PGSO Executive Board

Ijeoma graduated with distinction from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in May 2023. As a PhD student at Penn State, her research interests include Black feminist philosophy, Black ontology, and decolonial theory. Drawing influence from the work of Frantz Fanon and Audre Lorde, Ijeoma’s work investigates how philosophical inquiry can serve as a liberatory tool.

Andres Villanueva is a PhD student in Philosophy at Penn State. He earned his BA in Philosophy from Catholic University in 2024. His areas of interest include Kant and post-Kantian philosophy as well as environmental philosophy with a focus on eco-phenomenology. Specifically, he is interested in the idea of subjectivity in German thought from Kant to Heidegger and the meaning of nature in the face of climate change.

Yasna Kalanaki (she/they) is a dual-title Ph.D. student in the Philosophy and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies departments at Penn State. She received a B.A. in Philosophy (with honors) with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2023. Her areas of interest include German idealism (primarily Hegel), post-structuralism, decolonial theory, feminist philosophy, focusing on questions on ontology and epistemology. In particular, her research engages and problematizes the intersection of knowledge and power by deconstructing Western epistemologies and exploring forms of liberatory decolonial being, expression, and embodiment. This entails an engagement with Caribbean and Latinx decolonial thought, as well as, queer theory, affect theory, and Sufi Islamic mysticism.