Logan O’Laughlin is a doctoral candidate in the department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at UW. They received their M.A. in Feminist Studies in 2015, conducting critical discourse analyses on popular representations of intersex fish and frogs exposed to toxins. Logan's doctoral dissertation continues to explore representations of toxicity in popular culture, paying specific attention to the way that normative ideologies of gender, sex, and sexuality work synergistically with racism around toxic spills. Logan has taught courses in GWSS, CHID, and English on writing for the social sciences, environmental studies, feminism, and queer studies. Logan is committed to dynamic, consent-based, feminist pedagogies that recognize students’ ability to contribute knowledge. For instance, they begin every quarter by drafting a contract with the students of what everyone can expect of each other and they incorporate various learning styles to make the class accessible and engaging, including embodied exercises, student co-facilitations, and service-learning options. They co-organized two GWSS roundtables on feminist pedagogies and collaborated with UW’s Interactive Theater as Pedagogy Project to host a workshop on fostering non-traditional learning. They are currently developing an LGBTQ Healthcare Training Pathway for the UW School of Medicine with the Ingersoll Gender Center. In recognition of their commitment to teaching for social justice, they were awarded the Doman Teaching Award in October 2016.
Jey Saung is a doctoral candidate in the department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the UW. They received their M.A. in Gender Studies (Research) in 2014 from the University of Leeds, UK. Their thesis was entitled “Negotiating Biology: Queering the Reproductive Lesbian” and analyzed different ways in which biogenetic discourses were taken up by lesbian couples describing their experiences with reproductive technologies and queer family-building strategies. Their doctoral research expands on queer family-building by examining various technologies as entry points into a larger discussion of queerness, reproduction, race, and the state. Jey has taught courses at the UW in GWSS and English on composition and gender, race, and class. Their pedagogical practice centers students as knowledge producers, as exemplified through projects such as creating anthologies of students’ own “theories in the flesh” as inspired by This Bridge Called My Back and collective feminist zine making (in response to the 2016 presidential election). Through working with the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) and Graduate School Core Programs, they have co-organized and moderated panels on campus on LGBTQ professional development and mentorship. They serve as a mentor with the UW Q Center Mentorship Program and also teach karate at a local dojo. Teaching martial arts to children serves as a constant reminder of the importance of embodied knowledges, kinetic learning, and commitment to feminist pedagogies.