Congratulations to junior Forensic and Investigative Sciences major Fatimah Bouderdaben as she received a fellowship opportunity to present research at the Texas A&M conference in 2018.
The fellowship, known as the RISE (Race, Identity and Social Equality) Fellowship, provides undergraduates an opportunity to conduct research with an emphasis on race, identity and social equality. The students are selected to attend the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) and then present a research topic later in the spring at the Texas A&M RISE Conference, which will be held in February 2018.
In each scientific article and report, Bouderdaben is reviewing the language to see how the writer is describing a victim after the sex is determined to see if gender is mentioned or gendered language is used. She said the topic of inclusion is very close to her and wanted to improve the field of forensics to make it inclusive for everyone.
“I chose this research topic because trans inclusion is a very personal topic for me. My brother is trans and so I am constantly looking for ways to better myself on trans issues,” she said. “I just realized I would like to go into a field that wasn’t trans exclusionary and am willing to put in the work to make the forensic community more aware of trans issues.”
Bouderdaben wanted to join the RISE program because she wanted to help make a difference in our society and feels that social justice is an important topic for the field of forensics and to her personal values. During the NCORE conference, she learned about self-care and hopes to apply it to her own life, as well as when she is mentoring other students.
“It enlightened me to the importance of self-care not just for me but to those who look up to me,” she said. “I am a mentor and have leadership positions, so becoming aware of the fact that people would be looking to me and seeing how I care for myself in an effort to gauge how to care for themselves made me realize I need to make self-care somewhat of a priority in my life.”
After graduation, Bouderdaben plans to attend graduate school and pursue her master’s degree in Forensic Anthropology.