Dr. Heidi R. Lewis

Thursday, April 9, 2026, 4:00pm CST

Heidi R. Lewis is the David Lucile Packard Professor of Feminist & Gender Studies at Colorado College and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Bibliographies in Gender & Women’s Studies. Her scholarship and teaching are primarily focused on feminism (emphasis Black Feminism), Hip Hop (emphasis Rap), and media studies.

Most recently, Lewis published Make Rappers Rap Again: Interrogating the Mumble Rap “Crisis” (August 2025), the first in the Oxford University Press Theorizing African American Music Series. Previously, she published In Audre’s Footsteps: Transnational Kitchen Table Talk (edition assemblage, 2021), as well as book chapters and articles in the second volume of Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies, Womanism Rising, The Cultural Impact of Kanye West, the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships, and Unteilbar: Bündnisse gegen Rassismus. She has also contributed to NewBlackMan, NPR, Ms., KRCC, Bitch, and Act Out and given talks at Vanderbilt, the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, Portland State, the U.S. Olympic Committee, the Kampagne für Opfer Rassistischer Polizeigewalt, and many other organizations in the U.S., Canada, and Germany.

For more information, see Lewis’s personal website.

Dr. Michelle Tracy Berger

Friday, April 10, 2026, 10:00am CST

Michele Tracy Berger is the Eric and Jane Nord Family Professor and director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of many books, including Workable Sisterhood: The Political Journey of Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS. She is a leading scholar in applying intersectional approaches to studying areas of inequality. This work spans the fields of public health, political science, sociology and women’s and gender studies.

She earned a graduate certificate in women’s studies and a PhD in political science from University of Michigan. Her teaching and research interests include multiracial feminisms, racial and gender health disparities, qualitative methods, contemplative practices, HIV/AIDS activism, the health and wellness practices of African American women and girls. Her work on modern contemplative practices takes many forms. She has conducted research evaluating yoga interventions with at-risk elementary and middle school children in K-12 public schools. This work makes connections between vulnerable communities and their opportunities and impediments to experience health, resiliency, and well-being.  She is also interested in the use of yoga and other contemplative practices by women of color. In much of this work, she argues that feminist methodological questions bring about power, social location, intersectionality, and critical theory are vitally important to intervene in traditional biomedical or psychological frames of health.

Dr. Berger’s books include Workable Sisterhood: The Political Journey of Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS (Princeton University Press, 2004), the co-edited collections Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers (Altamira Press, 2003) and The Intersectional Approach:  Transforming the Academy Through Race, Class and Gender (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) and the co-authored Transforming Scholarship: Why Women’s and Gender Studies Students Are Changing Themselves and the World (Routledge 2011, 2014, 2021). She is the author, most recently, of Black Women’s Health: Paths to Wellness for Mothers and Daughters (New York University Press, 2022), the first monograph to focus on the role of southern African American mothers and their adolescent daughters in shaping health practices.

She is a sought-after public speaker and commentator. Her public scholarship has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Ed, Ms. Magazine, The Feminist Wire and other media outlets. She is currently co-chair of the Ms. Scholars Board.

For more information, see Berger’s personal website.

Dr. Cheryl Radeloff

Friday, April 10, 2026, 10:00am CST

Cheryl Radeloff is an adjunct professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas as well as Women’s Studies at the College of Southern Nevada. She is also a health educator working in public health who previously was employed as a Disease Investigator and Intervention Specialist. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2004. Her dissertation “Vectors, Polluters, and Murderers: HIV Testing Policies toward Prostitutes in Nevada” explored the development of mandatory testing laws for legal and non legal sex workers in the state of Nevada. She is the co-author of multiple editions of Transforming Scholarship: Why Women’s and Gender Studies Students are Changing Themselves and the World with Michele T. Berger for Routledge Press.