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Photo of Kelly Gillespie; Smiling, short, blonde hair is half-up, half-down; wearing a black shirt.

Kelly Gillespie

International Education PhD Student

Name: Kelly Gillespie (she/her)

Email: kzg2040@nyu.edu

Program: International Education 

Research Interests: forced migration/displacement, community-based/non-formal education, gender-sensitive/trauma-informed pedagogy, grassroots peacebuilding, gender-based violence 

Principal Advisor(s): Dana Burde

Research description/bio: Kelly Gillespie is a third-year doctoral student whose research interests focus on gender-based violence in refugee camps. Specifically, Kelly’s work seeks to explore how the structural violence of “containment” engenders interpersonal violence in Burmese refugee camps.

Some of Kelly’s past work experiences include developing the curriculum for a Women’s Study Program (delivered to Burmese refugee women), designing/leading teacher training programs for refugeeEd, and creating pilot women’s empowerment workshops in rural Ecuador. She was a Fulbright ETA at Uşak University in Türkiye, and has previously lived in Thailand as an EFL teacher. Kelly has her MS in Education & International Development from the University of Bristol and a BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley. Kelly recently served as the technical editor for the Journal of Education in Emergencies and is now a Graduate Assistant at NYU’s Office of Global Awards.