On Friday, May 23, 2025, the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department gathered to honor 43 graduates at our Spring 2025 commencement ceremony.
We’ve been inspired by your perseverance, your scholarship, and the ways you’ve challenged and expanded conversations about gender and sexuality during your time at Stony Brook University. It’s been a privilege to support you through capstone projects, research presentations, and community initiatives, and we’re proud of all you’ve achieved. As you embark on the next phase—whether pursuing graduate study, entering the workforce, or championing change in your own communities—we are confident that the critical perspectives and collaborative spirit you’ve cultivated here will continue to shape meaningful progress. We would also like to thank our Keynote speaker Dr. Ashley Barry for dedicating time to speak to our graduates and their families! Dr Barry is an Alumni of SBU with a PhD in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (2024) and is currently a policy researcher with CARA (College Access: Research & Action).
SPRING 2025 CANDIDATES
Majors
Brenna Kolahifar Gianna Montante Ψ
Olivia Nobs Π Alyssa Ramirez
Kaya Rexford Ω Chase Read Π
Smita Roy Ω ΦΒΚ Natalia Wong Ω ΦΒΚ
Bryce Dershem Ψ ΦΒΚ
Minors
Victoria Avaricio Radha Panchal
Aaliyah Barden Pari Patel
Laci Burton Irania Perez
Brianna Chavez ΦΒΚ Zoe Rebol
Izzy Gagliano Kaylee Reilly
Alix Hatzidakis Anya Reinhart
Seth Hilario Yekaterina Shemelyak
Avery Hines Elizabeth Taborsky
Yenny Kim Arianna Teel
Philip Kolmykov Lydia Varghese
Reese McQueen Emma Weston
Jannatul Mim Athena Wilkinson ΦΒΚ
SUMMER 2025 CANDIDATES
Majors Minors
Testimony Odekhian Π Yanxin Li
Ash Lin Eesha Uddin
Marissa Mathew Cheily Valentin
Lisette Ortega Edwina Zheng
FALL 2025 CANDIDATES
Minors
Jayleen Garcia
Olivia Winters
GSP = Gender, Sexuality & Public Health Specialization Ψ = SUMMA CUM LAUDE
GSC = Gender & Social Change Specialization Ω = MAGNA CUM LAUDE
ΦΒΚ = PHI BETA KAPPA Π = CUM LAUDE
AWARD RECIPIENTS
Vivien Hartog Memorial Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Teaching
Award Recipient: Emillion Adekoya
Award Presenter: Dr. Liz Montegary, Associate Professor and Chair
“Emillion Adekoya, in her third year of the PhD program, receives the 2024 Vivien Hartog Award in recognition of her outstanding teaching and mentorship. Her dissertation on African LGBTQ+ asylum seekers exemplifies rigorous, ethical scholarship, and her teaching—first as a TA and now as the sole instructor for courses such as our WGSS introduction, Gender, Race, and the Media, and Transnational Queer Dilemmas—challenges Western-centric frameworks by centering Global South perspectives. Emillion creates classroom environments where students engage critically with transnational debates, apply concepts to real-world situations, and feel empowered to enact change; as one student commented, “This class was so effective at unlearning and relearning that I believe it, or some shortened form, [should be a requirement for the entire Stony Brook student body]. I learned about problems and situations outside of my own and gained new perspectives which will [inform my academic work and my day-to-day interactions for the rest of my life].” Emillion’s creativity, dedication, and transformative impact make her wholly deserving of this award.”
Terry Alexander Award
Award Recipient: Bryce Dershem
Award Presenter: Dr. Liz Montegary, Associate Professor and Chair
“Bryce Dershem, a WGSS major and Classics minor graduating with a 4.0 GPA, is this year’s Terry Alexander Award recipient and will begin at Penn’s Carey Law School this fall. Although Bryce has produced an exceptional Honors Senior Thesis in queer cultural studies and critical legal studies, his health justice advocacy truly distinguishes him: he first raised awareness for LGBTQ mental health as his high school valedictorian, then continued through work with GLSEN, suicide prevention projects, and, as a community organizer with the National Eating Disorder Association, led a $100,000 campaign to establish a care facility for LGBTQ people of color with eating disorders. Since 2020, he has also cared for his mother with early-onset Alzheimer’s, advocating for patient treatments and caregiver support. Bryce plans to integrate healthcare and legal advocacy as a future healthcare attorney and critical legal studies scholar. The Terry Alexander Award honors Terry Alexander—mother of 2006 WST graduate Courtney Alexander—who worked in NYC public schools, served her Brooklyn community, and participated in annual MS walks until her passing from MS complications on December 7, 2006. This award recognizes her legacy by supporting students pursuing careers in health care or health advocacy and celebrating her commitment to education, community work, and caring for those with chronic illnesses. Congratulations, Bryce Dershem!” Bryce is photographed with the Alexander Family above!
Academic Excellence
Award Recipient: Gianna Montante & Natalia Wong
Awards Presenter: Dr. Victoria Hesford
Gianna Montante
“Gianna Montante is graduating summa cum laude from the Honors College with a major in WST and a minor in Health Science and Society. To say she is an excellent student would be to undersell how successful she has been in everything she has done while at Stony Brook. In addition to achieving an almost perfect GPA while taking pre-med classes as well as those for her major, she wrote a graduate-level honors research paper on the “illusory freedoms of birth control”—a paper that attended to the intertwined histories of eugenics, racism, and gender norms in American medicine and health policy. It was a pleasure to serve as her adviser for the research paper simply because she didn’t need much advice! Indeed, she is one of the most self-motivated, organized, and driven students—graduate or undergraduate—I have worked with during my time at Stony Brook. In addition to her work in the classroom, she has worked as an intern at the Center for Prevention and Outreach, is an Associate Member of the NY Birth Control Access Project, and has tutored students in Biochemistry. She was accepted into a prestigious joint BA/MD program, which means that in the fall she will start medical school at the Renaissance School of Medicine here at Stony Brook with the intention of becoming an OBGYN physician. Please join me in congratulating Gianna!”
Natalia Wong
“Natalia Wong has a 4.0 GPA for her major and has been on the Dean’s List for academic excellence since the fall of 2021. In the two classes she took with me, “Introduction to Feminist Theory” (WST 291) and Feminist Theories in Context (WST 305), she excelled both academically and as a participant in discussion and group exercises. She is an adventurous, inventive, and original thinker who enjoys exploring new ideas, concepts, and places and being creative with her assignments—for example, she wrote a wonderfully witty and smart “Gender Manifesto” in WST 291, which was so good I asked her permission to share it with my other classes. Natalia has a gift for friendship—her openness and warmth make the classroom a better experience for all. This semester, as a TA in Introduction to Feminist Theory, she developed genuine bonds with many students, helped them with ideas for assignments, gave a smart and engaging presentation on her senior research paper, and created funny yet serious quizzes to help students study for exams, earning a rousing round of applause at semester’s end. Natalia plans to apply to law school after taking some well-earned time off, and I have no doubt she will excel there too. Please join me in congratulating Natalia!”
Activism and Academic Excellence
Award Recipients: Brianna Chavez & Athena Wilkinson
Award Presenters: Dr. Jenean McGee & Dr. Angela Jones
Athena Wilkinson presented by Dr. Angela Jones
“I am honored to present our second activism and academic excellence award to Athena Wilkinson. I met Athena this semester in my special topics course on sex work and erotic labor, and her insightful, thought-provoking contributions often dominated our discussions—so it was no surprise when her final paper, “The Black Body Bound in Pains and Pleasures,” earned a perfect 100% and an A for its masterful exploration of consent. Beyond being an extraordinary student and talented musician, Athena has been an invaluable asset to our department: she’s served as a long-standing WGSS ambassador, helped improve our Open House events, contributed to our newsletter, and, as Dr. Liz Montegary notes, “laid crucial groundwork for launching a WGSS Honor Society.” We’re grateful for her stewardship and the infectious joy she brings to everything she does. Please join me in congratulating Athena Wilkinson on this well-deserved award!”
Brianna Chavez presented by Dr. Jenean McGee
“It is an honor to present this departmental Activism Award to Brianna Chavez, a first-generation college student majoring in Mass Communications and Sociology with minors in Women’s and Gender Studies and Health, Medicine, and Society. Brianna is a resident assistant and the president of Jubile Latino, a Latinx-Afro-infused dance team that embraces and appreciates Latin culture while bringing a sense of home to minorities at Stony Brook; she also works at the UNITI Cultural Center. She is one of fourteen Stony Brook students to receive the SUNY Chancellor’s Award—SUNY’s highest student honor—and one of 193 recipients systemwide in 2025. I first met Brianna at the start of this school year as her professor for WST Senior Seminar, where she immediately shone with positivity, compassion, and energy. In that capstone course, her research explored the intersectional effects of abortion access on women’s health, socioeconomic status, and social justice in the United States, which she presented as a poster at Stony Brook’s URECA undergraduate research symposium. As a minor in our department, Brianna served as one of our undergraduate ambassadors, collaborating to increase WGSS’s visibility on campus (by tabling at the SAC and the Union, distributing information about WST courses, and creating feminist stickers) and on social media (by enhancing our Instagram grid with new content such as faculty profiles and day-in-the-life ambassador stories). She was instrumental in organizing our first hot chocolate social and our first end-of-semester study hall. Brianna strives for equity, justice, and humanity—embodying the essence of WGSS and Ethnic Studies’ founding mission in the late 1960s and early 1970s—seeking change not just for herself but for those around her, lifting others as she climbs. Congratulations, Bri! It is an honor to have crossed paths with you.”
