Managing Director, Youth & Innovation Project, University of Waterloo Ilona is the Co-creator and Managing Director of the Youth & Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo. She is an award-winning social innovator and a regular voice in the Canadian media advising business, civil society and government on how they can tap into the value and unique abilities of young people. She has extensive leadership and governance experience having co-founded several successful organizations. In 2004, she Co-founded Apathy is Boring, a non-partisan social enterprise that educates Canadian youth about democracy and encourages them to vote. Ilona is a PhD student in political science at the University of Waterloo, a speaker with the Speaker Spotlight agency and an Ashoka Fellow.
Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University I am a social theorist and sociologist of inequalities and borders (of multiple kinds). My research is concerned with social inequalities, power, injustice and resistance. My work examines why inequalities exist, why inequalities are currently growing (for example, patterns of neoliberalism, marketization, privatisation and the erosion of democracy in the transition to postwelfare state formations), the intersections of different histories and forms of inequality (for example, gender, citizenship status, disability). My work is concerned with how inequalities are measured and classified, the ways in which inequalities are reproduced & resisted and the kinds of subjectivities and identities which are constituted through unequal social relations. I draw on a diverse body of scholarship in my work, notably from feminist theory, sociology, media and cultural studies, social and critical theory and political philosophy and I typically bring together and analyse diverse archives of materials, including primary empirical data, policy materials, and a range of cultural materials. It is intersectional research which employs mixed methods and draws together long-standing research interests in migration, internal and external borders, sexual politics, social class, "race" & ethnicity, disability and poverty, and an abiding interest in culture (cultural economies), representation, subjectivity, processes of mediation and political aesthetics. Alongside work on class, culture, gender and inequality I have published widely in the area of borders, citizenship, migrancy and in 2009 I set up a cross departmental migrancy Research Group at Lancaster University. I have recently edited, with Katarzyna Marciniak (Ohio University) a special issue of Citizenship Studies on `Immigrant Protest`(2013) and a book Immigrant Protest: Politics, Aesthetics, and Everyday Dissent (New York: SUNY, 2014). I have recently completed an ESRC funded project called 'Making Asylum Seekers Legible and Visible: An Analysis of the Dilemmas and Mitigating Strategies of Asylum Advocacy in the UK and US '. During 2012-2015 I co-organised an ESRC funded series of events ‘Exploring Everyday Practice and Resistance in Immigration Detention‘. The final conference in this series 'The Business of Immigration Detention: Activisms, Resistances, Critical Interventions' took place in Lancaster in Jan 2015.
Assistant Professor, Psychology, Swansea University My research the last few years has been on understanding cognitive operations behind performance. Recently, my colleagues and I have been looking into whether and how attractive visual stimuli can influence time-critical performance. Another recent line of work concerns our use and understanding of icons, signs and symbols. Considering they are part of a new global visual language, we know relatively little so far about how they are perceived and understood by people across languages, cultures, ages, and ethnic backgrounds. Discovering this over the next few years is an exciting new venture for us.
Librarian and Head of the Jon Bilbao Basque Library, University of Nevada, Reno Iñaki Arrieta Baro is the head of the Jon Bilbao Basque Library, a highly specialized unit focused on serving researchers from all around the world interested in Basque Studies. He leads the planning, promotion, advocacy, and policy development efforts for the Basque Library. In collaboration with other librarians and faculty from other departments, he has taken part in the organization of workshops and conferences in connections with Basque topics and digital humanities. Iñaki works with both local researchers and scholars worldwide, collaborates with the Basque American community on preservation efforts of documents in different physical forms and digital assets, and works with donors in obtaining new materials for our Basque collections.
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor Irina Ceric joined the University of Windsor Faculty of Law in 2022. She holds a PhD from Osgoode Hall Law School. Her research lies at the intersection of law and social movements, with a particular focus on the regulation and criminalization of dissent by movements for social and environmental justice and Indigenous sovereignty. Irina is also a longtime community activist and legal support organizer and educator, having worked with movements in Canada and the US since the late 1990s. Prior to shifting into academia, she practiced criminal and clinical law in Toronto and Vancouver.
Adjunct Research Fellow in Griffith Center for Social and Cultural Research (GCSCR), Griffith University Irina Ponomareva is an archaeologist with experience working across four countries: Russia, Ukraine, Spain and Australia. She has a PhD in Archaeology from Griffith University on the rock art of Siberia and ethno-cultural identity. Following her Ph.D., Irina entered Australian consulting archaeology for a few years before undertaking a postdoctoral position in Spain. She has since returned to Australia, eager to continue her career in the consulting industry.
