Affiliate Faculty
Shila Baksi
Assistant Professor, Anthropology
Graduate Faculty, American Studies
Research & Teaching Interests
Language and culture, culture change, gender and morphology.
W St Courses Taught
W St 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective
Joan Burbick
Professor, English
Research & Teaching Interests
Theories of gender, nation, and culture; American literatures and cultures; and transpacific cultures. Research on political culture of gun ownership in the United States.
W St Courses Taught
W St 409: Women Writers in the American West
Sheila Kearney Converse
Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Music
Research & Teaching Interests
Teaches "Women and Music," a course exploring how gender is reflected in texts of popular, jazz, and country music, for music and women's studies. For Honors, teaches an interdisciplinary course entitled "Music and Society," which explores the four historical periods of music and the society that formed them. Also for Honors, "Heroes and Rings," which, using Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces as a template, explores The Lord of the Rings and Wagner's Der Ring das Niebelungen. For music, teaches vocal pedagogy and studio voice.
W St Courses Taught
W St 363: Women and Music
Sandy Cooper
Associate Professor, Math
Research & Teaching Interests
Rational Approximation, Continued Fractions Current Emphasis: Pade' approximations, Laurent polynomials.
W St Courses Taught
W St 220: Women, Science, & Culture
Maria Cuevas
Adjunct Professor, Women's Studies
W St Courses Taught
W St 300: Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, & Sexuality
W St 332: Global Feminisms
W St 384: Sociology of Gender
Lisa Guerrero
Assistant Professor, Comparative Ethnic Studies
Research & Teaching Interests
African American literary traditions, African American history, African American masculinity, African American cultural movements, comparative ethnic studies, cultural studies, American popular culture, ethnic American literatures, gender and sexuality, literatures and theories of African diaspora, 19th- and 20th-century histories of people of color in the Unitied States.
Tamara Helm
Instructor, Fine Arts
Research & Teaching Interests
For over two decades, I have been working figuratively using the imagery of dolls. Since dolls are figurative but not human, they represent humanity in an abstract way (as effigies, statues, and pretend-figures). I am endeavoring to "freeze" dolls in attitudes and gestures that speak of what it is to be human. Using the doll as metaphor, I have purposely chosen to give them distance and "removal" to suggest humanness. Recently I have been painting "personae" (mainly heads and faces) of famous, "infamous," and ordinary people.
W St Courses Taught
W St 308: Women Artists I, Middle Ages-18th Century
W St 310: Women Artists II, 19th-20th Century
Melynda Huskey
Assistant Vice President for Research, Assessment, and Initiatives, Equity and Diversity
Research and teaching interests
19th-century British popular fiction, children's literature, queer theory.
W St Courses Taught
W St 309: Women Writers
W St 485: Theoretical Issues of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Carol S. Ivory
Professor, Fine Arts
Research & Teaching Interests
Art, history, and culture of the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia.
Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson
Associate Professor, Sociology
Research & Teaching Interests
Life course, adolescence and the transition to adulthood, work and family, education, social psychology, gender.
W St Courses Taught
W St 351: Sociology of Family
Julie Kmec
Associate Professor, Sociology
Research & Teaching Interests
Social stratification, sociology of work, organizations, gender and race inequality.
Carmen Lugo-Lugo
Associate Professor, Comparative Ethnic Studies
Research & Teaching Interests
My research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary in nature and focus primarily on issues involving Puerto Rican and Latina/o studies; Latina feminism in the U.S.; popular culture and issues of race and gender; literature and issues of race/ethnicity and gender; feminist theory; colonialsim/imperialism; and race relations.
W St Courses Taught
W St 300: Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexualities
W St 454: La Chicana in U.S. Society
Faith Lutze
Associate Professor, Criminal Justice
Graduate Faculty, American Studies
Research & Teaching Interests
Juvenile, adult, and family treatment drug courts. Gender and justice in the correction of offenders.
W St Courses Taught
W St 403: Violence Towards Women
Jeannette Mageo
Professor, Anthropology
Research & Teaching Interests
Gender, self, South Pacific, spirits, transvestism, cultural memory and identity, power, and dreams.
W St Courses Taught
W St 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives
Amy Mazur
Professor, Political Science
Graduate Faculty, American Studies
Research & Teaching Interests
Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in comparative politics, comparative public policy, and gender and politics.
W St Courses Taught
W St 305: Gender and Politics
Nancy McKee
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Research & Teaching Interests
Examines working-class women and higher education. Her research interests include ethnicity, education, language and culture, culture and inequality, and gender.
W St Courses Taught
W St 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives
Laurie Mercier
Professor, History, WSU Vancouver
Research & Teaching Interests
Mondern America, immigration, worker in North America, American social movements, Pacific Nothwest 1970s feminist movement, women's oral narratives, and the intersections of race, gender, region, and class in the Pacific Northwest.
W St Courses Taught
W St 421: The American West
Stacia Moffett
Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences
Research & Teaching Interests
Research is on physiology of mosquitoes that are disease vectors—we hope that basic research will yield ecologically safe control measures. Teaching inludes Biology of Women and Cell Physiology, as well as a graduate course in Development and Regeneration in the Nervous System. I advise pre-physical therapy majors and supervise their internships.
W St Courses Taught
W St 407: Biology of Women
Pavithra Narayanan
Assistant Professor, English, WSU Vancouver
Research & Teaching Interests
Postcolonial literature, documentary film and production, and global feminism. Her research is on gender, globalization, and political economy, with a focus on India. Her doctoral dissertation was one of the early investigations in the field of Australian and Canadian studies. She is working on a book that examines the interconnectedness of literacy, literature, language, gender, economics, and caste within a globalization discourse. Her last film, entitled India and Free Trade: A Closer Look at Bhopal, looks at the implications of free trade and the changes brought about by transnational corporations in India.
W St Courses Taught
W St 309: Women Writers
W St 332: Global Feminisms
Cassandra Nichols
Psychologist, Coordinator: Direct Services, Counseling and Testing Services
Research & Teaching Interests
Areas of Special Interest/Current Professional Activities: Religion and spirituality as a multicultural issue in counseling. Panel discussion for the annual conference for the Association for Women in Psychology in Baltimore.
W St Courses Taught
W St 391: Women & Health (Summer Session)
W St 324: Psychology of Women
Serena Peters
Adjunct Faculty, Women's Studies
Research & Teaching Interests
U.S.–Latin American relations, globalization, the war on terror, militarism, comparative fascism.
W St Courses Taught
W St 200: Gender and Power: Introduction to Women's Studies
W St 216: American Culture
W St 410: Internship
Maggie Reed
Instructor, International Business Institute
Research & Teaching Interests
The impact of culture on business, international business as an agent of culture change, gender constructs and women in business, business history.
W St Courses Taught
W St 315: Women in Management and Leadership
Gail Stearns
Adjunct Professor, Women's Studies
Director, K-House, Common Ministry
Research & Teaching Interests
Feminism and religion, ethics, women's life histories.
Heather Streets
Associate Professor, History
Research & Teaching Interests
Modern British history, Great Britain, and the British Empire and India history.
W St Courses Taught
W St 350: European Women's History
Samantha Swindell
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychology
Research & Teaching Interests
Swindell is currently an instructor for the Department of Psychology. She received her doctorate in experimental analysis of behavior from WSU in 1998.
W St Courses Taught
W St 324: Psychology of Women
Libby Walker
Dean, Honors College
W St Courses Taught
W St 305: Gender and Politics
Amy Wharton
Professor, Sociology, WSU Vancouver
Research & Teaching Interests
Gender, work and occupations, organizations, stratification, social theory, sociology of emotion.
W St Courses Taught
W St 300: Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexualities
W St 384: Sociology of Gender
Clare Wilkinson-Weber
Assistant Professor, Anthropology, WSU Vancouver
Research & Teaching Interests
Gender and artistic production; socio-cultural organization of Hindi filmmaking; clothes and costume in India; the culture and economics of artistic production in South Asia.
W St Courses Taught
W St 316: Gender in Cross Cultural Perspectives