GPRP Newsletter: January 30th, 2026

A Look Back at GPRP's First Year

Established in January 2025, the Gender Policy Research Program (GPRP)'s mission is to connect students, faculty, and staff conducting research on gender and policy across the University. Our two main priorities in our first year were community building and research support, promotion, and dissemination.

In our first year, we began building community in a variety of ways. We created the GPRP newsletter, featuring student, faculty, and staff spotlights; events and community building opportunities; research, funding, and work opportunities; and resources and actions. We launched our monthly community hours for networking, research support, writing accountability, and more. We hosted our first mini-writing retreat, creating a productive space for faculty, staff, and students to write and share best practices for building a writing habit. We also sponsored campus events like our screening of the documentary Heightened Scrutiny.

We also focused on supporting, promoting, and disseminating research from across the GW community. Our team of undergraduate researchers, the Gender Data Collective, is hard at work on a research project they will present at several conferences this spring. We created the GPRP blog and promoted GW research with our first annual Summer Blog Series. We also promoted research from faculty, staff, and students on our social media channels, particularly LinkedIn and Bluesky.

GPRP is just getting started and we all need community support now more than ever. If there’s anything we can do for you in the coming year, please feel free to reach out and let us know! We'd love to promote your events and opportunities and we welcome suggestions for community building and research support.

Looking Forward

We’re looking forward to another year of building community and supporting gender policy research across the University. Here’s a sneak peek at what we have planned:

• Our monthly Gender Policy Community Hours return in February! We’re looking forward to virtually seeing you on Friday, February 13th at noon to discuss what you’re working on, any support you may need, interesting events you’d like to promote, and more!
• Our Mini Writing Retreats return in March! We’ll see you on Friday, March 20th for guided goal setting, three hours of focused writing, and a brown bag lunch for research and writing discussion, support, and commiseration (as needed).
• Our undergraduate student research team, the Gender Data Collective, will be presenting posters on their research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research and the Eastern Sociological Society!
• Dr. King will also be presenting at the Eastern Sociological Society’s Mini Conference on the Sociology of Reproduction. She will be presenting her ongoing research on adolescent and young adult use of AI chatbots for contraceptive counseling.
• We are also planning a Summer Writing Workshop for students. In this 6-8 week summer workshop, Dr. King will work with a small group of students focused on developing course papers into journal articles for submission. Applications for this workshop will open in March!
• Finally, we are planning to feature writing from both students and faculty in the coming months on the GPRP blog. If you are interested in being featured in our student or faculty blog series, please respond to this email or fill out our Writing Submission Form.

Events

Education Policy (Master's) - Virtual Information Session

Monday, February 2, 2026 | 6:00pm to 7:15pm EST, Virtual

This session will include a brief overview of the GSEHD student experience, the application process, and program specific highlights.

Trachtenberg Listens

Tuesday, February 3, 2026 | 4:00pm to 5:30pm EST, USC 405

Launching this spring, Trachtenberg Listens is a new community conversation series that brings together students, faculty, staff, and alumni for thoughtful dialogue centered on what we value, what brings us joy, and what gives us hope.

Hands Off Our Healthcare! Virtual Comment-A-Thon
Monday, February 9, 2026 | 6:00PM to 7:00PM EST, Virtual
The proposed regulations seek to strip federal funding for Medicaid and CHIP coverage for trans youth care and prohibit any hospital that provides trans youth care from receiving any federal funding. In this upcoming comment-a-thon, legal experts from A4TE's Trans Health Project will break down what the rules mean and what makes a good public comment. You'll then have an opportunity to submit your own.

Gender Policy Community Hour

Friday, February 13, 2026 | 12:00pm to 1:00pm, Virtual

All GW community members are welcome to join to discuss their current projects and network with fellow gender policy scholars. To be added to the Community Hour calendar invite, please fill out this form.

Mini Writing Retreat for Gender Scholars

Friday, March 20, 2026 | 9:00am to 1:00pm, MPA Building

Join us for guided goal setting, three hours of focused writing, and a brown bag lunch! Register for our March writing retreat here.

Opportunities

Work Opportunities:

Student Research Specialist III Non-FWS, GW Institute for Public Policy

The student research specialist will perform administrative and research tasks such as contribute to peer reviewed research and write research memos of findings, assist with presentations, supervision and training of other student staff, write and run statistical programs to analysis data. 

Policy Analyst, Planned Parenthood

The policy analyst will develop and maintain expertise in and tracks emerging and complex issues related to health care finance, coverage, health care delivery, health system reform, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Planned Giving Officer, Center for Reproductive Rights

The planned giving officer will report to the Senior Director of Individual Giving, the Planned Giving Officer is responsible for setting and driving the Center’s planned giving strategy and for building a strong, sustainable legacy giving program.

Program Director, Wanda Alston Foundation

The Program Director provides weekly clinical consultations to staff, mentors and manages our social work, counseling, psychology, and/or related student interns, and informs policy, programming, and initiative development with a focus on the health and wellness of the clients we serve. The Foundation supports at risk and homeless LGBTQ+ youth in DC.

Submit Your Writing

Have a policy brief, report, resource, commentary piece, or course paper that you're interested in publishing? Fill out our writing submission form and we will reach out!

Have Content for the GPRP Newsletter?

Do you have an event or opportunity you'd like to promote? A piece of writing you'd like to publish? A student, staff member, or faculty member you think deserves recognition? Submit content to be featured in the GPRP newsletter by replying to this email.