Ramona Faith Oswald joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1998 and became a professor in 2001. She is a recognized leader in LGBT family life; she founded and co-chaired (1998-2003) the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight Alliance Focusgroup. Currently she is the main organizer of the LBGT Research Symposium, a national meeting in C-U.
Women featured in our weekly...
Renee Heiken Slone graduated from the University of Illinois in 1993 and then became the head coach for the women’s golf team at the University in 2006. Throughout her career as a student athlete, Renee was a three-time All-American, claiming three straight top-10 finishes at the NCAA Championships. She also was a two-time Big Ten Player of the Year, two-time Big Ten Championship Medalist, and...
Reshma Saujani graduated from the University of Illinois in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Speech Communication. She was the founder of the organization Girls Who Code, started in 2012. She is also the first Indian American woman and the first South Asian American woman to run for Congress. In 2015, Fortune magazine named Reshma to their “40 Under 40” list. #...
Grentz joined the University of Illinois coaching staff in 1995, becoming the Head Coach for the Women’s Basketball team. She was named Big 10 Coach of the Year in 1997 and 1998, leading the women’s basketball team to the Sweet Sixteen in 1997. Prior to her coaching career at Illinois, Grentz was an Olympic athlete and competed for the USA Women’s basketball team in 1973 in Moscow. She served...
Nancy Abelmann joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1990, and was a scholar in Anthropology, Asian American Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Gender and Women’s Studies. She was a member of the core committee that founded the Asian American Studies program (now department). Abelmann also co-founded the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI) in 2002; served as the...
Maimouna Barro received her M.A. in African Studies in 1997 and her PhD in Education with a minor in Gender Relations in International Development (GRID) in 2005, both from the University of Illinois. She is the Associate Director at the Center for African Studies and has been instrumental in expanding the Center’s academic programs. Barro helped establish a joint degree with the...
Burton became a Professor in the History Department at the University of Illinois in 2001. She has been a Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies since 2004, and became the Director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities in 2016. Burton is a historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire with a specialty in colonial India. She has...