Dr. Feather has a PhD in Political Science with majors in Comparative Politics and International Relations and a Minor and Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Kansas as well as a Master’s Degree in Arabic/Islamic Studies from the University of Kansas and a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from George Washington University. Her primary research focuses on the impact of discriminatory legal codes on violence against women in Morocco and Tunisia. In addition, Dr. Feather conducts cross-sectional time-series analysis across the 49 Muslim-majority countries analyzing the interaction of women’s empowerment and democratization, good governance, and reduced corruption. She has presented her research in the U.S., UK, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Lebanon, and Morocco and has published in the Journal of Women and Human Rights in the Middle East, the Journal of Applied Language and Cultural Studies (JALCS), the Journal of North African Studies (JNAS), and the Review of Middle East Studies (RoMES) as well as several edited volumes. Her first solo book project entitled Torn Between Bad Choices: Moroccan and Tunisian Women’s Battle against Discrimination and Violence takes an intersectional approach to analyze the impact of legal discrimination on women who fall outside the traditional marital framework, specifically single mothers, divorcees, widows, and prostitutes – often conflated – and their children. Dr. Feather was the Moroccan Case Study analyst for an 11-country survey analyzing the impact of legal discrimination on violence against women (VAW), under the direction of former UN VAW Rapporteur, Yakin Erturk (2016-2017) and a 2015-2016 PEO Scholar Award recipient. Since graduation in 2017, Dr. Feather has helped to develop the Gender Awareness Program (GAP) in collaboration with the Afghani Ministry of Women in Herat, Afghanistan. This effort involves developing and delivering teaching modules via SKYPE to minister employees as well as civil society actors.

Political Science

Democratization

Development

Gender/Women's Studies

Human Rights

Islamic Studies

Maghreb Studies

All Middle East

Central Asia

Islamic World

Morocco

Tunisia

Women's Studies

Democratization

Human Rights

Arabic (advanced)

Russian (advanced)

French (intermediate)

English (native)