Mary B. Bialas Prize Winners

Theresa Ezeani is a third-year undergraduate student in the Public Health program at UIC and a minor in Black Studies. Her academic and professional work reflects a deep commitment to Black feminist thought, community-centered research, and the power of storytelling as a tool for justice. Theresa joined the Black Feminist Policy Lab, led by Dr. Tiffany Ford at the School of Public Health, where she has developed technical research skills while contributing to projects that aim to improve and highlight the lives and livelihoods of Black people in Cook County. She recently began an internship with the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center as a teaching aide, further extending her commitment to feminist education, mentorship, and community engagement. Theresa plans to pursue graduate studies in Black Studies, Anthropology, or Creative Writing. She is eager to engage with scholarship, creativity, and public health as pathways toward deeper understanding and social transformation.

**Note: Due to a directive from the campus, GWS was not able to present the Bialas Award for the 2025-2026 academic year. In order to still recognize the outstanding work of our students, GWS created a special award for the 2025-2026 academic year. Theresa Ezeani was honored with the GWS Outstanding Impact Award.

Kayla Braverman is a Master of Social Work student specializing in Mental Health, with a concentration in Gender and Women’s Studies. Her work is grounded in reproductive justice and a deep commitment to people with various gender identities navigating parenthood, infertility, and abortion experiences.  As a Support Coordinator at the Chicago Abortion Fund, Kayla connects callers from across the country with life-saving abortion care. She also serves as a Crisis Services Intern at the National Runaway Safeline, where she provides emotional support and resources to young people in crisis and their families. She is committed to a reproductive justice framework that affirms the right not to have children, the right to have children, and the right to parent children in safe and supportive environments.

**Note: Due to a directive from the campus, GWS was not able to present the Bialas Award for the 2025-2026 academic year. In order to still recognize the outstanding work of our students, GWS created a special award for the 2025-2026 academic year. Kayla Braverman was honored with the GWS Outstanding Impact Award.

Jayre Vazquez plans to complete her Master’s in Social Work (MSW) in May 2026, specializing in Organization and Community Practice (OCP) with a concentration in Gender and Women’s Studies within The Jane Addams College of Social Work and the Gender and Women’s Studies Program. As a graduate student, she has been interning at the Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY), where she focuses on supporting families and the health and well-being of children. As a current social worker, Vasquez’s commitment “is to center the lives of women and children, especially those from communities of color,” she says. The GWS faculty recognize, honor, and celebrate Jayre’s determined dedication to feminism and child welfare.

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.

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.”

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.