The University of Texas at Austin

Victoria Rodríguez, Dean of Gradute Studies, University of Texas
Role: Welcome, Opening Remarks - Thursday, April 12, 2007

Bio: Victoria E. Rodríguez is Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at The University of Texas at Austin and holds the University's Ashbel Smith Professorship at the LBJ School. She teaches courses in policy development, women in politics and public policy, and theory and philosophy of public policy. Prior to joining UT Austin in 1991, she held teaching positions at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Texas at El Paso. She was also a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and has served as a consultant for the World Bank. Professor Rodríguez received a bachelor's degree from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Karen Engle, W.H. Francis, Jr. Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law
Role: Discussant, Panel 1: Governing Violence - Thursday, April 12, 2007

Bio: Dr. Engle has taught at The University of Texas School of Law since 2002. Previously she was Professor of Law at the University of Utah, where she taught for ten years. She directs the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, and teaches courses in international human rights and employment discrimination. She also teaches specialized seminars, including "Publishing Legal Scholarship," "Third World and Feminist Approaches to International Law" and "Human Rights and the Uses of Culture." Dr. Engle received her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and her undergraduate degree from Baylor University.

Ruth Miller, Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts
Role: Panelist, Panel 1: Governing Violence - Thursday, April 12, 2007

Bio: Dr. Ruth Miller teaches Middle Eastern history with a focus on the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and Islamic law at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Professor Miller's research interests include Ottoman and Middle Eastern history, Islamic and comparative law, and comparative histories of gender and sexuality. Dr. Miller is the author of numerous books and articles and her current research focuses on political corruption; law and natural disaster; and sexual and reproductive legislation. Dr. Miller received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and her Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Vasuki Nesiah, Senior Associate, International Center for Transitional Justice
Role: Panelist, Panel 1: Governing Violence - Thursday, April 12, 2007

Bio: Originally from Sri Lanka, Vasuki Nesiah joined the ICTJ as Head of Ghana, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Gender Programs, following a teaching fellowship with the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School and a consultancy on minority rights and conflict resolution with the Rockefeller Foundation. She has published and lectured in international and comparative law, feminist theory, law and development, postcolonial studies, constitutionalism, and governance in plural societies. She is also an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University where she teaches in the Human Rights Program of the School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA). She completed her doctorate in public international law at Harvard Law School, where she also received her J.D. with honors. She holds a B.A. in philosophy and political science from Cornell University. She was also a visiting student of philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University.

Patricia Viseur-Sellers, Special Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Role: Panelist, Panel 1: Governing Violence - Thursday, April 12, 2007

Bio: Forthcoming

The Honorable Frances "Sissy" Tarlton Farenthold, Former Texas State Representative and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee
Role: Keynote Discussant

Bio: Forthcoming

Ambassador Arvonne Fraser, Senior Fellow Emerita, Hubert H. Humphrey Institue of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Role: Keynote Discussant

Bio: Arvonne Fraser is a senior fellow emerita of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and co-founder and director of the Institute's Center on Women and Public Policy, former director of the International Women's Rights Actions Watch, former ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and coordinator of the Office of Women in Development at the U.S. Agency for International Development. She co-edited Developing Power: How Women Transformed International Development, a book that discusses the 20 years between 1975 and 1995, a period when there were four United Nation world conferences on women. "These were the years that the international women's movement boomed." Fraser was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Mexico City and Copenhagen conferences.

Irene Tinker, Professor Emerita, Departments of City and Regional Planning & Women's Studies, University of California-Berkeley
Role: Keynote Discussant

Bio: A pioneer in the field of women in development, Irene Tinker is professor emerita in the departments of city and regional planning & women's studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She previously served as founding director of the Equity Policy Center (1978-89), assistant director of ACTION and director of its policy & planning office (1977-78), and founding director of the office of international science at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1973-77). She also founded the International Center for Research on Women, the nation's premier institution for the study of women's economic and health issues (1976). She has published widely and has held various committee assignments for the United Nations.

Natalia Deeb-Sossa, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California-Davis
Role: Panelist, Panel 2: Governing Movement - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Natalia Deeb-Sossa an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of California at Davis. She was born in Bogotá, Colombia (South America) where she received her Masters in Economics in La Universidad de Los Andes. She also has a Masters in Sociology from the University of South Carolina at Columbia, a M.S. in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina. Her dissertation, "Inequalities at Work: Health Care Workers and Clients in a Community Clinic," is a study of health care workers and clients in a private, not-for-profit health care center. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews Natalia analyzed how workers at "Care Inc." reproduce—or resist reproducing—inequalities of race, class and gender in their interactions with each other and in their daily work with the poor, especially Latinas/os. Natalia has been a long-term volunteer in the Latina/o community. She has observed the barriers Latinas face in accessing health services, including lack of money, lack of information about health services, who to talk to, and where to go; lack of Spanish-speaking providers and assistants, and lack of funds. Through her research, Natalia is committed to decreasing sexism, heterosexism, racism, and class inequality.

Jennifer Mendez, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, College of William and Mary
Role: Panelist, Panel 2: Governing Movement - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Jennifer Bickham Mendez received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California, Davis and her B.A. from Oberlin College. Her book From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor and Globalization in Nicaragua was published by Duke University Press in 2005 and presents a case study of a working women's organization and their struggles to organize and support women workers in the "global factories" of post-Revolutionary Nicaragua. Her areas of interest include gender, globalization, migration and feminist research methods. Her current research investigates the experiences of Latino/a immigrants in Williamsburg, VA, a new migratory "receiving site." She has published articles in such journals as Identities, Social Problems, and Mobilization.

Nicola Piper, Consultant, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development
Role: Panelist, Panel 2: Governing Movement - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Nicola Piper studied political science and Japanese at the University of Trier, Vienna, Sheffield and the Sophia University in Tokyo. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Sheffield in the UK. Nicola is the author of Racism, Nationalism, and Citizenship - Ethnic Minorities in Britain and Germany (1998), and co-editor of Women and Work in Globalizing Asia (2002), Wife or Worker? Asian Women and Migration (2003), and Transnational Activism in Asia - Problems of Power and Democracy (2004). Her current book project is a co-authored monograph entitled Marginalising the Many: Critical Perspectives on Liberal Global Governance, with Jean Grugel (University of Sheffield).

Colin Rajah, Program Director for International Migrant Rights and Global Justice, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Role: Panelist, Panel 2: Governing Movement - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Colin Rajah is the Program Director for International Migrant Rights and Global Justice at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), which is a U.S. network of immigrant community organizations and advocates. A political refugee from Malaysia, Colin has been an activist-organizer for over 2 decades in Asia and the U.S. Aside from his published thesis "Malaysia's New Economic Policy: A Case-Study of Extensive Preferential Policies," Colin has authored dozens of other articles and publications on migrant rights, international trade and globalization, international grassroots solidarity, international advocacy, and especially on how trade and globalization intersect with migration and migrant rights. Colin currently serves as a Steering Committee member of Migrant Rights International (MRI) and recently co-chaired the International Civil Society Planning Committee for the 2006 United Nations High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development. He also serves as a National Planning Committee member of the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) process, and an Executive Committee member of the Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ) Alliance. In addition to being a co-founder and Steering Committee member of the Bay Area-based Malaysia Forum, Colin also sits on the Board of the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture Fund and has served as a consultant for DEMA (Democratic Youth Movement of Malaysia), Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), Asia-Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) and Urban Habitat.

Angela Steusse, University of Texas, Department of Sociology
Role: Student Discussant, Panel 2: Governing Movement - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Forthcoming

Cristina Tzintzún, Project Director, Workers Defense Project
Role: Panelist, Panel 2: Governing Movement - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Cristina Tzintzún holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies and a minor in History from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a daughter of a Mexican immigrant and granddaughter of a Bracero (a guest worker program in the US 1947-1964), and has dedicated herself to achieving social justice for Latina/o immigrants. She has carried out extensive research on Indigenous Mexican migrants in the United States and its impact on local communities. She is a published author in: Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism. She has also worked with Latina/o immigrants in Ohio, as a Family Service Advocate with Migrant Head Start, ESL instructor, and as a radio host with Radio Sol, a Spanish radio station in Ohio. She is currently Director of the Workers Defense Project/Proyecto Defensa Laboral, that is an Austin based non-profit organization that empowers Latina/o immigrant workers to achieve racial and economic justice in the workplace, through leadership development, education, organizing, and collaboration with strategic allies.

Philomila Tsoukala, Visiting Professor, Emerging Scholars Program, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Role: Chair, Panel 3: Governing Labor - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Philomila Tsoukala is an Assistant Professor in the Emerging Scholars Program. Her scholarly interests focus on family law, legal history, legal theory, and feminist thought. Professor Tsoukala received her LL.B. degree from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, her M.A. in Public Law from Université Pantheon-Assas (Paris II) in France and her LL.M. from Harvard Law School. She has previously worked in a consulting firm in Brussels, advising entrepreneurs on European Union funded programs, and summered with Dewey Ballantine in New York. Professor Tsoukala has served as teaching assistant at Harvard University, teaching courses on Liberalism and Political Theory, for which she received the Derek Bok Center's Certificate of Distinction in Teaching. During the spring semester 2006 Professor Tsoukala was a Clark Byse Fellow at Harvard Law School, teaching a seminar on family law and legal methodology.

Prabha Kotiswaran, Lecturer, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
Role: Panelist, Panel 3: Governing Labor - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Prabha Kotiswaran is a Lecturer in Criminal Law at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. Professor Kotiswaren received her doctorate of Juridical Science from Harvard Law School. She also holds a B.A. in Law (with honors) from the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, India, and an LL.M. Degree from Harvard Law School. Her Dissertation, Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor and Other Stories of the Lumpen Proletariat: Rethinking The Regulation of Sex Work, undertakes a fundamental revaluation of the theoretical debates on sex work and trafficking in light of the claims of the Indian sex workers' movement that sex work be treated as a form of labor and sex workers as workers in the informal economy.

Kristin Sampson, Senior Research Associate, Engendering Economic and Social Justice Project, Center of Concern
Role: Panelist, Panel 3: Governing Labor - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Kristin Sampson serves as Senior Research Associate with the Engendering Economic and Social Justice project at the Center of Concern. She is currently the lead researcher in a collaborative study with the Delmarva Community Association on the impacts of the U.S. poultry industry in the U.S. and abroad. As chair of the U.S. Gender and Trade Network, Ms. Sampson has led community-level consultations on gender, trade and privatization throughout the United States. She has spearheaded women's activism around the Central America Free Trade Agreement and was involved in a project publication on the impacts of NAFTA from a gender perspective. She co-chairs the advocacy committee for the Interfaith Working Group on Trade and Investment where she has played a key role in organizing events on the Hill and preparing educational materials for use by people of faith. As a young leader in the Global Women's Movement, she is contributing to the critical, transformative change that is needed among U.S. activists today. She received her M.A. from the Fletcher School, Tufts University where she specialized in International Trade and Development Economics and her B.A. from Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania.

Hila Shamir, S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School
Role: Panelist, Panel 3: Governing Labor - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Hila Shamir is a S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and a tutor at the Harvard College Government Department. She has a LL.M. from Harvard Law School (2004) and a LL.B. from Tel-Aviv University, Israel (2002), and is a former law clerk to Justice E. Mazza of the Supreme Court of Israel. In her dissertation work, Hila is studying the commodification of care work in globalizing markets: Israel, Australia and the U.S. Her publications include: "From the International to the Local in Feminist Legal Responses to Rape, Prostitution/Sex Work and Sex Trafficking: Four Studies in Contemporary Governance Feminism," co-authored with Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, & Chantal Thomas, 29(2) Harvard Journal of Law & Gender 335 (2006); "Between Intimacy and Alienage: the Legal Constitution of Domestic & Care Work in the Welfare State," co-authored with Guy Mundlak, to be published in Migration and Domestic Work: A European Perspective on A Global Theme (Helma Lutz ed., forthcoming, 2007).

Molly Spieczny, University of Texas School of Law
Role: Student Discussant, Panel 3: Governing Labor - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Forthcoming

Judith Auerbach, Deputy Executive Director for Science and Public Policy, San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Role: Panelist, Panel 4: Governing Health - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Dr. Judith Auerbach is Deputy Executive Director for Science and Public Policy at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF), where she is responsible for developing, leading, and managing SFAF's local, state, national, and international policy agenda. Prior to joining SFAF,Dr. Auerbach served as Vice President, Public Policy and Program Development, at amfAR(The Foundation for AIDS Research), where she headed amfAR's Public Policy Office and coordinated programmatic activities across the foundation. Dr. Auerbachcame to amfAR in 2003, after serving from 1995 to 2003 as Director of the Behavioral and Social Science Program and HIV Prevention Science Coordinator in the Office of AIDSResearch at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Auerbach received the 2004 Feminist Activist Award from Sociologists for Women in Society in recognition of her work on women and HIV/AIDS. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Francis Dodoo, Professor of Sociology and Demography, Penn State University
Role: Panelist, Panel 4: Governing Health - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Dr. Francis Dodoo is College of Liberal Arts Research Professor of Sociology and Demography at The Pennsylvania State University. His scholarship focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and lies in the arenas of gender, power, and sexual and reproductive decisions; demographic and health outcomes associated with urban poverty; and the intergenerational transfer of norms governing the gendered stratification of sexuality. Dr. Dodoo has served in consulting, advisory, and other capacities for a number of organizations, including the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the USAID, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the African Population and Health Research Center, the Food Security and Sustainable Development Division of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank, the European Commission, the International Center for Research on Women, and the Alan Guttmacher Institute. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Neville Hoad, Assistant Professor, English Department, University of Texas
Role: Discussant, Panel 4: Governing Health - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Forthcoming

Rachel Holmes, Founder/Secretary, Friends of the Treatment Action Campaign, UK
Role: Panelist, Panel 4: Governing Health - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Formerly an academic, Rachel Holmes held lectureships in English at the University of Sussex, and Queen Mary College at the University of London. In 1998 she became part of the launch team of Amazon.co.uk, and was Web Site Manager of the Amazon UK site until leaving in December 2002 to pursue a full-time writing career. Her first book, Scanty Particulars: The Life of Dr. James Barry, was published in 2002, and her second, The Hottentot Venus, a biography of Saartjie Baartman, was published in 2007. She has judged several literary prizes, including the Whitbread Awards and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and has appeared on Any Questions and Newsnight Review. Rachel Holmes is a frequent columnist and reviewer and is Secretary of Friends of TAC, international fund-raising and lobby group for the Treatment Action Campaign, the South African HIV/AIDS movement.

Hilary Charlesworth, Professor of Law, Australian National University
Role: Panelist, Panel 5: Gendering Governance - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Hilary Charlesworth is a Professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice and Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Australian National University. She has worked on issues such as the relevance of feminist theory to understanding international law, the structure of the international human rights system, and the protection of human rights in Australia. She has held visiting appointments at Washington & Lee School of Law, Harvard Law School, NYU Global Law School and in 2005 was the 24th Wayne Morse Professor at the University of Oregon. Current research projects include the legitimacy of UN Security Council decisions, the impact of international law on Australian law and the role of women in international dispute resolution. In 2005, Dr. Charlesworth was awarded a Federation Fellowship by the Australian Research Council.

Kathleen Staudt, Professor of Political Science, University of Texas at El Paso
Role: Panelist, Panel 5: Gendering Governance - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Kathleen (Kathy) Staudt (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin 1976) is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Civic Engagement at the University of Texas at El Paso. She teaches courses on women and politics, public policy, borders, and leadership. Kathy has published 12 books and approximately 70 academic articles and chapters. Her next book, Violence and Activism at the Border: Gender, Fear, and Everyday Life in Cd. Ju‡rez, is forthcoming from the University of Texas Press. Kathy is active in community organizations and on non-profit boards, and she co-founded the Women's Fund of El Paso. Kathy has two children (now grown): daughter, Asha, and son, Mosi.

Rita Stephan, Ph.D. Candidate and Assistant Instructor, University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology
Role: Panelist, Panel 5: Gendering Governance - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Rita Stephan is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology with a specialization in Political Sociology and a portfolio in Gender Studies. Her dissertation topic is "Becoming Women's Rights Activists: The Case of Lebanese Women." She is currently a lecturer at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and an Assistant Instructor at the University of Texas. She earned her Master's degree from American University in Washington, D.C. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies. Her educational background includes a Bachelor degree in International Studies and Jewish Studies. She is the recipient the P. E. O. International Scholar Award in 2007, the Reem Kabani Peace Research Award in 1997 and Seeds of Peace's Young Peacemaker Award in 1995.

Mariama Williams, Research Associate, International Gender and Trade Network, and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era
Role: Panelist, Panel 5: Gendering Governance - Friday, April 13, 2007

Bio: Mariama Williams, Ph.D. is an international economics and trade consultant and an Adjunct Associate at the Center of Concern, Washington, D. C. She is the Research Associate with the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), Co-research Coordinator, Political Economy of Globalisation (Trade)—Development Alternative with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and a Director of the Institute of Law and Economics (ILE-Jamaica). Williams is the author of Gender Issues in the Multilateral Trading System and a consultant adviser on gender and international trade to the Commonwealth Secretariat, London. She is a member of the design team and the resource person for the course/seminar/module: Gender, Trade and Export Promotion, which has been utilized with women's business associations and governmental institutions in East Africa (Uganda & Tanzania, 2005), the Caribbean (Jamaica, 2006) and South Asia (New Delhi, India, 2006). Williams who also served on the International Advisory Committee of Progress of the World's Women—a biennial report published by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), was also a member of the Director General's Advisory Council (World Trade Organization 2004-2005), a resource person to the Commonwealth Business Women's Network and past member of the board of the Association for Women's Rights and Development (AWID, 2002-2004).