Northern Illinois University

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Studies

Faculty Associates' Research Interests

Walter Atkinson (Watkinson@niu.edu)
Director of Public Relations,
Development Coordinator in the Department of Communication
His research interests include journalism history, particularly when viewed from a critical, social/cultural perspective. Atkinson’s work generally focuses upon the "Gilded Age" (circa 1870-1914). He is also a devotee of the mass media, and is interested in contemporary and historical issues surrounding the media, reporting, audiences, ownership, and LGBT issues.
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Lisa Baumgartner (lbaumgartner@niu.edu)
Associate Professor in Counseling, Adult, and Higher Education
Her research and teaching interests include adult learning and development. Prof. Baumgartner is particularly interested in identity development and learning as it relates to people living with HIV/AIDS.
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Robert Alan Brookey (rbrookey@niu.edu)
Associate Professor in the Department of Communication
His research and teaching interests include Rhetoric, media studies, new media & technology.
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Rachel Hope Cleves (rcleves@niu.edu)
Assistant Professor in the Department of History
She is presently researching the history of same-sex sexuality on the early national frontier. Prof. Cleves’ past work has dealt with the histories of violence, political culture and antislavery. She looks forward to teaching classes on the history of sexuality in the future.
Rachel Hope Cleves
Sally Conklin (sconklin@niu.edu)
Coordinator of the Public Health and Health Education Programs
Associate Professor in the School of Allied Health Professions
Her research interests include advocacy for comprehensive sexuality education, youth asset development, and professional sexuality education of clergy, teachers, and counselors. Her teaching interest is the sexuality education course, AHPH 411. Beginning in the fall of 2008, the course will have the same name but new numbers: PHHE 406 and PHHE 506. In addition to being Co-Coordinator for the LGBT Studies Program, she also represents the College of Health and Human Sciences on the newly formed university Committee on Multicultural Curriculum Transformation (CMCT).
Sally Conklin
Fran Giordano (fgiordano@niu.edu)
 Associate Professor in Counseling, Adult and Higher Education
Her research interests include anger and social justice change; counseling with at-risk, low-income urban populations; identity development and transformational learning; and sexuality counseling.
Fran Giordano
Amy Levin (alevin@niu.edu)
Director of Women's Studies
Chair of the Museum Studies Committee
Professor of English
Her research focuses on literature by women as well as race, class, and gender in museums. She has taught classes in women's literature, Women's Studies, Museum Studies, nineteenth-century British literature, and African-American literature. Prof. Levin is an active member of the Provost's Task Force on Multicultural Education Curriculum Transformation, the President's Commission on the Status of Women, as well as chair of strategic planning for the National Women’s Studies Association.
 Amy Levin
Robin Moremen (rmoremen@niu.edu)
Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Sociology
She has a particular interest in including and honoring the lived experiences of individuals who are LGBT. Prof. Moremen’s research and teaching interests include long-term care, organizational decision-making, professionalization, AIDS research, multi-cultural education, women’s friendships and health, women’s spirituality, and gender discrimination after death.
Robin Moremen
Adele Morrison (amorrison@niu.edu)
Associate Professor in the College of Law
Her research and teaching interests include domestic violence, poverty law, family law, sexuality & gender, queer legal theory, critical race theory, and feminist legal theory.
Adele Morrison
Kristen Myers (kmyers@niu.edu)
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Sociology
Prof. Myers’ research and teaching interests include studying the intersections of privileges and disadvantages. Her research has addressed the following issues: the ways that Black and white women work to overcome racism; the ways that people talk about race in private; the ways that positionality affects qualitative research; the ways that gay and lesbian police officers negotiate gender expectations at work; negotiations of femininity among female troops, and how to teach inequality.
Kristen Myers
Robert Ridinger (rridinger@niu.edu)
Electronic Resources Information Manager of the University Libraries
His research interests include the retrieval of local gay and lesbian history, the growth and development of the leather/levi subculture, and research into the uses of language made as part of the movement.
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Mark Rosenbaum (mrosenbaum@niu.edu)
Assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing
His research interests include consumer behavior in service settings, social marketing, health-related marketing, and LGBTIQ consumer behavior. He currently teaches Principles of Marketing and Introduction to Marketing to undergraduate and Executive MBA students. He spends a great deal of time working with Marie Stopes International, a U.K.-based not-for-profit organization that is dedicated to promoting women's reproductive health issues and HIV/AIDS awareness in developing countries including Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, China, India, and Yemen.
Mark Rosenbaum
Deborah L. Smith-Shank (debatart@niu.edu)
Professor of Art Education and Division Head in the School of Art
Prof. Smith-Shank’s research interests include semiotics (the study of signs and symbols in culture) juxtaposed with visual culture and feminist discourse as well as formal and informal pedagogy. In particular, she studies the multiple ways artifacts create, facilitate, and alter meanings. In her research practices, she considers issues of sexuality, class and race, equity and diversity, and the problematic definitions of concepts such as beauty, ugliness, art, craft, justice, and democracy.
Deborah L. Smith-Shank
Diana L. Swanson (dswanson@niu.edu)
Associate Professor in Women’s Studies and English and Coordinator of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Studies Program.
Prof. Swanson’s research and teaching interests include lesbian and gay writers, feminist theory, history of sexuality and gender, modern British novel, Virginia Woolf, ecofeminism.
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Toni Tollerud (tollerud@niu.edu)
Professor in Counseling, Adult and Higher Education and Director of Training for the Center on Child Welfare and Education.
Prof. Tollerud’s research and teaching interests include counseling LGBT people, LGBT youth, spirituality issues, supervision, and retirement issues for LGBT's. She has just finished writing a chapter for a social justice textbook on counseling LGBT persons.
Toni Tollerud
Lemuel Watson (watson@niu.edu)
Dean of the College of Education
His research interests include examining educational organizations and how their structures, practices, leaders, and policies affect learning, development, and outcomes of individuals and communities, especially historically underrepresented groups. In addition, he chooses to examine, through critical theory and policy analysis, the impact that socio-political and socio-cultural factors have on educational organizations and their agents, constituents, resources, and operations. For LGBT research, he is interested in the relationship among spirituality, masculinity, sexuality, race, and gender roles of men and how those factors contribute to how they make meaning in their lives. He is also interested in how these factors play out on a global scale.
Lemuel Watson
Nancy Wingfield (nmw@niu.edu)
Professor in the Department of History
Her research and teaching interests include Modern Europe (Habsburg Central Europe), Colonial Empires, Gender, Sexuality and Women, Memory and Commemoration, Nationalism and Identity. Prof. Wingfield teaches geographic courses on East-Central European and Habsburg History as well as a topical course on the History of Gender and Sexuality.
Nancy Wingfield