The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine has appointed Dr Sue-Ann Barratt as head of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS).

Her appointment took effect from August 1 and she will serve a three-year term, replacing Dr Gabrielle Hosein.

Barratt, a graduate of UWI holds a PhD in interdisciplinary gender studies, an MA in communication studies and a BA in media and communication studies with political science.

She has worked in areas of academia at several departments across UWI St Augustine and Mona, Jamaica, the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (Carimac), and in media at the Trinidad and Tobago Broadcasting Network.

Barratt also held positions on UWI’s campus ethics committee as a search committee member for communication studies, a faculty board member of the faculty of humanities and education, a member of the gender advisory board, and has reviewed several university courses.

She has been with IGDS since 2014 as assistant lecturer, instructor III and most recently lecturer and graduate coordinator, and areas of specialisation include communication conflict and gender-based violence, interpersonal interaction, mass media and computer mediated communication, social media and user generated content, gender and ethnic identities, person perception, feminist studies and carnival studies.

Barratt is also a consultant and has assisted with the development of several policy and institutional frameworks which highlighted gender support, social support services and flood alleviation.

She currently serves on the RC32 regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean in the International Sociological Association (2020) and a member of the Caribbean Studies Association, the International Communication Association, the International Sociological Association and the International Association of Media and Communication.

She said her career objective was, “To actively engage students and the wider society in discussions about gender and to encourage recognition of gender’s role in human communication activity through multiple mediated platforms.”

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