Mary B. Bialas Prize Winners
About Jaquie Davila (2024) Heading link
Jaqueline Davila graduated May 2024 with a BA in Gender and Women’s Studies and a minor in Public Health. Since May 2023, she has worked as a research assistant with Professor Elena Gutiérrez on the Chicago Chicana Trailblazers project. She has just begun training to become a medical advocate to support women in hospital settings who have experienced violence. This is emblematic of Jaquie’s commitment to realizing reproductive justice, one she came to, at least in part, through her engagement with GWS courses, faculty and fellow students. And it is this commitment that makes her the ideal recipient of the Mary B. Bialas Award.
About Rachael Wachera Wanjagua (2023) Heading link
Rachael Wachera Wanjagua is a PhD candidate in Disability Studies who was trained as a physiotherapist in Kenya and South Africa. Since 2006, Rachael has worked in rural communities of Kenya, providing the only available and much needed physiotherapy services to children, conducting trainings for mothers to understand disability, and developing holistic community care networks to support families of children with disabilities. This award will support Rachael’s ongoing transformative work, specifically research in Kenya, where Rachael is “training two people with intellectual disabilities to conduct research on their support needs and those of their caregivers.”
About Lynn Darwich (2022) Heading link
Lynn is a cultural anthropologist in the making whose research and activism are grounded in queer grassroots organizing and feminist cross-movement building. She dedicated the past decade to realizations of social, economic, racial, ecological, and gender justice. Her research interests are in exploring non-oppressive forms of solidarity and coalition building within and across social movements for justice.
About Jayre Vazquez (2022) Heading link
For me, this achievement is a way to support my abolitionist activism. And a reminder that we continue to dismantle oppressive structures by creating community and supporting one another. Thank you.
About Nirupama Jayaraman (2021) Heading link
Nirupama is a socio-cultural anthropologist whose research interests span the interdisciplinary fields of sociocultural anthropology, cultural geography, science and technology studies, gender studies and urban studies. She studies urban transportation networks in South Asia, centering narratives of feminist/queer/trans knowledge production that usually exist in the liminal spaces of South Asian scholarship, especially in infrastructure studies.
About Priscila Pereira (2021) Heading link
I am honored to be a recipient of the 2021 Mary B. Bialas Award. Working to improve the lives of Black girls and women is already a life rewarding endeavor, but being recognized for that work makes it even more especial. Thank you to the Bialas Family and the GWS community!
Earlier Awardees Heading link
| 2020 | Nirali Shah, Lakshita Malik, Ranae Mijares Encinas |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Sangeetha Ravichandran, Dyese Moody, Stella Udoetuk |
| 2018 | Franziska Andonopoulos |
| 2017 | Lulu Martinez, Sara Rezvi |
| 2015 | Sandra Galicia |
| 2013 | Fransely Robles |
| 2012 | Sarah Davis |
| 2011 | Kathryn Lerman |
| 2010 | Elsascha Madison |
| 2008 | Tara Theobald |
| 2007 | Ausra Buzenas |
| 2006 | Elisa Green |
| 2005 | Alaine Kalder |
| 2004 | Jemimah Noonoo |
| 2003 | Ariella Rotramel |
| 2001 | Alaine Kalder |