We are excited to welcome our new graduate students to the Center’s MA program: Ebonee Brown, Ecem Ece, Beth Holden, Kelsey Malles, Nagdeska Paulino, and Elisa Rios. Their research interests cover a myriad of topics, and they each bring a rich range of experiences and accomplishments.
Ebonee Brown graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia with a BA in Literature in 2021. She is a current first-year MA candidate in the Center. An Atlanta native, her research investigates the intersections of regional Blackness, gender, and performance in sonic culture. She argues that the rappers of Atlanta’s trap genre employ and emphasize spatial tropes in their respective texts to refine, re-imagine and queer the concept of Black masculinity.
Ecem Ece graduated from the Middle East Technical University, Turkey, in 2013 with a BA in Sociology and a minor in Political Science, and in 2017 with an MS in Sociology. They are completing a joint MA/PhD degree -MA in the Center and PhD in Sociology- at UF. They are a queer activist and feminist researcher from the Middle East. They are a co-founder of two LGBTIAQ+ organizations in Turkey. Moreover, they work with queer refugees from Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Afghanistan residing in Turkey. In addition to their ongoing activism in the LGBTIAQ+ organizations in Turkey, they are currently working on LGBTIAQ+ social movements and activisms focusing on their transformation in time and space. Their research interests also include queer migration, queer space, feminist geographies, qualitative research methods, and feminist and queer methodologies.
Beth Holden graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2020 with a BA in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is currently a first-year MA candidate in the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research at UF. Her research interests include analyzing alcohol and drug recovery programs and how they impact minoritized communities. Specifically, her thesis project hopes to deconstruct the current popularized notion that AA and 12-Step recovery programs are a one-size-fits-all model, while it will also investigate the helpful and/or harmful nature of new for-profit online recovery schools.
Kelsey Malles graduated from the University of Florida with a BA in Women’s Studies and a BS in Psychology in 2021. She is an avid volunteer at multiple farms and pet rescues- activities that inspire her research interests in ecofeminism. She enjoys creating fluid art in her free time and hopes to further pursue this passion. Her research interests include health disparities and their relationship with diet and education, as well as the overrepresentation of POC in the food industry and how this impacts other aspects of life.
Nagdeska Paulino graduated from SUNY New Paltz in 2020 with a bachelor’s in sociology and two minors in women’s, gender and sexuality studies, and anthropology. She is now a first-year MA student in the Center. Her general interests include creating art and journaling. Nagdeska is currently working on a thesis based on the importance of an intersectional lens in analyzing our current climate emergency.
Elisa Rios (she/her/hers) graduated from The College of New Jersey in 2019 with BAs in Psychology and Women and Gender Studies. She is an Afro-Latina of Dominican and Colombian descent hailing from New Jersey. Her research aims to explore the self-identification and negotiation of racial and ethnic identities of Afro-Latin(x) Women from the United States, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Cuba. She also aims to explore the social constructs of triple consciousness, colorism, and anti-blackness that affect Afro-Latin(x) Women’s racial and ethnic identities.working on a thesis based on the importance of an intersectional lens in analyzing our current climate emergency.
First year graduate students gather in the Center for a group photo. Pictured are (left to right standing) Kelsey Malles, Ebonee Brown, (left to right seated) Nagdeska Paulino, Beth Holden, and Elisa Rios.