Expertise

Dr. Ready is an anthropologist and human rights activist who has worked on issues of gender, sexuality in Central America.

Profile

Dr. Ready, known as "Kelley," is honored to be working with SID students and enjoys teaching classes on gender, culture, power and sustainable development. As an anthropologist, she appreciates the diversity of our students which enables her to continue to learn about new cultures and to explore ways to reconcile a commitment to women's rights with a respect for cultural traditions.

Dr. Ready is also the coordinator of a lively Gender Working Group (GWG), made up of students, faculty and staff, which works to incorporate a gender perspective into the Heller Curriculum and to raise gender issues at the University. Each year the GWG participates in the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign, celebrates International Women's Day and sponsors informal "conversations" which explore issues such as trafficking. She is also a member of the Heller Immigration Working Group.

Dr. Ready's goal is to encourage her students to take a critical view of development and to ask questions about who benefits from the projects, programs and other interventions promoted by development institutions and non-governmental organizations. Because of her background as a participant in and researcher of social movements, particularly women's movements, she continues to study how civil society can promote social justice. Most recently her work has focused on women's organizations which are struggling to improve labor rights for women working in the maquilas, or factories producing for export, of Central America.