Staff
Dona Yarbrough
Associate Vice Provost for Community and Diversity
Director, Center for Women
Dona Yarbrough directs the strategic plans and programs of the Center for Women and provides leadership to the enterprise-wide Advisory Council on Community and Diversity and the Office of Community and Diversity’s Portfolio Working Groups. She also leads efforts focused on faculty/senior administrative recruitment and retention strategies and diversity-related policies and practices. She is co-PI with Professor Leslie Harris of Emory's Arcus Foundation Grant supporting scholarship on black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. She has been at Emory since 2008 and loves working here and being an active citizen of Atlanta. Yarbrough is also a proud member of the Leadership DeKalb Class of 2013. Before coming to Emory, she was the director of the LGBT Center and a part-time faculty member in Women’s Studies at Tufts University. Yarbrough received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia and has taught numerous courses related to gender, race, and sexuality studies and early 20th-century American literature. She is a recipient of the Modern Language Association's Crompton-Noll Award for Best Essay in lesbian, gay, queer studies.
Links to writing by and about Dona Yarbrough.
Sasha Smith
Assistant Director, Center for Women
Sasha Smith joined the Center for Women in 2006. As a Women Studies major at the University of Connecticut, she worked at the University of Connecticut Women's Center and became a program educator for the Violence Against Women Prevention Program, through which she co-taught a Rape Seminar in Women Studies. Smith also received her Master's of Social Work in Community Organizing, focusing on Urban Issues and Social Justice, from the University of Commecticut. At Emory, she focuses on planning and implementing excellent diversity programming on a wide variety of topics. In her adopted city, Smith has continued her passion for activism and politics by serving as Board President for SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, one of the major forces in the reproductive justice movement in Georgia. She is a DeKalb Democratic Post Seat holder for District 81 and worked on the Obama campaign in Georgia in 2008. She truly enjoys working with young people and recently won the Office of Student Leadership and Service award for Advisor of the Year for being the advisor to the Feminists in Action and V-Day student groups. She is also a recepient of the National Women's Studies Association Women's Centers Emerging Leader Award.
Shannan Palma
Program Coordinator, Center for Women
Shannan Palma began at the Center for Women as a Graduate Fellow, creating and implementing a strategic plan for integrating social media outreach into the life of the center. After her fellowship ended, she continued to serve on the Center's Advisory Council and soon returned to work as the graduate assistant for faculty diversity research. In 2011, she joined the staff full time as program coordinator while finishing her doctoral research. In 2012, Palma earned her PhD in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a Graduate Certificate in Film Studies from Emory University and won the biennial Kore Award for Best Dissertation on Women and Mythology for her work on fairy tales as myth. Her scholarly expertise lies in the ways people use myth to simplify complex experiences of identity and desire. A strategic communications and programming professional with more than eight years experience in higher education, Palma is in charge of the center's communications and publicity, among other responsibilities. She also works on a variety of research projects and publications as part of a data and communications team in the Office of Community and Diversity.
Links to writing by and about Dr. Shannan Palma.
Flora B. Anthony
CWE Graduate Fellow, 2012-2013
Flora B. Anthony joins the Center for Women this year after working as a graduate student assistant at the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence at Emory for two years. At the CFDE, she researched and wrote a number of executive reports, composed summaries of events, planned a conference, and worked on various other administrative activities. She is currently writing her dissertation about paintings of foreigners on ancientEgyptian tomb walls, a project for which she was awarded the national Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellowship. As the resident Egyptologist at the CWE, she answers all staff questions about aliens and the pyramids. In 2006 she graduated with an MA in Egyptian Art and Archaeology from the University of Memphis. She also has a BA in Anthropology and a BIS in Middle East Studies from Georgia State University. Flora worked on the King Tutankhamun exhibition as the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow and co-taught a course on research for Emory undergraduates (called On Recent Discoveries by Emory Researchers). Flora is passionate about public scholarship and politics and is constantly giving workshops and talks about ancient Egypt at the Michael C. Carlos Museum. She served as the minority caucus chair for the Young Democrats of Georgia, the National Committee Woman for the same organization and was the Congressional Liaison for the Young Democrats of America.
Dominick Rolle
MSV Graduate Assistant, Center for Women
Dominick Rolle supports the the Emory-Men Stopping Violence Initiative, coordinating outreach, conducting presentations, and serving as the teaching assistant for the course Male Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Critical Issues and Concepts. As a graduate student pursuing his Ph.D. in English at Emory, his interests are mainly in 20th century African American Literature, Anglo Caribbean literature, and gender studies. Dominick received his B.A. in English from the University of Virginia in 2008. Prior to matriculating to Emory, Dominick was actively involved in social work and community building during his time in Charlottesville, VA. For two years he served as a youth counselor in a state supported home for youth and as a regional veteran peer representative for the Virginia Wounded Warrior Program. As a former veteran of the United States Navy who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was well suited to advocate for the needs of displaced veterans and their spouses in the central Virginia area. Through his experience in helping traumatized youth, on one hand, and veterans and their partners who are often affected by post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Dominick possesses both the empathy and knowledge necessary to advocate for, support, and promote the Emory-Men Stopping Violence Initiative.
Gloria Jirsaraie
Graduate Volunteer, Center for Women
Gloria Jirsaraie joined the Center for Women the summer of 2012. A Ph.D. graduate student in the English Department at Emory, Gloria’s research interests include 20th century African American literature, black feminism, and legal studies. She is currently writing about how black women’s speech becomes a sign a mental illness within the law. Determined to merge both research and praxis, in addition to her time at the Center for Women, Gloria is also the Co-Vice President of the professional development program—the African American Studies Collective, a representative for the Multicultural Student Alliance, and a member of the Graduate Student Government Association. Prior to joining the Emory community, Gloria received her B.A. degrees in English and African American Studies from Howard University. There, as a Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate scholar, she published her thesis on black women’s liberation ideology and identity formation. If you ask her, Gloria will always credit her mother for her feminist consciousness. Through her research and her time at the Center for Women, Gloria hopes to contribute to that legacy.
