Queering Research: A UTS Pride Week Panel event that celebrates the LGBTQIA+ research in our community

Queering Research is a live panel event celebrating the broad impacts of LGBTQIA+ researchers at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and their work. This will be a presentation and panel discussion on how researchers from the UTS LGBTQIA+ Researchers network, FASS and other faculties are advancing social justice through research into queer communities and "queering" research by exploring and challenging gender and sex-based binaries.

CHAIR

Kat Frolov (she/her) is UTS’ LGBTIQA+ Project Officer at the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion. She advocates and supports staff and students who reflect every letter of the LGBTQIA+ acronym at UTS. Kat is a polymath; she is a former musician and classical singer (BMus Hons) who has a long history with the social sciences through years of advocacy work. She studied a Bachelor of Medical Science at UTS and is currently completing a Master of Public health (research). Suffice to say, Kat’s passions are as diverse as the speaker's research areas! Join Kat in celebrating and learning about the work of LGBTQIA+ researchers at UTS.  

SPEAKER BIOS

Atul Joshi (he/him) identifies as a member of the queer community and as a person of colour. Born in Myanmar of Indian parents, he is currently a Ph.D. candidate at UTS researching queer biography and life writing via creative practice.  He’s been shortlisted for the Saturday Paper’s Donald Horne Prize and the Newcastle Writers’ Festival Fresh Ink Prize. His fiction has appeared in The Big Issue, Seizure Online and Ricepaper Magazine, and non-fiction in Peril Magazine, the Portside Review, Growing up Queer in Australia and the Sydney Review of Books. 

Sarah Mould (she/her) is a creative PhD candidate at UTS. Her research investigates how writers can use literary science fiction to create positive fat futures. She has presented at the Gender, Sex and Sexuality Conference as well as the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia (CSAA) Conference. As a writer, Sarah has been shortlisted for the Monash Prize at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, published in Junkee, nominated for B&T Awards, been a TikTok Young Lions finalist and worked on award-winning advertising campaigns. She is currently a freelance writer and advertising creative. 

Anika Shah (she/her) is a writer, researcher, and academic based in Sydney, Australia and Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is a Lecturer at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh and a PhD Candidate at the University of Technology Sydney. She is currently researching the lived experiences of queer Bangladeshi women with a focus on disclosures and the discourse of ‘coming out’. Her research interests lie in the areas of gender and sexuality, studies of popular culture, literature, and gothic/horror genres. 

Dr Jess Gifkins (she/her) is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS. She is interested in how international relations are enacted on a day-to-day basis. Her research centers around two different themes. Her first theme is on decision-making within the United Nations, focused on the UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat. Within this strand she has published research on legitimation practices, penholding, agenda setting, peacekeeping, the relationship with the International Criminal Court, and early warning mechanisms. Her second theme is on the implementation of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (or ‘R2P’, as it is known) where she has researched language, case studies on conflicts in Darfur, Libya, and Syria, and the relationship between persecution of LGBTQI+ people, hate crimes, and atrocity crimes. 

Dr Paul Byron (he/him) is a senior lecturer in Digital and Social Media within the School of Communication at the UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He researches young people's digital cultures of friendship and recently completed a postdoctoral study of LGBTQ+ young people's use of social media for mental health peer support. He is author of the book Digital Media, Friendship and Cultures of Care.