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Department: Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy

Anahi Russo Garrido

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Anahi Russo Garrido, Ph.D. is an associate professor, department chair and director of the Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy (GITA), at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Their research and teaching have focused on transnational sexualities, gender and sexuality in Latin America, queer and feminist theory and social justice organizing.

Garrido is the author of “Tortilleras Negotiating Intimacy: Love, Friendship and Sex in Queer Mexico City,” which investigated the transformation of intimacy in Mexico City in the lives of three generations of women participating in queer spaces. They are also the co-editor of “Building Feminist Movements and Organizations” and has published articles on queer Mexico City in the Journal of Lesbian Studies and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, among other journals. Their new research project focuses on the ways in which some advocates utilize contemplative practices to support racial justice activism. This new project contributes to current discussions on queer and feminist care, queer and trans ecologies and racial justice activism.

They earned a doctorate in Gender and Women’s Studies from Rutgers University, and postdoctoral fellowships at Carleton College and Brandeis University.

Christine Sheikh

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Christine Sheikh, Ph.D., is an adjunct faculty in the Department of Sociology and the Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her expertise spans various subjects, including gender in religion, race in the U.S., economic and racial inequalities in the U.S., death and dying, mental health in the U.S., student voting engagement and Roe v. Wade. Her primary research focus is American Islam.

Currently, she is working on a special project for the Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy focusing on the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. She is the author of “The American Ummah: Identity and Adaptation Among Second-Generation Muslim Americans.” Sheikh also co-produced two short documentaries on American Islam, titled “Being Muslim in America: Acts of Courage and Hope”, and “Being Muslim in America: An Afghan American Family Story.”

She holds affiliations with several professional organizations such as the Religious Research Association, American Sociological Association and Sociologists for Women in Society.

Before joining MSU Denver, she was a sociology instructor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the Community College of Aurora and an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Denver.

Sheikh earned her doctorate and master’s degrees in Sociology from the University of Arizona and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Bachelor of Science in Sociology/Anthropology from Truman State University.

Judith Strathearn

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Judith Strathearn, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Gender and Women’s Studies Department and an affiliate professor in the Africana Studies Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include black feminism, experiential pedagogy, literature of the African Diaspora and Gullah Geechee studies.

Katherine Miller

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Katherine Miller, M.A., is an affiliate professor in the Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is an award-winning activist and educator, with extensive experience in victim advocacy for survivors of interpersonal violence and human trafficking.

In addition to teaching undergraduate students at MSU Denver, Miller also serves as the Victim Services Coordinator at the Phoenix Center at Auraria (PCA), supervises the Colorado Network to End Human Trafficking (CoNEHT) statewide hotline and serves as an active board member for the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking (LCHT). She has provided prevention education through the Blue Bench, trauma therapy at the Aurora Strong Resilience Center, psychoeducation and process groups with women in rural Southern India living with HIV, and provided direct services to students in crisis at the Institute for Women’s Studies and Services. Miller is committed to infusing intersectional feminism and praxis into advocacy work at the PCA, building campus coalitions to support survivors, and dismantling systems and cultural norms that perpetuate violence.

Miller earned her master’s in International Disaster Psychology from University of Denver and a bachelor’s in Psychology, Women’s Studies and History from Metropolitan State University of Denver.