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Molly Benitez, whose experience in the trades and grassroots organizing informs their research, joins Portland State as an assistant professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and University Studies. Benitez started their career in welding, working in Seattle, New York, North Carolina, Argentina and Uruguay. "I had some pretty bad experiences being the only non-cis male in all the shops I was in and that's what motivated me to go to school," Benitez says.…

Kai Hang Cheang returns this fall as an assistant professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies after spending the last two years as a visiting scholar. Growing up as the grandson of two migrant laborers and the son of parents who didn't have the chance to attend college, Cheang says he never imagined that he would find an intellectual home in the academy. It was at the University of Macau in the former Portuguese colony of China where his hunger and enthusiasm for…

Kali Simmons returns home to her alma mater as an assistant professor in Indigenous Nations Studies. Born and raised in Central Oregon, she graduated from Portland State with a bachelor's in English and film studies. She earned her master's in English at University of Oregon before going on to pursue her Ph.D. at the University of California, Riverside under her advisor, Michelle Raheja, whose research focuses on Native American cultural studies and theory. Simmons'…