Our Student Researchers

Masouda (Roya) Baryole

Roya has always had a passion for advancing women’s rights and working towards empowering them, especially in regions within developing countries where access to internet has been very scarce.  She is currently a JD candidate at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law and simultaneously pursuing her Masters at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (Carleton University). In summer 2012, Roya travelled to Tanzania and Kenya where she organized art workshops with young girls to raise awareness about the AIDS/HIV epidemic in sub-saharan Africa. She has also been encouraging women in the villages she has visited (specifically in the Tanzanian villages of Nyamongo, Geita, and Bukoba, and in Nairobi, Kenya) to play an active role in their communities and contribute to policy debates. Roya has witnessed the widening “digital gap” between the rich and poor, as many of the girls she worked with were eager to usetechnology yet did not have the resources or means to obtain it.

Roya is currently working with an NGO registered in Afghanistan, which recently provided a fully equipped computer classroom and computer lessons in Kabul.  The current project is intended to assist Afghan women in acquiring skills aimed at improving their self sufficiency and enabling them to participate in the wider community.

Ashley Butts

Ashley is a student in the Faculty of Law with an interest in feminism and new technologies.

Sarah Deveau

Sarah is an undergraduate criminology student with a passion for research. She joined the eGirls project with the support of the University of Ottawa’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. Thanks U of O! Sarah’s helped us out with a our data collection and, in turn, got hands-on experience with focus group interviews, transcription and data analysis.

Hannah Draper

Hannah is a graduate of the University of Ottawa’s Common Law program.
Unapologetically unafraid of the “f word” (feminism!) for as long as she can
remember, she went to law school to equip herself with more tools to do something
about the things that tick her off. She was delighted to find there a largely
feminist faculty, to be a student in Professor Bailey’s Cyberfeminism class during
her first year, and to later have the opportunity to do research with Professor
Bailey, as well as several other pugilistic professors. Throughout her legal
studies, Hannah focused on the social implications of technology law and policy,
especially in robotics and the digital environment. She firmly believes we owe it to
each other to leave each place better than we found it, and her personal research
interests continue to be rooted in issues related to equality and technology. After
working as a privacy advisor to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
for two years, Hannah joined the Open Society Foundations Information Program, where
she currently works as a program manager on issues affecting civil liberties, such
as privacy and freedom of expression, in the digital environment.

Suzie Dunn

Suzie is a dedicated feminist who lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, where she combines her passion for justice with her love of the outdoors. She has been climbing mountains and working with women’s rights organizations in British Columbia and the Yukon since 2003. While working with victims of domestic violence and marginalized women, she became interested in how technology is used as a tool to monitor and control women, as well as how it is used by women to protect and empower themselves.

Suzie is heading into her second year at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law where she is focusing her studies on gender, technology and Aboriginal issues. In the summers she works back home in the Yukon. She is presently employed with the Elizabeth Fry Society, where she is developing a Human Rights in Action handbook for female prisoners at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre. Additionally, she is working with a local youth organization, Bringing Youth Towards Equality, where she is assisting in the development of a Cyber Safety workshop for rural, northern youth.

Claire Feltrin

Claire is a second year student in the English Common Law program at the University of Ottawa. Her initial attraction to issues concerning technology and equality was set in motion during her undergraduate degree at the University of Western Ontario. Studying political science and psychology in tandem allowed her to explore the gendered psychological implications of social media and technology use, while reflecting on how such repercussions might be best addressed in the policy-making arena. Claire was therefore grateful for the opportunity to extend her learning in relation to matters falling at the intersection of gender, technology, and equality through her research assistantship with Professor Bailey. She remains intrigued by the ways in which the law can be leveraged to facilitate positive social reform in the ever-evolving field of technology, and address significant contemporary issues such as cyberbullying and online harassment.

Valerie Fernandes

Valerie is a feminist and she defines the term simply as “one who believes that females deserve respect.” As a young adult she has observed the cultural shift towards misogyny that manifests itself through disempowering language, the sexual objectification of women, low self-confidence, pay inequity, etc. Her contribution to the eGirls Project is done in the hope it will enlighten others about the social implications of technology for girls. Valerie is an aspiring lawyer studying at Osgoode Hall Law School. After completing Katimavik  (Canada’s Youth Volunteer Program), she co-founded Change 12 Inc. which subsequently held a public-speaking seminar for  youth, an equity forum for young women at the St. Alban’s Boys and Girls Club, and a social-networking website for social justice issues.  She was a Senior Policy Advisor at Public Safety Canada in the National Capital Region where she created the framework for the Youth Advisory Board that would allow young people to participate in the creation of national security policy.

Mouna Hanna

Mouna was best known, back in the day, for tying up the phone line while she chatted online with her friends using dial-up internet. While attending law school at the University of Ottawa and working as a research assistant to Jane Bailey, her love affair with technology only grew stronger, as she spent her days conducting research on cyberbullying, online hate and harassment, and privacy, among other areas. She proudly co-published one of the first Canadian academic articles on the applicability of Canada’s child pornography laws to teen sexting from a gendered perspective. She also spoke at the Women Making Change conference at the University of Western Ontario on the topic of online sexual harassment and presented to a large group of elementary students on cyberbullying and how to safely interact online. As a Civil Litigator and a Certified Information Privacy Professional, she is in and out of the courtroom and manages to continue fighting the good fight of feminism – somehow accomplishing both while wearing 4 inch high heels.

Sarah Heath

Sarah has used the internet to voice her opinion from a very young age, but in those challenging times she still enjoys an encouraging phone call, note or in-person visit from a girlfriend. Sarah is a PhD student at the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa where she is examining the gap between changes in legislation and how those changes are implemented by actors in the criminal justice system. Her Master’s thesis looked at the importance of informal norms, attitudes and working relationships amongst court personal in the processing of cases in Ontario Provincial bail courts. This work allowed her to travel internationally to replicate her research and present her findings in other countries. She also had the opportunity to interact with and learn from girls and boys in her first year as a graduate student when she worked as a research assistant with Jacquelyn Burkell and Valerie Steeves on a project that focused on identifying best practises for writing privacy policies for websites targeted at kids and teens.

Jill Lewis

As someone from the small town of Haliburton, Ontario, technology and feminism were concepts far from my mind. After taking a first year Women’s Studies class I was inspired to change my major and focus my education toward the pursuit of equality and respect for all. In my spare time I volunteer with an organization called Ottawa Victim Services, which provides emotional and practical support to women leaving abusive relationships. That experience, accompanied with some amazing feminist professors, encouraged me to view the law as a tool for social change and eventually led me to where I am today. It is still unknown what specific area of law I want to practice, but with support from the incredible feminist community on campus, I am optimistic about the diverse options I will have.

Miriam Martin

Miriam is a mother, activist and soon-to-be lawyer. Before crossing the country to study Common Law at the University of Ottawa, Miriam lived and worked in Vancouver, British Columbia. Having studied Fine Arts and Linguistics, she worked in non-profit administration and communications, most recently as Resource Coordinator at Positive Women’s Network – a women-only HIV service organization. As a Research Assistant for Professor Bailey in 2012-2014, Miriam designed and built the eGirls website and contributed to the Stream 1 Policy Process Review, including research into how Canadian public policy is made, and lots and lots of pouring over Hansard.

Trevor Scott Milford

Trevor knows that feminism transcends gender. As a doctoral student completing his PhD in Sociology at Carleton University, his dissertation focuses on how equality and inequality are framed within GamerGate, with an emphasis on how experiences of harassment can be analyzed through an ‘equality lens’.  He is proud to call himself a male feminist, and believes in minimizing constraints upon gender, class, race, and other social identifiers. He is also keenly interested in feminist approaches to surveillance studies, where he hopes to encourage greater feminist engagement in topics relating to surveillance.

Stela Murrizi

Stela’s interest in the resiliency of people who experience inequality and mistreatment has directed both her volunteer efforts and her graduate thesis project on the social construction and ideological ownership of rape. Her graduate research has shown her the significance of social construction on the actual lives, understanding, and treatment of victims of crime. A staunch proponent of activism through social media, she realized early on the power of social media to affect the thoughts and activities of individuals, groups, and society at large. Whether it is through observing how young women use social media to present and shape their identity, or seeking to discover how social media can be used to effect global change, her fascination with how the internet can and is being used as a tool for social interaction only grows as she has learned more about this subject, directly through the E-Girls Project.

Tony Verbora

Tony Verbora is a third year doctoral student in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. His research is cybercrime related. He is particularly interested in exploring how identity theft arose as a “problem” that required a policy response. This is particularly interesting to criminology because existing criminal provisions directly addressed the harms invoked by new uses of data to commit fraud and/or impersonation. However, a variety of actors in the policy field came together to demand new laws based on the claim that something was “new”. Currently, Tony is a Research Assistant for the eQuality project. The eQuality Project is intended to create much needed knowledge on corporate data practices regarding behavioural targeting of children and map out how online information infrastructures combine with social norms to open children up to discrimination.

Jess Warwick

Jess has long been interested in the dynamic between social media and youth. While attending high school in Petrolia, Ontario, Jess co-founded a student-run organization to address the issue of bullying in schools. The group travelled to local elementary schools to deliver interactive presentations to students about the changing face of harassment. The group discussed how technology is used to amplify the negative effects of bullying, but also its potential to empower and engage. Jess completed her B.A. at the University of Guelph, her M.A. at the University of Western Ontario, and is now a second year Common Law student at the University of Ottawa. Jess is the current Student Editor of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law/Revue Femmes et Droit, the only Canadian periodical devoted entirely to the publication and dissemination of multi-disciplinary scholarship in the field of women’s legal studies.

Julia Williams

Julia is a proud feminist who originally hails from Dundas, Ontario but has adopted Ottawa as her hometown for the last seven years. Prior to starting law school, she worked for three years with an Ottawa-based human rights organization advocating on behalf of Canada’s Muslim communities. Julia first became interested in the intersection between women’s issues and emerging technology while pursuing her B.Ed. in 2011. The policy issues surrounding social media and cyber-bulling, particularly involving young girls and so-called “sexting,” were frequently raised and considered in the context of schools and public education. She was thrilled to be given the opportunity to continue to explore these policy issues through her participation in the eGirls Project.

Nerissa Yan

Nerissa Yan is a second-year law student at the University of Ottawa. At the age of 18, she moved to Canada alone to pursue a university education. Having lived in both a so-called developing country and a developed country, Nerissa realized that gender equality issues are not regional but universal, and that practices which violate girls’ and women’s rights are not a problem of a specific country or culture, but a human problem. At the same time, she also noticed that gender inequality is also very much intertwined with racial/ethnic inequality in Canada. Upon university graduation, while working full-time in a corporate environment during the day to support herself, Nerissa began to actively participate in feminist organizations in Vancouver to combat violence against women and the human trafficking and sexual exploitation of Asian women in Canada. Nerissa volunteered at a women’s shelter advocating on behalf of women and children who are escaping male violence. In 2010, at the December 6 Montreal Massacre Memorial Event, Nerissa partnered with UBC feminist law professor Janine Benedet to give a public presentation on the relationship between pornography and violence against women.

Nerissa is extremely passionate about advancing women’s rights and equality. She is working diligently in educating young boys and girls to treat girls and women with respect, and in empowering herself and other young women to actively participate in political and economic discourse, grassroots movements and policy-making process to replace patriarchy and misogyny with respect and equality.