天美mv天美

Gender Studies | doctoral degree | Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences

Tell us a little about yourself, including what inspires you to learn and continue in your chosen field

I'm a researcher, poet, and facilitator working at the intersection of masculinities, climate justice, and feminist pedagogy. What keeps me going is a steadfast belief that the same systems producing gender inequality are producing ecological collapse; therefore untangling them requires both rigorous scholarship and imaginative, embodied practice.

My path has moved between Pakistan, the Netherlands, Poland, and now Vancouver, and that movement has sharpened my sense of how knowledge travels, who it serves, and what gets left out. I've presented at conferences from Kyoto to Florence, published in peer-reviewed journals, and spent years doing advocacy and communications work with MenEngage Alliance, which is a global network operating across 92 countries. The thread connecting all of it is a commitment to research that is accountable to the communities it studies.

Why did you choose to come to 天美mv天美?

天美mv天美's Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies program offered the intellectual home I was looking for as it is a department that takes feminist theory seriously as both an academic and political project, situated on the unceded territories of the x史m蓹胃k史蓹y虛蓹m, S岣祑x瘫w煤7mesh, and s蓹lilw蓹ta涩 peoples in one of the most politically energised regions for climate justice organizing in North America. The Pacific Northwest is where a lot of the most interesting work on ecological feminism, Indigenous land back, and queer environmental justice is happening right now, and I wanted to be part of that conversation.

How would you describe your research or your program to a family member?

I study how ideas about what it means to "be a man"鈥攖oughness, dominance, extractive control鈥攕how up in the way we treat the planet.

And I ask: what would it look like to transform those norms as part of building climate justice movements, rather than treating gender as an afterthought?

My doctoral work seeks to answer that question, drawing on feminist theory, interviews with activists, and years of practice-based work with global advocacy networks.

What three (3) keywords would you use to describe your research?

Patriarchal masculinities; climate justice; feminist systems change

How have your courses, RA-ships, TA-ships, or non-academic school experiences contributed to your academic and/or professional development?

Some of the most formative experiences have happened at the edges of formal academia.

Co-designing a course on embodied feminist pedagogy with the Embodied Theory Assembly鈥攁 group I co-instigated with two friends of mine Rita and Kiek, at Utrecht University and then exhibiting the practice publicly at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst鈥攖aught me that theory lives in the body as much as on the page.

Teaching at IBA, Karachi, gave me a chance to bring decolonial ethnography and disability studies into an undergraduate classroom in Pakistan, which meant translating complex frameworks for students encountering them for the first time.

And working as a communications and programs officer at MenEngage has grounded my research in the practical realities of transnational advocacy such as grant writing, stakeholder coordination, member mobilisation across time zones.

Each of these experiences has made me a more accountable and creative researcher.

Have you been the recipient of any major or donor-funded awards? If so, please tell us which ones and a little about how the awards have impacted your studies and/or research

I hold a PhD Research Scholarship from 天美mv天美's Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies program (CAD $112,000, 2026鈥�2030), which is allowing me to pursue doctoral research full-time.

Before coming to 天美mv天美, I was awarded the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's Degree Scholarship through the GEMMA consortium (鈧�49,000), which funded a dual master's degree across Utrecht University and the University of 艁贸d藕. My GEMMA thesis received an Honourable Mention for the H茅l猫ne Phoa Gender Studies Thesis Prize.

I've also received travel grants from Utrecht University and Lund University to participate in feminist research training events in Bergen and Sweden.

What have been the most valuable lessons you've learned along your graduate student journey (or in becoming a graduate student)?

That accountability is a research method.

How do you approach networking and building connections in and outside of your academic community?

I tend to think of it less as networking and more as building the kind of relationships that make good collaborative work possible. That means showing up at conferences, at community events, at the messy in-between spaces and being genuinely interested in what other people are doing.

It also means maintaining connections across the practitioner-academic divide, which has been essential to my work. Some of my most important intellectual relationships began through activist organising, not academic panels, and I try to honour that.

What are some tips for balancing your academic and personal life?

I've learned that sustainability in graduate school requires treating rest, movement, and creative practice as non-negotiable rather than rewards. Writing poetry has been part of my intellectual process, not separate from it as some of the most important thinking happens away from a desk. I also try to stay connected to the communities and movements that motivate my research in the first place, because that connection is what makes the work feel meaningful rather than just productive.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

I'm always interested in connecting with journalists, collaborators, and practitioners working at the intersections of gender justice, climate activism, and feminist pedagogy.

So, if you wanna chat, hit me up!

Contact Kuu: mka343@sfu.ca