Meet the experts and thought leaders who will be sharing their insights and expertise at our conference. Get ready for inspiring sessions from renowned speakers in the field.
Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), USA
Prof. Bettina Aptheker is a distinguished American feminist scholar, writer, educator, and political activist. She currently holds the title of Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), where she taught for over four decades. She is renowned for having developed and taught one of the largest and most influential introductory courses in feminist studies in the United States. She also served as the UC Presidential Co-Chair in Feminist Critical Race & Ethnic Studies.
Born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Fay Philippa Aptheker and Herbert Aptheker—a Marxist historian and prominent radical activist—Dr. Aptheker’s early life was steeped in political discourse and activism. She rose to national prominence in the 1960s as a young leader in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), serving as a delegate at the 1964 founding convention of the W.E.B. DuBois Clubs in San Francisco and later joining the National Committee of the CPUSA. California party leader Dorothy Healey remembered her as “one of the liveliest of the young people who rose to prominence in the party in the 1960s.”
Dr. Aptheker earned her Master’s degree from San José State University, where she also taught African-American and Women’s Studies. She later completed her Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness program at UCSC in the early 1980s.
A committed scholar-activist, she played a pivotal role in several landmark movements: she co-led the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley (1964–1965), was active in the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, and helped lead the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis (1970–1972), organizing a transnational campaign for Davis’s release. She has also been a vocal and active supporter of LGBTQ+ rights.
In recognition of her lifelong commitment to social justice, equity, and inclusion, Prof. Aptheker received the UCSC Ethos Award. Her personal journey—marked by her courageous coming out as a lesbian, her advocacy for gender and LGBTQ+ rights, and her efforts to challenge patriarchal norms—has further amplified her influence as a transformative figure in feminist thought.
She is also an accomplished author and co-founder of the Women’s Studies program at UCSC, which she later helped transition into the Feminist Studies Department. Throughout her career, Dr. Aptheker has remained committed to bridging academia and activism, mentoring generations of students and scholars in the pursuit of justice and equity.
Professor and Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA
Paola Bacchetta is Professor and Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also Director of the Institute for Gender and Sexuality Research. She was the first Chair of Berkeley’s Gender Consortium. She currently serves as Co-coordinator of Decolonizing Sexualities Network, a transnational convergence of scholars, artivists and activists. Her books include: Co-Motion: On Feminist and Queer Solidarities (Forthcoming Duke University Press); Fatima Mernissi For Our Times, co-edited with Minoo Moallem (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2023); Global Raciality: Empire, Postcoloniality, and Decoloniality, co-edited with Sunaina Maira, Howard Winant (New York: Routledge, 2019); Femminismi Queer Postcoloniali (co-edited with Laura Fantone, Verona, Italy: Ombre Corte, 2015); Gender in the Hindu Nation (India: Women Ink, 2004); Right-Wing Women (co-edited with Margaret Power, New York: Routledge, 2002).
She has published over 70 articles and book chapters on: feminist queer decolonial theory; transnational feminist and queer theory; lesbian and queer of color theorie artivisms and activisms; decolonial feminist translating; gender, sexuality and right-wing movements (India, France, U.S., Brazil). She has translated multiple texts, including Fatima Mernissi’s only (co-authored) film project, The Lionesses (French to English, forthcoming in Fatima Mernissi For our Times which Bacchetta co-edited with Minoo Moalem, for Syracuse University Press). She recently oversaw the translation of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera : The New Mestiza into French (2022).
She is the recipient of multiple awards: Harvard Divinity School, Fulbright, Mellon Foundation, State of Kerala Erudite Scholar Award, European Union funding awards, France-Berkeley Fund award, and more.
Professor of Literature and Gender at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Indonesia
Wening Udasmoro is Professor of Literature and Gender at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Indonesia. She received her PhD in Gender Studies from the University of Geneva, Switzerland in 2006. She obtained her Master’s degree in the same field from the same university. She is the Vice Rector of Education and Learning of UGM. She was the Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences of UGM (2016-2021), the Vice Dean of Academic and Student Affairs at the same faculty (2012-2016) and the Associate Director of Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (2009-2012). Her main research interests are literature, gender issues, violence, identity politics, and critical discourse analysis.
Her recent articles include: Masculinities in Literary Works in Indonesia’s Post Conflict Ambon Island, in Kritika Kultura (2023), The Preservation of the Javanese Language in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, in Indonesian Journal of Geography (2023), Gendered Dynamics of Labour Force Participation in Insurgency and Ethno-Religious Conflict: The Cases of Aceh and Ambon in International Feminist Journal of Politics (2022), Indonesian Pencak Silat, a book chapter for UNESCO (2022), and The Transformation of Social Imaginary on Women Sexuality in Indonesian Literature from New Order to Reformasi Era in Journal of International Women Studies (2022).
Executive Director, GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, Gurgaon, India
Govind Kelkar is a feminist scholar, PhD in Political Economy of China. She is the Executive Director, GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, Gurgaon, India. She is a Professor at the Centre for Economics and Social Studies, Hyderabad; Visiting Professor, Council for Social Development and Institute for Human Development, New Delhi, India and was a Senior Adviser, Landesa, Seattle, USA (May 2013-March 2020). In her concurrent assignments, Professor Kelkar was the International Research Coordinator of ENERGIA International, The Netherlands and research lead on Gender and Energy at Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai. She is a Distinguished Adjunct Faculty of Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. Professor Kelkar has the position of Honorary Professor in Institute of Ethnology, Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, China.
Former Dean of the Faculty of Social Studies and Humanities at the University of Mauritius, Mauritius
Prof. Satinder Prabhakar Ragobur, Sr Editor IIRF is a professional social worker with field experience in India and Mauritius and a long academic career spanning some forty- five years. Her academic career started with the University of Mauritius as lecturer in social studies and subsequently promoted as Associate Professor. She served as Dean of the Faculty of Social Studies and Humanities at the University of Mauritius. After her retirement from the University of Mauritius, she taught on part time basis and then moved to New Delhi and joined Amity University, Noida as Deputy Director of the Amity Institute of Social Sciences where she was instrumental in spearheading new courses and research degrees.
She has served as reviewer for the Journal on Families in Society and the Journal 0f Social Development (both journals are published in USA). She has supervised MPhil research as well as dissertations at graduate and post graduate program. She has presented conference papers and published in the domains of Reproductive Health, Gender, Ageing and child welfare. She has undertaken consultancy work for UNICEF, EU, UNIFEM, Small grant projects under the General Environment Fund and the Government of Mauritius relating to Children, Family Women, Poverty and Environment. She is currently serving as a free-lance consultant and trainer.
Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas, USA
Dr. Akiko Takeyama is a Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas. She currently serves as the President of the Association of Feminist Anthropology (2023–2025), a prominent subsection of the American Anthropological Association.
An interdisciplinary feminist scholar trained as a cultural anthropologist, Dr. Takeyama’s research explores the evolving dynamics of gender, sexuality, and class within the broader context of (neo)liberal globalization. Her scholarship offers detailed ethnographic insights into how social inequalities are sustained under the guise of individual choice, using Japan as a focal point to examine enduring questions related to patriarchal nation-building, capitalist economies, and liberal political ideologies.
Her critically acclaimed book, Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club (Stanford University Press, 2016), was a finalist for the 2017 Michelle Rosaldo Book Prize awarded by the Association of Feminist Anthropology. Her influential article, “Involuntary Consent,” was published as a major feature with commentaries in Current Anthropology, the flagship journal in the field.
Dr. Takeyama’s research has been supported by several prestigious fellowships, including the Wenner-Gren Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship, the SSRC–Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, and the Japan Foundation Research Fellowship. Under her leadership, the Center for East Asian Studies has secured multiple institutional grants, including the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI grant (2022–2026), totaling $2.1 million, as well as funding from the Korea Foundation and the Laurasian Institution, establishing the center as a designated National Resource Center.
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