Message from the Director

August 24, 2026

Welcome back to the start of new academic year! I am excited to start my directorship at the Gender Institute and very thankful to have the support of the members of the Executive Committee and past director Victoria Wolcott during this transition. I look forward to working with the wonderful Gender Institute team including deputy director, Noelle St. Vil, Associate Professor in the School of Social Work, staff assistant Megan Vaughan and graduate assistant Surabhi Pant.

The Gender Institute was built and sustained by faculty, staff, and students committed to the centrality of the production of knowledge around women, gender, and sexuality. The Gender Institute has flourished for over 25 years because it helps us flourish: by providing a space to build community and support to pursue our passions in our research, teaching, and community building.

If we haven’t met yet, you may be curious about who I am. I just completed 20 years at UB and am past chair of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies. Like many of you, my own research (on feminist movements, women’s political representation and leadership, and feminist institutional innovation in Chile) has benefitted greatly from the on-going support of the Gender Institute. For example, I recently returned from six months of fieldwork in Chile on my current project, Feminist Activism, Right-Wing Populism and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America, which was supported by the Gender Institute. I would like to urge you to apply to our Faculty Research grants, which are open to faculty in all fields and schools at UB.

I am particularly excited to take on the directorship at this political moment. As our teaching and research are being attacked in profoundly anti-democratic and anti-intellectual ways, these attacks show just how central our work is to the broader project of making a more livable, just, and democratic world. As famed women’s and gender historian Joan Wallach Scott noted, “a defense of gender studies is not a parochial feminist project, but a vital stand that extends to the validity of the entire American system as a democracy, one based on aspirations for equality and justice for all” (The Guardian, 02/13/2026).

As director, I am committed to defending the centrality of our work to this broader project and I invite you to join me. I would like to ask each of you to think how research into women, gender, and sexuality has transformed your fields and teaching. What do we know now that we would not know without this research? What are the new possibilities that exist because of our research? What are we in danger of losing by not defending our joint project of knowledge production?

Promoting a dialogue framed by these questions will be the basis of my directorship, and I look forward to the fruitful discussions we will have with each other and the community. Part of this work will certainly take place at our upcoming Feminist Research Alliance events with our colleagues Ariel Nereson, Department of Theatre and Dance on October 1^st and Kim Cheney, Department of Psychology on Nov 4^th. Please register to join us by clicking the above links.

I’d also like to issue an open invitation to get more involved in the Gender Institute. If you are not yet an affiliate, please contact us! If you would like to volunteer to serve on one of our fellowship committee or would like to present your work, please contact us! If you know of great feminist research being published by your colleagues, please share it with us!

I look forward to working in solidarity with you in the coming years.

Gwynn Thomas, PhD
Director

June 26, 2026

The UB Gender Institute would like to extend our warmest welcome to Dr. Caroline Attardo Genco as our new president. During these challenging times for scholars of gender and sexuality, we look forward to working with Dr. Genco in promoting research and teaching on women, gender, and sexuality across the University at Buffalo. We are excited to partner with Dr. Genco in her commitments to inclusion and fostering interdisciplinary work across departments and disciplines. We stand ready to help new initiatives designed to mentor and support women’s and LGTBQ leadership at the University at Buffalo. We invite Dr. Genco to get to know the vibrant Gender Institute community and to let us serve as a bridge to our diverse and talented faculty, students, and staff during this moment of transition and renewal.

Gwynn Thomas                                    Victoria W. Wolcott
Incoming Director                                Outgoing Director
UB Gender Institute                             UB Gender Institute    

Dear Gender Institute Community,

It has been my deepest honor to serve as the Gender Institute director for the last three years. The Institute, created as the result of grassroots activism among female faculty, remains a vital space of support and sustenance for feminist scholarship at UB. My own tenure as director began with a bang. Together with Disability Studies director, Mike Rembis, then Deputy Director, Jo Freudenheim, and I submitted a Mellon grant application for “Communities of Care,” a project that blends disability studies with gender studies to elevate the stories of disabled Western New Yorkers and their caregivers. While simultaneously serving as a PI on this major grant and director of the Institute was challenging, it has resulted in the hiring of three new faculty members and the funding of feminist scholars and artists both at UB and in the surrounding community.

My time as director has also coincided with the new presidential administration whose policies have proved devastating for scholars of gender and sexuality. That has made our work funding and supporting this scholarship even more vital, but has also posed significant challenges. The full impact of the ideological purge this administration has launched will take years to assess. Grants canceled, new grants unavailable, free speech limited, and freedom of travel curtailed feminist scholars continue their vital work despite the best efforts of the forces railed against them. But providing modest fellowships and a platform for presenting research can only go so far. My hope is that going forward the Institute can also act to demand more from UB to lift up the vital work currently under attack.

It is for this reason that I am thrilled to introduce our new director, Gwynn Thomas. Gwynn had the strong support of our executive committee, who viewed her track record of building institutional strength and standing up to power as particularly well suited to this moment.

Gwynn resurrected a defunct department, Global, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and elevated it to become one of the most dynamic and intellectually rigorous departments in CAS. Her expertise in Latin America also makes her well positioned to support international scholars and students. And she possesses the power and passion needed to embrace the challenges ahead. I have no doubt that the Gender Institute community, myself included, will be marching alongside her in this struggle.

In Solidarity,

Victoria W. Wolcott
Director, UB Gender Institute
 

Dear Gender Institute Community,

After much reflection I have decided to step down as Gender Institute director after one term.

It has been my great honor to serve as director, and I am deeply indebted to all the faculty, students, and staff who make the Institute such a vibrant and essential resource at UB.

During my tenure the Institute has had the privilege of promoting research in gender and sexuality across the university through faculty and student grants. We have also brought numerous scholars to campus including the foundational Lantinx scholar, Cherríe Moraga, historian Annelise Orleck, and Sara Lipshutz and Banu Subramaniam, biologists who were part of our “Beyond Binaries: Sex, Gender, and the Natural World” series. I have also been part of conversations about the challenges of this current political moment beyond UB. Those include a SUNY-wide gender/sexuality studies network and meetings with other Gender Institute directors nationwide. From these conversations I can say with authority that there are remarkable scholars, students and staff working to promote and extend our shared commitment to feminist scholarship across the country, and indeed the world.

When I became director in the summer of 2023 I worked with the Institute’s then Deputy Director, Jo Freudenheim, and the Disability Studies Program director, Michael Rembis, to draft a proposal for a Mellon Grant, “Communities of Care,” a project that seeks to better understand and address issues faced by caregivers and those with disabilities. In Fall 2023 we learned that the Mellon foundation awarded us a 2.5 million dollar grant, an unprecedented investment into cutting-edge research and community engagement in the areas of gender, carework, and disability. Since that time, we have hired one faculty member, Lou Tam in Global Gender and Sexuality Studies (GGSS), and are currently carrying out an interdisciplinary search for two additional faculty. In addition, the grant has employed graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and staff engaged in collecting and curating stories, supporting artists and community members, and funding research.

Finally, and most importantly, I have had the pleasure of working with incredible staff: assistant to the director, Megan Vaughan and graduate assistant, Surabhi Pant. And last year I was thrilled to have a new deputy director, Noelle St. Vil, join the institute. I am also grateful to our executive committee members and everyone who participates in our programming. Much is uncertain as we face the future, but the Gender Institute’s vital role in supporting and promoting feminist research is needed now more than ever.

In Solidarity,

Victoria

Dear Gender Institute Community,

This is a difficult week with many more difficult weeks to come. Likely many of you are, like me, experiencing a range of emotions that make it challenging to face our classrooms and our research. As Gender Institute director my hope is that we can continue to provide the resources and community to lift up research on gender and sexuality at this university and in the world. This is needed now more than ever. As Pauli Murray suggests this labor is part of a long game.

“In not a single one of these little campaigns was I victorious. In other words, in each case, I personally failed, but I have lived to see the thesis upon which I was operating vindicated. And what I very often say is that I’ve lived to see my lost causes found.” ― Pauli Murray

In Solidarity,

Victoria

I am deeply honored to take on the role of director of UB’s Gender Institute. As the only research center that focuses on women, gender, and sexuality in the entire SUNY system the Gender Institute has nurtured students and scholars for more than a quarter century. For those of you who don’t know me I am a Professor of History whose work explores interconnecting themes of race, gender, and the urban world. Like many UB faculty and students I have personally benefitted from the Institute, presenting works in progress as part of the Feminist Research Alliance and at a Gender Institute Symposium organized by former director Kari Winter, “Wonder Woman and Super Men.” I also discussed my most recent book Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement as part of the New Books, Feminist Directions series. Carrie Tirado Bramen, my predecessor, created the New Books series and through her tireless efforts the Institute’s budget has grown dramatically and the rates of attendance at its vibrant events have multiplied. I am so grateful to Carrie, and all the former directors, for their work building and sustaining the Gender Institute. And I am thankful to be working with a wonderful team, including our tireless staff assistant Megan Vaughan and graduate assistant Surabhi Pant. I’m also honored to work next to deputy director and SUNY Distinguished Professor Jo Freudenheim. 

Because I believe so strongly in the Gender Institute’s mission, I will be doing all I can to increase the visibility of the Institute, both within the university and in the broader community. We are at a crucial moment in our history, with concerted attacks on the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people, and the loss of reproductive rights. The Gender Institute can play a vital role at this moment, bringing feminist scholarship across all disciplinary fields to the wider public. To this end we have exciting events already lined up for the coming year, which we are kicking off with an opening reception at UB’s Faculty Club on September 14.  Jeff Iovannone will also be joining us from Cornell University in October to discuss the pioneering work of transgender activist and writer, Leslie Feinberg, whose novel Stone Butch Blues uncovered the world of working-class lesbian culture in 1960s Buffalo. Watch this space for many more events in the upcoming year. And please encourage your colleagues and students to apply for our generous fellowships, which are eligible across all fields, STEM, Social Science, Humanities, and the Arts. Finally, I urge anyone reading this to reach out. If you know about a recent book that engages feminist scholarship, please pass on that information. Interested in serving on one of our fellowship committees or participating in the Feminist Research Alliance? Let us know! Together we can face the future while learning from the past.

Victoria W. Wolcott
Director