Academic Bio
Hazel Ali Zaman-Gonzalez (she/her), is an assistant professor of social work at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington.
Informed by queer and trans of color scholarship and art, Hazel engages with various interdisciplinary fields, such as transgender studies, performance studies, and critical youth studies, as a way to explore queer and trans of color life through embodied art, music, and performance.
Hazel’s current teaching and research interests include queer and trans healthcare, identity expression, wellness, social justice, and the utilization of phenomenological and participatory methodologies for applied inquiry.
In centering art and performance, her recent work centers furry art as a methodology for exploring queer and trans of color feelings. Her dissertation is based on an on-going phenomenological study that looks to queer and trans of color lived experience to explore the question: “what does the fursona (furry persona) do for queer and trans people of color?”
Hazel is currently published in peer-reviewed articles in the following academic journals: Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, the Journal of LGBT Youth, International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, and the Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare.
Along with university teaching and research, Hazel also has a professional background in early childhood education, elementary education, after-school education, queer and trans youth advocacy and community organizing.
contact:
zaman@plu.edu
