Aurelio Castro (he/him)

Aurelio Castro is a Bi+ activist and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences working on bi+ sexualities, masculinities, and the social construction of sexual orientations in personal narratives. He is currently a lecturer and post-doc researcher at the University of Bologna where he teaches courses on social psychology of inequalities and reducing prejudices.

As an activist, he writes about bi+ politics and provides scientific and non-formal education trainings for LGBTQIA+ associations in Italy; in 2017, he was in the organising committee of the Bivisibility Day Padova, the very first bi+ pride in Italy, together with Elena Lucietto of Antéros Padova.

Ellen Davenport-Pleasance (she/her)

Ellen is an ESRC funded PhD student at University College London. Her research interests are bisexuality+ and motherhood. Her doctoral research project aims to combat bierasure in family research by focusing on bi+ mother families. Her research project uses a mixed-methods approach to qualitatively explore the perspectives of mothers and their children as well as quantitatively investigating the factors which may predict children’s adjustment in bi+ mother families. Specifically, the project investigates the relationships between bi+ mothers and their children and the experiences of children and mothers in bi+ mother families. The project also explores whether factors such as mothers’ experiences of minority stress and anti-bisexual prejudice are related to mothers’ mental health and parenting behaviour, and children’s adjustment in bi+ mother families.

Prior to joining UCL, Ellen completed a BA and MPhil in Psychology from the University of Cambridge. At the University of Cambridge, Ellen worked on various projects, first investigating whether parents create different physical and digital environments for children based on their gender, and then exploring bi+ mothers experiences of motherhood through a qualitative interview study.

Gabryelle Iaconetti (she/they)

Gabryelle Iaconetti is a PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.

Their MA research project focused on the histories of bisexual+ community groups in Toronto through the examination of archival records and conducting oral histories with bi+ activists; their current doctoral research will examine the establishment of bisexual+ support groups in mid-sized Ontario city-regions.

This project seeks to uncover the unique local characters of bisexual+ community building initiatives through a historical lens.

Gabryelle holds a BA and MA in History from Concordia University and MISt (Master of Information Studies) from McGill University. She is also an affiliate of Concordia University’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS). Her research interests lie at the intersections of bisexual+ history, oral history, queer space, and archives.

Taralyn Parr (she/they)

Taralyn is completing her Ph.D. at the University in Toronto in Adult Education with specializations in Workplace Learning and Social Change and Sexual Diversity Studies. Her broad research interest include understanding how sexual identity, gender, race and other marginalized identities are re(produced) and resisted within organizations and leadership discourse. 

Using queer theory and anti-narrative methodology, Taralyn’s doctoral dissertation explores how bisexuals in Canada navigate the tension between leadership necessitating a ‘desexualized’ performance and their hyper-sexualized bi+ identity. Her project seeks to understand the ways that bisexual+ people disclose their sexual identity in the workplace and how they experience and navigate the relationship between gender, sexual, and leadership performativities and the tension between visibility, sexualization, and negation.

Taralyn is a Course Director in the School of Administrative Science at York University and in her professional life, develops, leads, and implements comprehensive strategies, policies, and programs that effectively drive meaningful social change within organizations.

Derek Sollberger (he/him)

Derek Sollberger is a lecturer at University of California at Merced. He teaches a variety of data science courses and workshops. Course activities include survey design and analysis to examine topics such as campus climate, LGBT demographics, and public opinion on LGBT issues.

Lucia Tralli (she/her)

Lucia Tralli is a gender and media studies scholar. Her main research focuses are grassroots media practices; the re-use of media images in audio-visual productions; popular culture; celebrity culture, and intersectionality in the media.

She is currently working on Bi+ representation in fictional media, particularly TV Series, both globally and in Italy. She has published papers and chapters on fandom, media and gender on several international academic journals and books, and her first book Vidding Grrls, on fan vidding as a gendered practice, has been published by Meltemi in 2021.

She is Adjunct Professor at AUR - The American University of Rome, where she teaches several courses, amongst them Media and Gender, Introduction to Visual Culture and Political Communication. As a feminist activist and media expert she is a programmer at the Some Prefer Cake Film Festival in Bologna, and co-organizer of the Political Feminist Camp at Agape (Prali, Turin), one of the longest-running political feminist experiences in Italy.