UC Davis Women's Resources and Research Center

Women's Center Interns 2009-2010

Annie Chen
Resources & Community Connections Intern | aycchen@ucdavis.edu
YASAS! My name is Annie Chen and I'm currently a fourth year Clinical Nutrition and Psychology double major. I am the Resources and Community Connections Intern for the 2009-2010 school year. I work with Macy in the front desk connecting students and staff to resources on campus and in the community. We do a lot of outreach within the community and advocate for women on campus and in the community. I am very excited for the work that the WRRC will accomplish this year.
I first became involved with the Women's center as a Resident Advisor for a women's community my sophomore year. I was able to educate my residents and myself about issues relevant to women today. As I was finishing up my third year I found myself wanting to learn more about these issues and share them with other students on campus. I hope to empower not only myself but also other students through my work at the Women's Center.

Constance Cheung
Graphics/Web Design Intern | cscheung@ucdavis.edu
I am a fifth-year Graphic Design and Economics double major with a minor in Psychology. I have always been interested in designing since high school; however, it wasn't until halfway through my freshman year that I decided to pursue design as a major. I am excited to work as the Graphic/Web Design Intern at the WRRC so I can bring about awareness and share with others what I have learned through my designs. I am always looking for new inspirations through a variety of outlets, such as television, internet, magazines, everything and anything. Aside from designing, I also enjoy travelling; my dream is to travel the world and learn about the different cultures and peoples.

Brook Colley
Graduate Outreach Coordinator | bcolley@ucdavis.edu
Greetings! My name is Brook and this is my daughter Wren Youngbird. I moved to Davis August 2007 from Ashland, Oregon where I got my undergraduate degrees at Southern Oregon University in Political Science and Sociology. While here at UC Davis working toward a doctoral degree in the Native American Studies, and working as the Graduate Student Outreach Intern, I became Wren's mother May 29th, 2009. It has been an exciting two years! Now in my third year working at the Womyn's Center, I particularly strive to advocate, program, and provide resources to graduate students, undergraduates looking to go to graduate school, pregnant students, student parents, and students from underrepresented and underserved communities in academia. Just a few of the projects I have worked on are a pregnant student support group, a graduate student ally training, outdoor adventures for graduate womyn, navigating faculty/student mentoring, and the Grad Women Thrive in Academia 'Zine. In addition, I put out a weekly e-newsletter called Women Grads, where I compile things of interest to graduate students, including events/programs from the WRRC, other campus events, scholarships, job opportunities, and campus resources. You can sign up on the WRRC website or stop by and visit (Room 101, North Hall) ~B

Maria Ly
WISE Intern | mhly@ucdavis.edu
I am a fourth year undergraduate in Biomedical Engineering planning on a minor in Fiber and Polymer Science and want to obtain my Ph.D in the area of tissue/cell engineering. I come from a very diverse hometown, Fresno, CA, where I have been exposed to a variety of people and identities. With that, I have been exposed to various socio-economic, gender, and even racial issues much of my life. As a minority woman from a hard-working lower-middle class background, I am striving to overcome all obstacles to reach my goal and succeed as a woman engineer. As the Women in Sciences and Engineering (WISE) intern I am excited to help other women just like me succeed in the sciences and engineering fields. We will break through that glass ceiling and claim our well-deserved positions at the top. :)

Brieanna Schmitz
Library Intern | bmschmitz@ucdavis.edu
Salut! I am super excited to be the WRRC library intern this y ear. I am an Art History and English double major, and I guess it goes without saying that I love books. I was always the weird kid in elementary school who spent recess off in an obscure corner with a book in hand. To this day, I always have at least one book of some kind on my person. Anyways, after taking WMS 50 my freshman year, I was shocked that I did not know about the violence and inequalities that women face on a daily basis. I wanted to do something proactive about it, and to help other people, especially women, realize that partriarchy still dominates our society and that gender and racial inqualities are still very present in daily life. That class changed the way I look at the world and everything around me. Because of it, gender became my emphasis in both of my majors, and it also drew me to the WRRC. I first became involved at the women's center as a volunteer in the fall of 2008, and I loved it. This year I am looking forward to working in the library and being more actively involved with WRRC programs. I hope that I'll see you all in the library.

Sing Wang
Program & Student Outreach Intern | siwang@ucdavis.edu
Hello! My name is Sing Wang and a fourth year International Relations and Chinese double major and African-American & African Studies minor Asian American, womynist and social activist. I first became interested in social activism during my first year at Davis when I created a women’s drive for My Sister’s House in Woodland, CA. That same winter, I took part in the RAD workshops and after, became a Self-Defense TA. As a Self-Defense TA, I realized how empowering educating others about safety and resistance could be. My sophomore year, I was part of the first Greeks Against Sexual Assault class, a volunteer for the Cross-Cultural Center and was also a Peer Educator for the WRRC. As a peer educator, I created and facilitated the workshop, “Exotic Beauty: Womyn of Color in the Media.”
I am also an ASUCD Gender and Sexuality Commissioner, a member of the Status of Women at Davis Administrative Advisory Committee, Vice President of Lambda Omicron Xi (a community service sorority) and am involved with the Asian Pacific Islander Leadership Program and Asian Pacific Culture Week. I have attended the North American Expatriate Youth English Teaching Volunteer Service Program in Taiwan and was a volunteer teacher in Yantai, China this past summer.
I am passionate about issues pertaining to gender equality, queer issues and sexuality. This year, I hope to help underserved populations on campus, especially students of color.

Women's Center Career Staff

Joy Erickson
Librarian | jrerickson@ucdavis.edu
Hi everyone,
It’s been more than 3 years since I began working as the WRRC Librarian. I moved to Davis about 4 years ago from Madison, Wisconsin. I had lived in Madison more than 20 years and obtained my Bachelor’s in Sociology and Masters in Library & Information Studies at UW Madison. I worked at Shields Library in the Special Collection Department before working here at the WRRC. My tenure at WRRC has been mainly fulfilling but also difficult at times. I think that there’s a kind of natural shifting that occurs in such dynamic settings. We have struggled over race, power dynamics and intersections of identity issues. Perhaps, we grow and learn each time a new challenge (or opportunity for change) has reared its head. I’d like to think so anyway. Of course, this is not specific to the WRRC; clearly it’s the kind of issues we grapple with on a national and global level. With the historic inauguration of our first African American President, we see that we as a country still have a long way to go.
My own position as Librarian has been rewarding in so many respects. The constant for me is the “joy” I get from working with the students, staff, and other members of the UCD community. I truly enjoy the energies of my co-workers and our student interns. I feel that I learn much from all of them. I was drawn to the information profession for that same exact reason: to learn something new every day. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of my job is the “leaving”; when the students and Interns that I’ve come to know and care deeply about begin the next phase of their life’s journey. That is the pleasure and the sorrow of the work we do here at WRRC. Yet, when the next group of interns and students walk through these doors, we find ourselves ready and able to mentor and guide and sometimes to just have a ready ear to offer.
This year, I’m looking forward to thinking and working a lot outside of the box as to how to continue offering the same quality of service with the fiscal limitations we‘ll be facing. We won’t be alone in this, but I hope that this presents as an opportunity to collaborate with other UCD groups and community members. It could be an amazing year!

Joy Evans
Assistant Director | joyevans@ucdavis.edu
I believe you should follow your passions wherever they lead you. A Texan by birth, but I’ve lived in TN, DC, MI, IL, and IN. I’m thrilled that my passions have led me to sunny California!
My insatiable curiosity about the ways culture and geographic location influence women’s agency has led me on a winding journey. At Vanderbilt University, I self-designed a major in Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Gender and focused my honors thesis on women social reformers in India. Then in an effort to figure out how I could contribute to creating social change, I pursued a MSW from the University of Michigan, where I focused on social policy and program evaluation, as well as community organizing within the women’s movement.
Inspired by phenomenal women from around the world who use their strength, skills, and passion to challenge and change their communities, I’ve worked with non-profits and research centers. Most recently, I was the Assistant Director for Scholarship and Research at the Center for Women’s InterCultural Leadership in Notre Dame, IN. There I conducted research and developed programs for women to recognize their unique leadership potential, to expand their intercultural skills, and to practice their personal agency.
I’m excited to be part of the UCD community and am committed to creating spaces where every student, staff and faculty member feel they can be their authentic self and thrive at this university regardless of their sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. I love to work on collaborative projects. So I look forward to meeting and working with you!

C. Jezzie Fulmen
Community Counselor | cjfulmen@ucdavis.edu
Growing up in a rural Pennsylvania farming town in a family that hails from deep Appalachia, I wanted nothing more than to move somewhere where it was safe to be queer. I accordingly spent the next ten years embracing yuppie life in San Francisco, but there was much that I missed about my former self. These days I've started the work of integrating my rural heritage with my values as a queer feminist. There's no longer a disconnect between wanting to spend my week working to alleviate some of the suffering in the world, and my weekend camping in the desert with my dog.
I obtained my BA at Penn State University in 1999 and my MA from the University of San Francisco in 2003. My career has been spent working with issues of trauma and violence, and with sexual minorities of all kinds -- queer, transgender, polyamorous, and kinky. I've volunteered with San Francisco Sex Information since 2001, and I have a strong commitment to providing accurate, nonjudgmental information about sexuality.
Now I'm extremely excited to be a part of this new model of access to mental health services that we are building with the Community Advisor Network -- placing counselors in settings where students can see and talk to them without making a special trip to CAPS. Please drop by my office in the Women's Center anytime... if I'm not in, I always have plenty of office hours listed on my door, or you can make an appointment with the Office Coordinator here or at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Resource Center!

Macy Minor
Administrative & Resource Specialist | mlminor@ucdavis.edu
Welcome! Come and visit me at the front desk if you have questions, if you're looking for a resource or referral, if you want to hang out and talk, or if you are interested in volunteering. On some special occasions I will bring in my dog Jasmine (she loves people), so stop in and see us!
I graduated from UC Davis in 2003 with a BA in Communications and a minor in Women and Gender Studies and a minor in English. During my last semester at UCD, I filmed a short documentary about domestic violence and this spurred my passion for human rights and activism. Since then I have interned at The Women's Building in San Francisco and at Women's Health Specialists in Sacramento.
I have worked with many non-profit and community-based organizations, especially women-centered spaces and have a wealth of valuable information about resources available for women and girls. Before working at the WRRC, I worked in Public Relations and in the women's health clinic at Women's Health Specialists doing public speaking and health education about a woman's access to health care. As a strong supporter of women's reproductive rights, I advocate for all options for all women. I am an active member of my community, proud to be a Feminist, and I love working at the WRRC. On campus, I am a member of the LGBTQI Speaker's Bureau and Racial Justice Now! Outside of work I enjoy playing with my dog Jasmine, camping, adventures, reading, cooking, yoga, laughing, going to sporting events and spending time with my friends and family. This next year I am excited to be starting a Master's program in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Community Mental Health at CIIS in San Francisco. I hope to see you soon!

Sonia-Melitta Montoya
Programs Coordinator | sdmontoya@ucdavis.edu
Welcome! My name is Sonia-Melitta Montoya, Program Coordinator at the Women's Center. As a proud bi queer femme womyn of color, Chicana womynist, first generation/transfer college graduate, daughter & granddaughter of mine-mill smelter & farm workers' and labor union organizers...I proudly hold my master's degree in Women's & Gender Studies with a research emphasis in Mexican American Studies from The University of Austin, Texas; and bachelor's degree in Public Relations from the School of Journalism & Mass Communication with a minor in Women's & Gender Studies from San Jose State University, and also graduated as a McNair Scholars Fellow. Both my background and life experiences have shaped my passion and investment in working with diverse communities to dismantle sexism and other forms of oppressions.
As the program coordinator, I am responsible for outreaching and building relationships with students, staff, and faculty in identifying topics/issues that concern UC Davis womyn on-campus. Through various collaborations and partnerships, I carry out different initiatives to best address gender related issues and gender equity. In my role at the center, I manage and coordinate co-sponsorship proposals that seek to achieve equity for womyn and gender related issues on-campus, and instruct & oversee the Peer Education Program. In this program, students facilitate gender education programs on topics/issues that range from intersections of identity, sexism, masculinity, race, gender & sexuality, and many other isms'. If you are interested in submitting a co-sponsorship/collaboration/campus-wide program proposal, tabling request, campus outreach, programming advice/feedback, publicizing an event/program in Women's Writes (monthly newsletter), or peer education programs feel free to contact me by email or 725-3372, or come by the Center (108 North Hall).

Peg Swain
Director | mbswain@ucdavis.edu
My first proto-feminist career goal as a kid was to become a pirate. None of that damsel in distress stuff, I wanted to be where the action is. Now many, many years later I find my action at the WRRC, pushing margins of women’s issues, gender equity, and social justice concerns, and still saying “ARRUGH.” I rode into the Second Wave of US Feminism while at college in Beloit, WI and then at Grad School at the University of Washington. Research for my PhD in Anthropology led me to work with the Kuna in Panama, a woman-centered indigenous society negotiating changes within Latin America, and globally. While arguably there’s a thin line between the unsavory bits of pirate and anthropologist, and I was in the Caribbean, I learned enduring lessons about how gender and other identities intersect post-colonial conditions to affect the potential for equitable change in people’s lives. My current research in Southwest China with the Sani Yi ethnic minority group, focuses on Sani-French colonial history, and contemporary Chinese ethnic tourism “development.” This is very far away from the WRRC, but we deal with similar issues here of hierarchies, privileges, and power at UCD. I came to the WRRC as Co-director, my second professional job-share. Besides day to day Center work and representing the WRRC, I consult with staff, faculty and students on life-work issues, academic issues of teaching, research and mentoring, and outreach; teach an internship seminar on feminist ethics in research and the workplace (WMS193); liaison with Women and Gender Studies (my academic appointment), the Consortium for Women and Research, and the Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (WI-STEM) faculty advisory groups, as well as the Status of Women at Davis Advisory Committee, and more. Please come by, I hope to meet you soon!