Gender Equity Research Team

RESEARCH COORDINATOR

JESSIE YIN

Jessie is originally from Texas, USA, and has been involved with feminist research since her sophomore year of undergrad. She is currently completing her first year of her dual-degree master’s program at Sciences Po PSIA and will be going to Peking University next year. She is studying international development with a focus on addressing the realities of uneven development. Her concentration is Gender Studies, heavily influenced by her past research mentors who were delightfully critical feminist geographers.

RESEARCHERS

AVANTI DESHPANDE

Avanti is a final year law student at ILS Law College, Pune, India. Her main research interests include human rights law, gender studies, and public international law. She’s passionate about gender equality and believes in using the law as an instrument of effecting social change.

CHIARA PASS

Chiara is currently a student at Sciences Po Paris in the Master of International Management and Sustainability. Prior to joining HDRI, she gained valuable experience in the public and private sector and obtained a Bachelor of Laws at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She chose the Gender Equity team as a way to translate her passion for intersectional feminism into a professional context and approach socially transformative phenomena from a scientific perspective.

RANU TIWARI

Ranu is a 5th-year law student at Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur, India, pursuing B.A. LL.B. (Hons.). She is passionate about legal and inter-disciplinary research, especially the intersection of law and social sciences. Her areas of interest include Human Rights Law, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Law (SRHR), and International Law.

SARAH HALAWANI

Aayesha is currently pursuing a PG Diploma in Human Rights Law to expand her field of research Sarah has a master’s degree from the University of Exeter-UK and a second master’s from the University of Jordan. Humanitarian activity and social science research are two of her greatest passions. Sarah has worked as a project coordinator in the humanitarian sector for the past four years, where she currently holds a senior coordinator position in an INGO. With her academic education and job experience, she hopes to become a gender specialist in the Arab region and contribute her work to the scholarly community.

SWAKSHADIP SARKAR

Swakshadip Sarkar grew up in West Bengal, India and they moved to the UK to earn a bachelor’s degree at the age of 17. They finished their MSc in Social and Cultural Theory from the University of Bristol having worked on homosexual identity formation amongst homosexual men in West Bengal for their MSc dissertation. . They are currently doing their PhD at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington working on policy issues that affect transgender asylum seekers in the UK. They have also been involved in activism both in India and the UK where they have participated in several outreach programs to raise awareness about the issues faced by LGBTQ+ individuals. They are personally interested in LGBTQ+ activism and research, especially in the broader area of gender equality and intersectionality.