Our Team
Meet the masterminds behind FTT!
Dr. Shana MacDonald
Associate Professor in Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo
Dr. Shana MacDonald is O’Donovan Chair of Communication Across the Curriculum and Associate Professor in Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her interdisciplinary research examines feminist, queer, and anti-racist media activisms within social and digital media, memes, popular culture, cinema, and contemporary art. Dr. MacDonald is co-director of the Digital Feminist Network of Canada (digfemnet.org) and co-runs the online archive and research collective Feminist Think Tank (Instagram: @aesthetic.resistance). She is a series editor for Ohio State University Press’s Digital Feminist Resistance book series. MacDonald has published in Feminist Media Studies (2020), Camera Obscura (2022), MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture (2023), and is lead editor of Networked Feminisms: Digital Practices and Activist Assemblies (Lexington Books 2022).
Dr. Brianna I. Wiens
Assistant Professor in English Language & Literature at the University of Waterloo
Brianna I. Wiens is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Rhetoric in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Her work brings together intersectional feminism, feminist media studies, and critical affect studies to examine the embodied methodologies, rhetorics, and politics of digital culture in order to explore how people use media in critical and creative ways to foster community and speak back to power. Her current work investigates the visual culture and rhetorical vernaculars of misogyny, mixed-race representation, and misinformation amid the rise of technology-facilitated violence. She is Co-Director of the research collective Feminist Think Tank (www.feminist-think-tank.com) and the recently established Digital Feminist Network of Canada (https://digfemnet.org/), as well as Co-Editor of The Ohio State University Press book series Digital Media, Feminist Resistance (https://ohiostatepress.org/books/series/dmfr.html).
The Research Assistants
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Anna McWebb
Anna McWebb is a second-year PhD student in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Her research investigates the ways in which queer and intersectional feminist political resistance emerges through visual rhetorical discourse within meme (sub)cultures on the Internet. Alongside her studies, she is in the role of Managing Editor for (Un)Disturbed: A Journal of Feminist Voices, and works as a research assistant for the Digital Feminist Network, and the Connect, Create, Customize: Collaborative Toolkit Building for Campus Trust And Safety project through the Feminist Think Tank, all of which are lead by Dr. Brianna I Wiens and Dr. Shana MacDonald.
Amaya Kodituwakku
Amaya Kodituwakku (they/them) is a fourth-year English Literature and Rhetoric undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo with a minor in Legal Studies. They are currently working part-time as Dr. Brianna Wien's RA on her SSHRC-funded project, Reactionary Rhetorics: Mapping Digitally Mediated Rhetorics of Gendered Violence. Amaya's areas of interest are in transformative justice and transnational feminist rhetoric, particularly in post-civil war moments in the Global South.
Cassandra Lalonde
Cassandra Lalonde is a second-year History student and English literature minor at the University of Waterloo. She is working under Dr. Shana Macdonald as a research assistant, focusing on organizing and collecting data. Cassandra is interested in studying and documenting the rise of the manosphere on social media, its influence on young minds, and its impact on intersecting marginalized identities.
Thuvaraka Mahenthiran
Thuvaraka Mahenthiran is a masters student in Developmental Psychology at the University of Waterloo. She is currently working under Dr. Shana MacDonald and Dr. Brianna Wiens as their Project Manager on the Feminist Digital Media Project.
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Andie Kaiser
Andie Kaiser (she/her) is a Masters of English Literature student at the University of Waterloo, with a Bachelor's in English Literature. She currently works with Dr. Shana MacDonald as a part-time research assistant for Feminist Think Tank, where she aids in social media content creation and data organization. Andie is particularly interested in studying representations of feminist and queer politic within film and popular culture.
Mehar Bangash
Mehar Bangash (she/her) is a Masters of Sociology student at the University of Waterloo, with a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies. Currently, Mehar works as a part-time research assistant under Dr. Shana MacDonald where she supports data coding and literature review. Her research interests include gendered violence and misogyny, with a focus on how power dynamics shape lived experiences.