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 first-year doctoral student in International Education at NYU. Her research interests focus on how non-formal education can decrease violence against refugee women. Through this research, she seeks to explore how literacy and empowerment can become sustainable amidst conflict and uncertainty, alongside how curricula can promote leadership, help women articulate their needs, and find connections between these needs and the needs of their community.
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. This past year, 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.