YIRLI 2024 Speakers

attilio bernasconi

Attilio Bernasconi is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) postdoctoral fellow. He received his Ph.D. in Social Sciences (anthropology) in June 2022 at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His thesis, titled “Thinking-Feeling the Margins: An Intersectional ethnography of the Conflict Within the Colombian Pacific Rainforest” brings on the complex dynamics that characterize the relationships between the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrilla movement and the Colombian Pacific inhabitants. Attilio’s field of expertise includes the anthropology of the state and governance, with an emphasis on borderland areas where information, commodities, and people circulate – often illegally – at the margins of the state. After completing two Masters degrees, one in social anthropology and one in human geography, Attilio was PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Lausanne from 2015 to February 2022. From August 2018 to October 2020, he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, while during the Spring semester 2022, he held a Lecturer position at the University of Bern, where his class — “Ethnographies of Struggle” — focused on inequalities related to the historical spatially uneven development of the capitalist mode of production, environmental racism, structural violence, and the construction of gender in armed groups. His teaching links these social struggles to the ones an anthropologist is confronted in her/his fieldwork, and which are related to questions of access, positionality, engagement, race, and gender.

gordon geballe

Gordon Geballe in interested in the environmental issues facing individuals
and society. A large percentage of people live in cities.  These systems are major natural resource consumers and pollution exporters.  The future of wild organisms and pristine land would be more secure if cities handled energy and matter more conservatively. 
 
”Redesigning the American Lawn - A Search for Environmental Harmony”, written by Herbert Bormann, Diana Balmori and Gordon Geballe is a call to action.  The book asks each lawn owner to consider that his or her lawn is connected to the great environmental crises of our times. With this understanding the book presents strategies for acting locally by reducing fertilizer and pesticide use and by reducing the planting of grass.
 
Since the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 through 2014, Geballe and Gary Desir, MD, taught Haiti: Sustainable Development in a Post-Disaster Context through the Yale Schools of Public Health and Forestry & Environmental Studies.  The spring course introduced graduate students to Haiti and its chronic disease and environmental issues.  With l’Hoptial Albert Schweitzer, the Haitian host, the class has contributed ideas on diabetes, hypertension, agroforestry and sanitations issues. This course continues as an undergraduate seminar Haiti: towards sustainable development.
 
Geballe, is a native of California who grew up in New Jersey and now lives in Connecticut.  He earned his Bachelor's degree at the University of California at Berkeley in 1969 and his Ph.D. at Yale University in Biology in 1981. 
 
He is past President of the Board of Connecticut Fund for the Environment, a state-wide public interest environmental law firm, and past President of the Board of Dwight Hall at Yale, an independent non-profit that fosters public service by Yale undergraduates. He also serves on the board of New Haven Urban Resources Initiative and is chair of the board of the International Festival for Arts and Ideas in New Haven, CT.
 
Mr. Geballe is married to Shelley Diehl Geballe JD, MPH. They have 3 children, 3 fabulous daughters-in-law and 8 grandchildren.

maria trumpler

Maria Trumpler received her PhD from Yale in History of Medicine and Life Science in 1992. Her interests include gender and science, feminist critiques of science, scientific studies of sexuality, and food studies. She has taught at Yale, Middlebury, and Harvard, and currently teaches a lecture course on “Women, Food and Culture” and a first year seminar on “History of Sexuality.” She also serves as Director of Yale’s Office of LGBTQ Resources.

wajahat saeed khan

Wajahat Saeed Khan is a Pakistani journalist.

Khan has produced, reported, and anchored for Pakistan's major cable networks, as well as leading U.S., U.K., and Indian publications. Khan was a producer and correspondent for NBC News in Islamabad and Kabul, and the National Security Correspondent for Lahore-based Dunya News. He has also contributed to CNN, The Times and India Today, but is best known as the anchor and editor of the hit primetime show, Mahaaz (The Front), which he produced from 2015 to 2018. From 2019 to 2023, he was an editor and correspondent at Nikkei Asia.