Invited Speakers
Kerri Woods (She/Her)
Dr Kerri Woods is Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Leeds, where she is also the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead for her Faculty and a University LGBT+ Role Model. She works predominantly on human rights theory, feminist theory and theories of solidarity, and has published two books and several articles in these fields. Her current projects focus on understanding what solidarity with refugees means normatively, and on epistemic injustice in asylum processes.
Valentino Vecchietti (She/Her & They/Them)
Valentino Vecchietti is a multi-award winning intersex activist and intersex equality campaigner in the UK. In 2019 they founded Intersex Equality Rights UK. They are the Intersex Columnist for DIVA Magazine, the largest lesbian and bi women’s magazine in Europe. In 2021 & 2020 their work as an intersex community campaigner was recognised on the Lesbian 100 List. And they are on the Pride Power List 2021 & 2020 for their intersex focussed work in journalism, media and culture. They speak at intersex conferences in the UK and internationally. They are an independent academic, a writer, and a public speaker. They consult for universities, museums, and LGBT Organizations - and in the Arts for television, film, and theatre. They are part of Kadak Collective, a women’s art collective. Their comic, In-Out Gender Through the Brexit Lens, has an intersectional focus on their own: intersex, lesbian, immigrant, mixed POC, working class, background. It has been exhibited and reviewed internationally. In 2020 Kadak Anthology, Bystander, published their new online comic, 'Being the Good Girl'.
Phillip Ayoub (He/Him)
Phillip Ayoub is an Associate Professor in the Department of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College and Fellow in the Centre for International Security at the Hertie School. He also serves as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Politics & Gender. He also spent a year as Max Weber Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute, and four years as an Assistant and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at Drexel University. His research bridges insights from international relations and comparative politics, engaging with literature on transnational politics, sexuality and gender, norm diffusion, and the study of social movements. He is particularly interested in how the transnational mobilization of marginalized peoples and international channels of visibility influence socio-legal change across states. His book, titled “When States Come Out: Europe’s Sexual Minorities and the Politics of Visibility”, was published by Cambridge University Press in April 2016. It addresses transnational movements in relation to the diffusion of LGBT rights in Europe.
The Honourable Louisa Wall (She/Her)
Louisa Wall has been a Member of Parliament for the New Zealand Labour Party since 2008. Louisa traces her indigenous ancestry from Waikato, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Hineuru. She was instrumental in the passage of same-sex marriage in the country, writing the Marriage Amendment Bill that ultimately legalised marriage equality. Before her political career, Louisa played netball and rugby professionally, representing New Zealand through the Silver Ferns and Black Ferns. She currently sits on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee and is a member of the Parliamentary Friends of West Papua and Co-Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
Andrea Jenkins (She/Her)
Andrea Jenkins is a writer, performance artist, poet, and transgender activist. She is the first African American openly trans woman to be elected to office in the United States. Jenkins moved to Minnesota to attend the University of Minnesota in 1979. She worked as a Vocational Counselor for Hennepin County government, for a decade. Jenkins worked as a staff member on the Minneapolis City Council for 12 years before beginning work as curator of the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota's Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.
She holds a master’s degree in Community Development from Southern New Hampshire University, a MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University and a Bachelor’s Degrees in Human Services from Metropolitan State University. She is a nationally and internationally recognized writer and artist, a 2011 Bush Fellow to advance the work of transgender inclusion, and the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. In 2018 she completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University.
Dr Kerri Woods is Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Leeds, where she is also the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead for her Faculty and a University LGBT+ Role Model. She works predominantly on human rights theory, feminist theory and theories of solidarity, and has published two books and several articles in these fields. Her current projects focus on understanding what solidarity with refugees means normatively, and on epistemic injustice in asylum processes.
Valentino Vecchietti (She/Her & They/Them)
Valentino Vecchietti is a multi-award winning intersex activist and intersex equality campaigner in the UK. In 2019 they founded Intersex Equality Rights UK. They are the Intersex Columnist for DIVA Magazine, the largest lesbian and bi women’s magazine in Europe. In 2021 & 2020 their work as an intersex community campaigner was recognised on the Lesbian 100 List. And they are on the Pride Power List 2021 & 2020 for their intersex focussed work in journalism, media and culture. They speak at intersex conferences in the UK and internationally. They are an independent academic, a writer, and a public speaker. They consult for universities, museums, and LGBT Organizations - and in the Arts for television, film, and theatre. They are part of Kadak Collective, a women’s art collective. Their comic, In-Out Gender Through the Brexit Lens, has an intersectional focus on their own: intersex, lesbian, immigrant, mixed POC, working class, background. It has been exhibited and reviewed internationally. In 2020 Kadak Anthology, Bystander, published their new online comic, 'Being the Good Girl'.
Phillip Ayoub (He/Him)
Phillip Ayoub is an Associate Professor in the Department of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College and Fellow in the Centre for International Security at the Hertie School. He also serves as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Politics & Gender. He also spent a year as Max Weber Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute, and four years as an Assistant and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at Drexel University. His research bridges insights from international relations and comparative politics, engaging with literature on transnational politics, sexuality and gender, norm diffusion, and the study of social movements. He is particularly interested in how the transnational mobilization of marginalized peoples and international channels of visibility influence socio-legal change across states. His book, titled “When States Come Out: Europe’s Sexual Minorities and the Politics of Visibility”, was published by Cambridge University Press in April 2016. It addresses transnational movements in relation to the diffusion of LGBT rights in Europe.
The Honourable Louisa Wall (She/Her)
Louisa Wall has been a Member of Parliament for the New Zealand Labour Party since 2008. Louisa traces her indigenous ancestry from Waikato, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Hineuru. She was instrumental in the passage of same-sex marriage in the country, writing the Marriage Amendment Bill that ultimately legalised marriage equality. Before her political career, Louisa played netball and rugby professionally, representing New Zealand through the Silver Ferns and Black Ferns. She currently sits on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee and is a member of the Parliamentary Friends of West Papua and Co-Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
Andrea Jenkins (She/Her)
Andrea Jenkins is a writer, performance artist, poet, and transgender activist. She is the first African American openly trans woman to be elected to office in the United States. Jenkins moved to Minnesota to attend the University of Minnesota in 1979. She worked as a Vocational Counselor for Hennepin County government, for a decade. Jenkins worked as a staff member on the Minneapolis City Council for 12 years before beginning work as curator of the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota's Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.
She holds a master’s degree in Community Development from Southern New Hampshire University, a MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University and a Bachelor’s Degrees in Human Services from Metropolitan State University. She is a nationally and internationally recognized writer and artist, a 2011 Bush Fellow to advance the work of transgender inclusion, and the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. In 2018 she completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University.
Emerging Scholars
Mariza Avgeri (she/they)
Mariza Avgeri is an associate Lecturer at the Open University in the UK on Law, Society and Culture and an EU law tutor at Maynooth University. She is a qualified lawyer in Athens, Greece. She has graduated with a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Political Science from VU Amsterdam. She is currently completing her PhD in Maynooth University at the Law Department working on transgender asylum claims and jurisprudence in the context of the European Union. She is a John and Pat Hume scholar for her doctoral studies. She has worked as a legal researcher, a case worker at the Greek Asylum Service and a member of the Appels’ Committees. She has participated in many civil rights initiatives regarding migrant rights and LGBT rights, both as a lawyer and as a member of the queer community.
Uğur Bulgan (he/him)
Uğur Bulgan holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Istanbul University and an MA in World Politics and International Relations from the University of Pavia. He is currently a PhD candidate in Political Theory at the University of Milan. His research interests include terrorism, just war theory, transitional justice, and recognition theory.
Gah-Kai Leung (he/him)
Gah-Kai is entering the third year of a PhD in Political Theory at the University of Warwick. His doctoral thesis focuses on the normative issues in earthquake/tsunami risk management, with an applied case study focusing on the Pacific Northwest USA and Canada. Gah-Kai has general interests in social and political philosophy, applied ethics, LGBT issues and disaster risk reduction. Previously, he completed a PGCert in Social Science Research (Warwick), an MA in Transnational Studies (UCL) and a BA in PPE (Warwick).
Matthew J. Cull (they/them)
Matthew is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Reading. Matthew works on social and political philosophy, bringing together trans, feminist, and Marxist theory. They have interests in a variety of areas, including social epistemology, social metaphysics, policy, and the history of analytic philosophy. Their current work on the Son Preference in the UK project draws on empirical work, alongside theoretical developments on topics such as adaptive preferences, trans studies, and sexuality studies. Matthew also recently finished a PhD on the metaphysics of gender at the University of Sheffield, developing a position called 'ameliorative semantic pluralism'. Their other previous work includes publications in journals such as Social Epistemology, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, The Journal of Social Ontology and Inquiry.
Mariza Avgeri is an associate Lecturer at the Open University in the UK on Law, Society and Culture and an EU law tutor at Maynooth University. She is a qualified lawyer in Athens, Greece. She has graduated with a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Political Science from VU Amsterdam. She is currently completing her PhD in Maynooth University at the Law Department working on transgender asylum claims and jurisprudence in the context of the European Union. She is a John and Pat Hume scholar for her doctoral studies. She has worked as a legal researcher, a case worker at the Greek Asylum Service and a member of the Appels’ Committees. She has participated in many civil rights initiatives regarding migrant rights and LGBT rights, both as a lawyer and as a member of the queer community.
Uğur Bulgan (he/him)
Uğur Bulgan holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Istanbul University and an MA in World Politics and International Relations from the University of Pavia. He is currently a PhD candidate in Political Theory at the University of Milan. His research interests include terrorism, just war theory, transitional justice, and recognition theory.
Gah-Kai Leung (he/him)
Gah-Kai is entering the third year of a PhD in Political Theory at the University of Warwick. His doctoral thesis focuses on the normative issues in earthquake/tsunami risk management, with an applied case study focusing on the Pacific Northwest USA and Canada. Gah-Kai has general interests in social and political philosophy, applied ethics, LGBT issues and disaster risk reduction. Previously, he completed a PGCert in Social Science Research (Warwick), an MA in Transnational Studies (UCL) and a BA in PPE (Warwick).
Matthew J. Cull (they/them)
Matthew is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Reading. Matthew works on social and political philosophy, bringing together trans, feminist, and Marxist theory. They have interests in a variety of areas, including social epistemology, social metaphysics, policy, and the history of analytic philosophy. Their current work on the Son Preference in the UK project draws on empirical work, alongside theoretical developments on topics such as adaptive preferences, trans studies, and sexuality studies. Matthew also recently finished a PhD on the metaphysics of gender at the University of Sheffield, developing a position called 'ameliorative semantic pluralism'. Their other previous work includes publications in journals such as Social Epistemology, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, The Journal of Social Ontology and Inquiry.