Congratulations to Paula Orozco-Espinel, a doctoral student in the Department of History, who is among the winners of this year's Iris Marion Young Award for Political Engagement. The award is sponsored by Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. It honors those who work to promote justice in the University at the local, national, or global level.
The awards website says the following about Paula Orozco-Espinel's work:
"Paula Orozco-Espinel is a feminist activist pursuing a PhD in History at Pitt, working on her dissertation “From Family Planning to Reproductive Rights: Women in the History of Birth Control in Colombia, 1964-1993.” Paula’s advocacy and research work demonstrate her belief that feminist political work can and should be done everywhere, including the classroom, the office, the museums, and the streets. Since 2019, she has been the ad honorem director of Género y Seguridad (Gender and Safety), a Colombian human rights organization focused on fighting sexual violence in universities. She has designed and executed awareness campaigns and taught several workshops on the topic. She has also volunteered in other Colombian organizations, developing and leading educational programs aimed at preventing sexual violence and early pregnancy among vulnerable girls. At Pitt, working with Digital Scholarship Services at ULS to increase the visibility of the materials Pitt holds on the National Organization for Women, Paula created a short video on “Sexism: the boardgame,” and cocurated the hybrid exhibit “A Century of Mobilizing for Reproductive Care” (2021), in alliance with Archives and Special Collections."
Read the full story here.
