “‘Abandoned’ Children: The Forcible Removal of Mixed-Race Children in Colonial Vietnam 1890-1956.” Other articles that she is working on include: “The Mother, the Nation: Colonial Paternalism and Vietnamese Maternalism in the Great Depression” and “Human Capital: A Social History of Human Trafficking in Colonial Vietnam. Prof. Firppo teaches HIST 421 The History of Prostitution.Christina Kaviani
Christina Kaviani is the coordinator of the Gender Equity Center which houses: Women’s Programs and SAFER program in the department of Student Life and Leadership. Kaviani brings a K-12 and university background to the men and women of Cal Poly. A 2009 Graduate of Cal Poly’s master’s in Education, Counseling and Guidance program, Kaviani served with AmeriCorps as assistant coordinator of Women’s Programs. Prior to joining Cal Poly, Christina managed at-risk youth cases in the juvenile court system. She also interned as a school counselor at Atascadero Junior High School and Paso Robles High School
Camille O'Bryant
Dr. O'Bryant is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Smith College ( Northampton , MA ) and her Ph.D. in Sport, Leisure, and Somatic Studies from the Ohio State University. Her areas of specialty include sociological and psychological aspects of sport and physical activity, aquatics and emergency response (first aid, CPR) training. Her specific areas of interest are in social justices, gender, and race/ethnicity issues in physical activity and sport. Dr. O'Bryant has published articles and made a variety of scholarly presentations on how race/ethnicity and gender impact socialization into sport-related careers. She teaches a variety of courses in Kinesiology. She is also co-chair of Cal Poly's Black Faculty and Staff Association as well as a member of the board of directors for the Sexual Assault Recovery and Prevention (SARP) Center of San Luis Obispo County. Dr. O'Bryant teaches Sport and Gender (KINE 323).
B. Christine Shea
Dr. Shea is the author of more than 30 papers, articles, and book chapters on organizational behavior, communication, and gender issues. Her current research interests include fairness in the workplace and women's employment. Dr. Shea serves on the board of directors for the San Luis Obispo Rape Crisis Center and is involved in educating the public about violence prevention. Dr. Shea teaches Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (WGS 301), Gender and Health (WGS 401), Women in the Workplace (WGS 401), and Gender and Communication (SCOM 421).
Catherine Waitinas
Dr. Waitinas is a Professor in the English Department. She is especially interested in representations and constructions of womanly "virtue," femininity, and masculinity in antebellum American texts. She has published on twentieth-century literature of diversity, Walt Whitman, teaching with technology, and T.S. Eliot and tarot. Her current research projects include studies of Whitman and mesmerism, Whitman and theatre, James Baldwin and queer Christianity, Jane Austen and Romanticism, and Charles Brockden Brown and narrative deceit. She also serves on the editorial board of Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice. She teaches Women Writers of the 20th Century (ENGL 345) and Literary Themes--Early American Women Writers (ENGL 449).
Jean Williams
Dr. Williams is a Professor in the Political Science department. Her areas of specialty include the politics of gender, race, and class, social welfare policy, and urban politics. Dr. Williams has published articles on social movements, sex education policy, and homeless and battered women. She is the author of A Roof Over My Head: Homeless Women and The Shelter Industry (2003), and The Politics of Virginity: Abstinence in Sex Education (2008) with Alesha Doan. Dr. Williams teaches Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (WGS 301) and The Politics of Ethnicity and Gender (POLS 310).
Staff
The WGS Department is extremely happy to enjoy the continued organizational skills, as well as the professional support, of the WGS Administrative Support Coordinator, Andrea Nash. Ms. Nash won College of Liberal Arts award for outstanding staff member in 2004 as a result of her dedication, loyalty, and commitment to working with faculty to produce the best scholarly program of which the WGS Department is capable.
