Liliana Jaramillo Mestra
Liliana Jaramillo Mestra is a Sociologist from the Universidad del Valle – Cali, Colombia, and PhD student from the Universidad de La Laguna in Spain. For 2022-2023 she is a Visiting Scholar at UF, thanks to Fulbright Spain, studying with Dr. Maddy Coy.
I came to work with Dr. Coy, in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, because of her international experience in violence against women, and to advance my research about prostitution and trafficking of Colombian women in Spain. So far, I have participated in different classes that have given me deep theoretical and methodological tools to nurture my research work, and attended lectures organized by the Department. My experience has far exceeded my expectations, not only in the high quality of feminist theory in the Department, but also the human quality of professors, staff, and students. All of them are great colleagues offering a warm atmosphere.
Roksolana Mykytiuk 
Roksolana Mykytiuk, a graduate student from the University of Warsaw in Poland, spent the final two semesters of her MA program in American Studies as an exchange student at UF in 2022.
During my exchange year, I took classes in Transnational Feminism and Violence Against Women at the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research. I applied the knowledge from these courses to the events happening in my home country, Ukraine: war crimes against women and human trafficking of the refugees at the Polish-Ukrainian border. I was taught by incredibly strong and inspiring women at UF.
In my final term I completed my MA thesis together with Dr. Maddy Coy and Dr. Agnieszka Graff (UW, Poland), exploring the usage of conservative motherhood ideology in the politics of the 1970s United States, specifically the activism of Phyllis Schlafly and Anita Bryant.
Apart from classes, this experience was also a life-turning point for me. When the war broke out, I received so much love and support from everyone at UF. We started a Ukrainian Student Association and did everything in our power to raise awareness and money to help people in Ukraine. My time here at UF has been truly amazing — both awakening and heartbreaking. It has brought a lot of tears and a lot of happiness, moments of loneliness and desperation, as well as belief and hope.
Rusan Lateef
Rusan Lateef is a fourth-year PhD Candidate in the School of Social Work at McGill University in Canada. She was awarded a Canada Graduate Scholarship – Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement last year, which funded a two-month research stay as a Visiting Scholar at UF with host supervisor Dr. Alyssa Zucker.
During my stay, I received mentorship on conducting intersectional research, joined the research team for a study titled Tracking Attrition in Rape Prosecution in Alachua County, Florida, participated in a weekly academic reading group, provided a guest lecture in the Violence Against Women class, and networked with some of the exceptional faculty and students at the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research. Since leaving Gainesville, I have copresented at a research conference with Dr. Zucker and continue to work with her and Dr. Maddy Coy on the Attrition project. The mentorship I received on intersectional scholarship enhanced my doctoral research and will be applicable to future sexual violence research that I conduct.
This story appears in the Fall 2022 issue of the Gender, Sexualities, & Women’s Studies Newsletter. Read more from the issue.