2019 CIS Student Expo Winner- Jennan Paige Andrew

Jennan Paige Andrew is from Trinidad and Tobago. She is a second-year student in Communication and Development Studies. Her presentation at the 2019 Student Research and Creative Activity Expo titled Intimate Partner Violence in Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans and Gay (LGBT) relationships in Jamaica under the supervisor of her research mentor Dr. Risa Whitson,  was a part of her  Global Feminisms class  and also aligned with the needs of WE-Change, a nonprofit organization based in Jamaica that works with, and for lesbian, bisexual and trans women to increase their participation in social justice advocacy. 

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) has traditionally been understood in a heteronormative lens and so IPV in LGBT relationships is not well understood. This phenomenon has also not been well researched in the Caribbean context. It was her hope that the information she unearthed could aid in further understanding of IPV within LGBT relationships and contribute to informative and preventative efforts WE-Change will implement in the future. 

One of her goals during the master’s program was to do a research, she was excited to do research about a topic she was interested in. It was good to be able to put into action much of what I had read about qualitative research in my first semester and conducting interviews with people helped her to sharpen the interviewing skills.
She used the research as a pilot project of sorts and expanded it and made it into her master’s thesis toward the completion of her degree. This meant going through the IRB process and conducting interviews with new participants in Jamaica July 2019. She is currently working on her data analysis.

She encourages students to utilize the Student Research and Creative Activity Expo opportunity to practice doing research, putting together a poster and presenting in conferences.