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Feminist & Gender Studies is proud to announce Melissa L. Barnes (Feminist & Gender Studies and Psychology '15) recently earned the inaugural Graduate Writing Fellowship from the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) at the University of Oregon for her research on police brutality.

Melissa, a Ph.D. Student in Psychology at the University of Oregon, will use the fellowship to continue working on her dissertation entitled "Gendered and Racialized Police Violence Towards the Black Community: Feminist Integration of the Concepts of Betrayal Trauma, Collective Trauma, and Vicarious Trauma."

According to CSWS, "Barnes has collected new data and developed new theory on several projects that touch on racial discrimination, gender sexual violence, and disclosure of sexual violence. Her dissertation project draws on all this work to propose a creative merging of three previously siloed research literatures-betrayal trauma theory, vicarious trauma, and collective trauma-with a focus on the intersectional issue of gender and racial police brutality." According to her Dissertation Chair Dr. Jennifer Freyd, "It is theoretically deep and empirically ambitious and it going to make a huge contribution."

Congratulations, Melissa! We are so proud to know you!