Alumni Spotlight
Dr. Samuel Yoon
Dr. Yoon graduated from the SDS Graduate Collaborative Specialization and now works as an Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Grand Valley State University.
1. How did SDS shape you as a person?
SDS was incredibly grounding for me throughout my MA and PhD. It was a crucial reminder of what originally brought me to grad school, that is, a deep interest and desire to think with and about queer and trans artists, in particular Asian diasporic artists and their works but also the collective spaces they build. SDS was important to me because it also allowed me to realize and reaffirm that I deeply care about joy and pleasure.
2. How did SDS coursework shape your career interests?
My SDS coursework shaped how I understand the terms queer and trans and their multiple genealogies. I will admit with some embarrassment, that I never read Eve Sedgwick until I took an SDS grad course. Now that I teach courses within our LGBTQ studies minor, I continue to try to offer my students an expansive understanding of these terms.
3. Is there any memory from your time at SDS that you hold on to?
SDS offered me so many experiences and opportunities to be with people. This was so special because so much of my PhD was me alone writing in my library carrel. Because of Sex Salon, the graduate student speaker series and the Queer and Trans Research Lab it was almost on a monthly basis that I got the chance to be in community. But one memory that I distinctly remember is this moment after the 2024 Queer Directions Symposium. I was chatting with a group of grad students and professors, and I had to just take it all in. I felt so profoundly lucky just to be in that space and with these people.
4. What is your advice to current and future students at SDS?
My advice is to make use of the resources and opportunities available to you. This is quite boring and practical advice, but this comes with my growing awareness of the ways that institutional and geographical location deeply shapes access. Being situated at SDS, U of T, and Toronto allows students such an expansive way to make your time here meaningful especially in relation to your interests. Connect with your professors, organizations, artists, and archives that matter to you because you are here right now and that will eventually shift in the future.
Roxy Moon
Roxy graduated from both the SDS Undergrad Specialization and the SDS Graduate Collaborative Specialization, and now works at the ArQuives as Project Archivist for digital materials.
1. How did SDS shape you as a person?
SDS has made me a more inquisitive person and has given me a strong critical eye, which are both things I find central to who I am. It has also allowed me to develop a compassionate thoughtfulness and collaborative urge that was fostered by what I was learning and how discussion was central to so many courses.
2. How did the coursework shape your career interests?
SDS was instrumental in shaping my career interests, especially in how students are urged to think through history, and the ways that we can look to primary sources and the historical record to gain greater understanding of our current cultural climate. In my fourth year I took the placement course (SDS490, Engaging Our Communities), which led me to working in the Sexual Representation Archives under the department. This blended learning allowed me to hone my skills and use things I was learning through my readings and coursework to find what I would be interested in as a career.
3. Is there any memory from your time at SDS that you hold on to?
One of my favourite memories from the program was taking the undergraduate capstone class and sitting outside for our classes at the University College quadrangle. It was the first year of in-person classes again after lockdowns, and it was a very warm welcome back.
4. What is your advice to current and future SDS students?
Let your interests guide you and remain open to the different directions you are being pulled toward.
Everyone in the program wants to see you succeed, and
Use the time to learn how to contribute to the community. SDS is incredibly collaborative, and learning how to contribute to that environment will help you long past graduation.
Dr. Alex Wells
Dr . Wells graduated with an SDS minor in 2011. They completed a collaborative master’s program in MSW in 2018. They write:
“I took my first SDS course because I wanted to learn more about myself and how I related to the world around me. I had so many questions about sex and gender and why I felt so differently about these ideas than everyone around me seemed to. SDS gave me the opportunity to ask these questions and to learn from how other queer and trans folks thought about/navigated/celebrated sex and gender. I walked out of SDS with an analysis of power that understands sex and gender are central pillars around which society is organized and bringing me to become a social worker, supporting the health and wellbeing of queer and trans people. As an Assistant Professor of Social Work, at the University of Northern British Columbia, I am bringing the learning I did in SDS into my classroom, preparing future social work practitioners to think about sex, gender and power to support the health and wellbeing of queer and trans people.”