Nadia E. Brown (Ph.D., Rutgers University) is a Professor of Government, chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and affiliate in the African American Studies program at Georgetown University. She specializes in Black women’s politics and holds a graduate certificate in Women's and Gender Studies. Dr. Brown's research interests lie broadly in identity politics, legislative studies, and Black women's studies. While trained as a political scientist, her scholarship on intersectionality seeks to push beyond disciplinary constraints to think more holistically about the politics of identity.
She is the author or editor of several award winning books – including Sisters in the Statehouse: Black Women and Legislative Decision Making (Oxford University Press); Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites (with Danielle Lemi); Distinct Identities: Minority Women in U.S. Politics (with Sarah Allen Gershon, Routledge Press); The Politics of Protest: Readings on the Black Lives Matter Movement (with Ray Block, Jr. and Christopher Stout, Routledge Press); Approaching Democracy: American Government in Times of Challenge (with Larry Berman, Bruce Allen Murphy and Sarah Allen Gershon, Routledge Press). Professor Brown is the lead editor of Politics, Groups and Identities. Professor Brown is part of the #MeTooPoliSci Collective where she spearheads efforts to stop sexual harassment in the discipline. Along with co-PIs Rebecca Gill (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) Stella Rouse (University of Maryland, College Park), Elizabeth Sharrow (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) she is the recipient of a million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation for their project titled "#MeTooPoliSci Leveraging A Professional Association to Address Sexual Harassment in Political Science." Lastly, Professor Brown is an editor with The Monkey Cage, a political science blog in the Washington Post.
Brenda Cossman is the Goodman-Schipper Chair and Professor of Law at the University of Toronto. She is the past Director of the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. She holds degrees in law from Harvard and the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, she was Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. She was Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School in 2002 and 2003.
Professor Cossman is a a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She has been awarded the Mundell Medal by the Attorney General of Ontario for contributions to letters and law. She has also been the recipient of Ontario Bar Association Award of Excellence for the Promotion of Women’s Equality, and
Professor Cossman's teaching and scholarly interests focuses on the legal regulation of gender, sexuality and family. Her book The New Sex Wars: Sexual Harm in the #MeToo Era is being published this month by New York University Press Her other books included Sexual Citizens: The Legal and Cultural Regulation of Sex and Belonging was published by Stanford University Press in 2007, and the co-authored Bad Attitudes on Trial: Pornography, Feminism and the Butler Decision (University of Toronto Press).