Faculty and Staff
Program Faculty
Michele Byers - Women & Gender Studies, Atlantic Canada Studies
Program Co-Coordinator
Research Area:
- Media and popular culture
- Television studies
- Cultural studies
- Social theory
- Gender and sexuality
- Feminist theory
- Queer theory
- Critical methodologies
Benita Bunjun - Women & Gender Studies
Program Co-Coordinator
Research Area:
- Indigenous and Settler Relations
- Feminist Organizational Studies; Social Movements
- Race, Chattel Slavery, and Indenture Labour; Migration and Racialized Gendered Labour;
- Racial Profiling and Violence; Colonial Gendered Encounters; Racialization and Feminization of Poverty
- Mental Health, Labour and Nation-Building
- Migration, Diaspora, and Youth; Academic Well-Being of Racialized Students
Bishop Owis - Women & Gender Studies
Research Area:
- Gender and sexuality studies
- Critical disability, crip, mad and race studies
- Queer and trans ethics of care
- Arts-based educational research
- Participatory, critical, qualitative methodologies
- Autotheory, auto/duo ethnography
- Digital media and popular culture
- LGBTQ+ sex education
Lindsay Macumber - Study of Religion, Women and Gender Studies
- Religion and Popular Culture
- Jewish Religious Tradition
- Mythology
Part-time Faculty
Lisaann (Liz) Borden is an instructor in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. Her teaching focuses on critical approaches to gender, sexuality, identity, power, and social inequality, emphasizing connections between academic scholarship, contemporary issues, and everyday life. She is committed to inclusive pedagogy that fosters critical inquiry, thoughtful dialogue, and engagement with diverse perspectives.
Rachele Manett (they/she) is a community sexuality educator and certified therapeutic recreation specialist (CTRS). They utilize a Disability Justice approach for their work, teaching, and community advocacy. Rachele has been teaching part time in university settings since 2018, but their work in community focuses predominantly on intersections of sexuality, disability, and pleasure.
Administrative Staff:
Maria Shaw wgst@smu.ca