Fatima is a doctoral student of media studies at the Radio-Television-Film department. She is interested in studying the relationship between media, identity, and place for diasporas, particularly from the Middle East.

She earned her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University’s branch campus in Qatar, where she began exploring questions of identity, studying media narratives of national identity, othering, and other-ness during times of conflict. She completed her MA in Communication, Culture, and Technology at Georgetown, with a focus on the intersection of media, politics, culture, and social movements. Prior to joining RTF, Fatima worked at the DC-based International Center for Journalists, a media support nonprofit, where she developed new proposals and supported programs in the Middle East.

Fatima is a Lebanese expatriate twice over - born and raised in Qatar, before relocating to the United States. She enjoys listening to Arabic music, watching TV, reading, and running.

Originally from Atlanta, GA, Dana Phillips is currently a first-year Media Studies MA student. Dana received her B.A. in Women’s & Gender Studies/International Studies from Denison University in 2020, and now works full time as a Program Coordinator for UT Austin’s Center for Community Engagement. She is passionate about the intersection of arts, academia, and activism and is especially interested in researching the way transnational solidarity networks can be formed around and uplifted by art and media. In the future she hopes to pursue innovative projects within public or nonprofit organizations that mobilize new and emerging forms of art and media towards social change.

In her spare time, Dana loves playing cello and guitar, and volunteers as a board member and band coach for QORDS, a virtual music camp for LGBTQ+ youth.

Areas of Interest: Identity and Representation, Community Engagement and Activism, Transnational Feminist Networks, Cultural Studies, Gender & Sexuality.

Ann Laudick is a PhD student in the Radio-Television-Film department at the University of Texas at Austin. Her primary research focus is on the American film and television industry, with a particular interest in how production work is organized and experienced in local production communities. Her current research focuses on historical and contemporary constructions of space and on-set production processes. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she worked in feature film and television production.

Yen-Jen Chen is a Ph.D. Student in Media Studies at UT Austin. He completed his BA in Theater Studies at National Taiwan University of Arts and MA in Taiwanese Literature and Culture Studies at National Taiwan University. In his Master’s thesis, titled “Towards Queer Absurdity: The National and Sexual Politics of Contemporary Popular Culture in Taiwan,” he queerly appropriates Albert Camus’ concept of absurdity to propose the notion of what he call “queer absurdity” as a critical model that explains how the “feeling of absurdity” works as a survival aesthetic form shared by minorities to resist normativity. As the first master thesis that theorizes queer within the Taiwan context, his thesis won the Master thesis Award from both the Cultural Studies Association, Taiwan and National Museum of Taiwan Literature, and he revised parts of his thesis into a journal article published in Cultural Studies Quarterly. For his doctoral research, he aims to critically investigate the cultural and political implications of contemporary online queer performances and to place media studies in conversation with diverse fields, including queer theory, East Asia studies, critical theories, postcolonial studies, and oceanic discourse to explore the possibilities of queer solidarity in the Chinese-speaking world.