Lab
Barış Bilgit
Barış Bilgit is a PhD candidate in Gender Studies at Sabancı University, Istanbul. He is also a Fulbright Visiting Student Researcher at University of California, Davis where he conducts his research on LGBTQ parenting through non-commercial surrogacy, reproductive justice, and new kinship.
Considering the stratified reproductive arena in which the assisted reproductive methods like in vitro fertilization, egg/sperm donation, and gestational surrogacy have been medicalized and appropriated by the neoliberal market in ways that not everyone can afford, Barış believes that discovering alternative non-commercial networks is crucial for LGBTQ intended parents. His work discovers the performances of care and narratives of consent in non-commercial surrogacy.
Barış Bilgit has a BA in Comparative Literature and a double major in Psychology, and an MA in Cultural Studies from Istanbul Bilgi University. His previous work focused on analyzing sexual-orientation-based identity narratives that have been described by the mental health professionals in Turkey.
Contact Info: barisbilgit at sabanciuniv.edu
Diana Cage
Diana Cage is a PhD student in Performance Studies with a designated emphasis in Science and Technology Studies. Her ongoing research explores early subcultural internet worlding and its relation to evolving queer and trans identitites, social movements, and sexual cultures. Her most recent writing project connects artificial intelligence, surveillance, and gender passing within a critical trans studies frame. Cage is part of the Feminist Research Institute at UC Davis, where she works on reproductive justice and health inequity, and is a founding member of What Would an HIV Doula Do?, a collective of scholars, activists and artists working to end the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis. She received a Mellon Feminist Arts and Sciences Grant to support her Deep Lez Chatbot project, a queer feminist critique of conversational AI. Cage worked in queer media for a decade prior to academia and is the author of six nonfiction books on sex and sexuality, including Mind Blowing Sex (Hachette Book Group, 2012) and the Lambda Award-winning The Lesbian Sex Bible (Quarto, 2014). She has an MFA from San Francisco State University where she currently teaches in Women and Gender Studies.
Maya Cruz
Maya Cruz is a PhD Candidate in Cultural Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Feminist Theory and Research at the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation, “Automating Discovery and the Engineering of Off-Earth Futures” is concerned with the colonial histories off contemporary US industrial and scientific interest and development of outer space, from large-scale information infrastructures, databases, and satellite communications technologies, to the futures we imagine on Mars. Maya holds a Master of Information degree from the iSchool at the University of Toronto, and a BA in Philosophy with Distinction from Simon Fraser University (Canada).
Contact info: mmcruz (at) ucdavis.edu
Seon-Hye Moon
Seon-Hye Moon (she/her) is a PhD student in Cultural Studies at UC Davis. She is interested in the political economy of the early education workforce, labor & globalization, and women of color feminisms. Previously, she completed undergraduate work in English and Comparative Literature (Columbia), master's work in Ethnic Studies (SFSU), and further graduate studies in Education (UCD). Prior to graduate work, Seon-Hye worked in financial investment research for ten years. Her research draws deeply from this professional experience as well as her (ongoing) lived experience as a mom of two.
