Tala Khanmalek

Dr. Tala Khanmalek (she/they) is a developmental editor at Ideas on Fire where she helps writers craft prose that reaches beyond the academy and makes a lasting impact in their communities.

She is also an assistant professor of women and gender studies at California State University, Fullerton. Her research agenda engages the fields of women of color feminisms, feminist science studies, critical race studies, law, literature, and embodiment.

Tala’s research informs and is informed by organizations that address disparities in health and healthcare access. As a Princeton Center for Digital Humanities Fellow, she conducted a project combining oral history methods with digital humanities to archive contemporary community-based wellness initiatives led by practitioners of color in New York City, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area’s LGBTQIA community. She directed one such initiative, Womyn’s Circle, which she founded in 2009.

Tala earned her PhD in ethnic studies (with a designated emphasis in women, gender and sexuality studies) at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as the executive editor of nineteen sixty nine: an ethnic studies journal. She was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Science and Justice Research Center and has taught a wide range of courses at UC Berkeley, CSU Los Angeles, and Princeton.

Tala is also a creative writer, a sailor, and the founder of Sailing for Social Justice, a project that places sailing—and the sea at large—in conversation with social and healing justice issues.