Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies

Housed in the School of Arts & Sciences, the Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies program (GSWS) facilitates critical campus-wide curricular and co-curricular examinations of gender and sexuality. Our motivating goal is to encourage students, faculty and staff to interrogate interlocking systems of oppression, including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ethnocentrism and colonialism, to learn about their impact on campus and around the world and to practice resisting them.

Along with deploying a diverse set of feminist pedagogies, research methodologies and campus conversations, GSWS supports a curriculum that addresses topics such as histories of gender activism, gender, sexuality and their relationships to the law, religion, reproduction and reproductive technologies, marriage and relationships, war and violence, popular culture, literature, labor and the workplace, technology, social media, mental health, globalization and transnational experiences.

For more information, contact GSWS Co-Directors Lindsay Davis and Rebecca Moody.

Interested in Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies?

Check out our 2026-2027 course offerings.

A-Term	B-Term	C-Term	D-Term
HU 1500: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies	HU 2502: Global Feminisms	HU 1500: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies	HU 2901: Topics in sexuality & LGBTQ+ Studies: Queering Bioethics
HI 2318: Topics in Law, Justice and American Society: Race, Gender & the Law	BME 4301: Design from the Margins	HU 2501: STEM-inism	EN 3271 American Literary Topics: Toni Morrison
HI 2901: Topics in Gender and History: Women & Communism	RE 2721: Religion and Culture	MU 3202: Music, Gender, and Power	HI 2900: Topics in Gender & History: Tech Bros
HU 250X: Women in Chinese Fiction and Film	TH 3200: Special Topics in Dramatic Literature: Queer Theatre	RE 3723: Religion, Gender & Sexuality	HU 390: Inquiry Seminar: Gendering Frames of War
HU 3900: Inquiry Seminar: Love and Dating	HU 3900: Inquiry Seminar: Power of Manifestos	HU 3900: Inquiry Seminar: Queerly Religious	HU 3900: Inquiry Seminar Queer Cinema
		HU 3900: Inquiry Seminar: Just Friends	HU 3900: Inquiry Seminar: Working Girl: Women, Labor, and Activism in Modern History

GSWS Program Information

HU 1500: Introduction to Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies (A26 and C27)
HU 2501: STEM-inism (C27)
HU 2502: Global Feminisms (B26)
HU 2901: Topics in Sexuality and LGBTQ+ Studies (D27)
HU 3500: Feminist & Queer Theory (2027-2028)

HU 3900: Love and Dating in the Digital Age (A26)
HU 3900: Power of Manifestos (B26)
HU 3900: Just Friends (C27)
HU 3900: Queerly Religious (C27)
HU 3900: Gendering Frames of War (D27)
HU 3900: Queer Cinema (D27)
HU 3900: Working Girl: Women, Labor, and Activism in Modern History (D27)

Francesca Bernardi, Crystal Brown, Lindsay Davis, Michelle Ephraim, Rebecca Moody & Raisa Trubko. 2024. “Cultivating Inclusivity through Course Syllabi,” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11, Article number 784.

Anthony Coutts, Crystal Brown, and Francesca Bernardi. 2025. “Signals of Inclusion: How Faculty Demographics Impact the Use of Identity Safety Cues in Undergraduate STEM Syllabi.” Frontiers in Education 10:1514339.

Minor in Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies

Find out about the courses required to minor in Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies

GSWS Minor Information

Lindsay Davis

Associate Professor of Teaching,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

I am a broadly trained interdisciplinary scholar of 19th and 20th American history and critical feminist studies. Along with Dr. Rebecca Moody, I serve as the co-founder and co-director of the Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies (GSWS) program. My scholarly and pedagogical in [...]

Rebecca Moody

Associate Professor of Teaching,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

My research centers around religion in North Africa and the Middle East with a focus on Islam; I approach the study of Islam through its representation in visual culture. My first book project, an outgrowth of my dissertation, focuses on recent fiction film by Moroccan women film [...]

Francesca Bernardi

Associate Professor, Mathematical Sciences

I am an applied mathematician working in the fields of small-scale fluid mechanics and microfluidics. My research includes both mathematical modeling and physical experiments. In particular, I am interested in particle and solute transport in small-scale systems, such as municipa [...]

Kristin Boudreau

Professor,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

My research interests include literature and culture, humanities and STEM integration, and engineering education. These areas are unified by broad concerns for justice, inclusion, and social progress. My literary scholarship considers the ways literature helps to advance social p [...]

Crystal Brown

Assistant Professor & Program Director, Technology, Policy, and Sustainability, Social Science & Policy Studies

Dr. Crystal Brown earned her Ph.D. in Political Science with a focus in comparative politics, international relations, and public policy. She also has a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Pennsylvania State University and a certificate in Data Analytics from Harvard Unive [...]

Lucy Caplan

Assistant Professor,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

Lucy Caplan is an interdisciplinary historian of music, race, and culture in the United States. Her research and teaching interests include African American music, opera and musical theater, and cultural criticism. At present, she is writing a book about how early-twentieth-centu [...]

Zoe Eddy

Assistant Professor of Teaching,

Department of Integrative and Global Studies - DIGS

Zoë Antoinette Eddy (she/her/hers) is a researcher, educator, and advocate dedicated to re-imagining learning. She received her joint-PhD in social anthropology and archaeology from Harvard University (GSAS Class of 2019). She has taught in a range of disciplines, including gende [...]

Michelle Ephraim

Professor,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

Michelle Ephraim is a Shakespeare scholar and a Professor of English. Her book GREEN WORLD: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love and Shakespeare was awarded the 2023 Juniper Prize in Creative Nonfiction by the University of Massachusetts Press and was published by them in 2024. Professo [...]

Brittany Frederick

Director, Multicultural Education & Community Engagement, Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education (ODIME)

Dr. Brittany Frederick (she/her) serves as the Director of the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education. She provides strategic leadership for the programs, services, and initiatives that foster an inclusive and equitable campus environment. Brittany also works [...]

Katherine Foo

Associate Professor of Teaching,

Department of Integrative and Global Studies - DIGS

Emily Gioielli

Affiliate Assistant Professor, Humanities & Arts

Emily Gioielli is a historian of modern European history, with a special focus on Central and Eastern European history, the history of gender and sexuality, and the history of violence. I am currently finishing a social history that traces women’s involvement and the role of gend [...]

Sarah Lucie

Assistant Teaching Professor,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

Sarah Lucie earned her PhD in Theater and Performance from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and MA in Performance Studies from New York University. Her research approaches contemporary performance and digital art through new materialism, ecocritical theory, and p [...]

Aarti Madan

Associate Professor,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

Tsitsi Masvawure

Assistant Professor,

Department of Integrative and Global Studies - DIGS

Professor Masvawure is a medical anthropologist, global health researcher and feminist scholar, whose research focuses on issues of gender, sexuality and health. She has a primary interest in the HIV pandemic and has done research on HIV prevention and treatment in Africa. She is [...]

Kate McIntyre

Associate Professor,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

Dr. McIntyre’s research interests include writing fiction and creative nonfiction, collaborative writing, narrative theory, literary magazine publishing, the contemporary novel, the intersection of literary and genre fiction, and the gothic. Her short story collection, Mad Prairi [...]

Zoe Reidinger

Associate Teaching Professor, Biomedical Engineering

My areas of interest and enthusiasm lie in biomaterial fabrication and tissue engineering. Bringing this enthusiasm to the classroom is easy with WPI’s focus on undergraduate education and project-based learning. My goal as an instructor is to lead students to higher levels of th [...]

Jeanine Skorinko

Professor, Social Science & Policy Studies

Jeanine Skorinko is a professor of psychology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies. She also is the director of the Psychological & Cognitive Science program. She received her PhD in social psychology at the University of V [...]

Gillian Smith

Professor, Computer Science

Professor Smith is an award-winning game designer. Her interdisciplinary work merges technical research in AI and HCI with creative practice in textiles and games, with a view towards addressing social issues and broadening participation and perspectives on computing.

Elizabeth Victor

Adjunct Teaching Professor,

Humanities and Arts - HUA

Interested in Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies?

GSWS Program Information

Minor in Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies

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