the first center for women fellow

Gina Helfrich joined the Center for Women as a Graduate Fellow in September 2007. She grew up in Lubbock, Texas, but later moved north to attend Boston College, where she majored in philosophy. Gina graduated with a BA in 2003 and was accepted to Emory’s philosophy PhD program. She is beginning her fifth year of the program and is concurrently pursuing a graduate certificate in women’s studies. Gina’s research interests are in ethics, social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and queer theory. The Center for Women Fellowship will be supporting her this year as she works on her dissertation, tentatively titled “Solidarity across Sexual Identities: Ethical and Political Dimensions.”

Although philosophy is her home department, Gina has been unofficially “adopted” by the women’s studies department at Emory. She is deeply involved in the women’s studies graduate student association and helped to found its Feminist Methods and Epistemologies reading group, now in its third year. Gina lent a hand to organizing the spring 2007 collaborative graduate student conference in women’s studies, hosted at Emory. And she has been an active participant in the Transnational Feminist Theory reading group since 2005.

Gina is a committed activist for women’s issues. Last year she helped to coordinate the 2006 Take Back the Night at Emory. In 2006-2007 she served as the chair of the graduate student subcommittee of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) and will be continuing in that role for 2007-2008. As part of her work for the PCSW, she spearheaded the movement to incorporate sexual-assault and sexual-harassment education into the TATTO curriculum for graduate student teachers. Currently, Gina is working with the PCSW and Assistant Dean of the Graduate School Virginia Shadron to expand Emory’s sexual-assault and sexual-harassment education programs to include a first-year orientation session for undergraduates.

Outside of her academic and activist work, Gina is an avid dancer of the Lindy Hop, a swing dance from 1930s and 1940s Harlem. She has been dancing for eight years and teaches classes in the Atlanta area and around the country. Gina is also a sci-fi/fantasy fan and enjoys rehashing the details of Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer with fellow enthusiasts.