Keynote

RSCA Horse, Student RSCA Conference

Student Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities Conference

An olive-skin-toned femme with buzzed hair, a black shirt, large wooden earrings, and pink lipstick smiles at the camera. She stands behind a bookshelf with plants.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Shayda Kafai

Shayda Kafai (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Ethnic and Women’s Studies Department and is the Director of the Office of Interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. As a Mad, disabled queer Iranian American femme, she commits to practicing the many ways we can reclaim our bodyminds from systems of oppression. To support this work as an educator-scholar, Shayda applies disability justice and collective care practices in the spaces she cultivates. Shayda’s writing and speaking presentations focus on intersectional body politics, particularly on how bodies are constructed and how they hold the capacity for rebellion. She is the author of Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice and Art Activism of Sins Invalid (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2021) and the co-editor of the anthology Mad Scholars: Reclaiming and Reimagining the Neurodiverse Academy (Syracuse University Press, 2024). Her new book, A Mad Mess: Disabled Queer Femme of Color World Making is forthcoming by Arsenal Pulp Press in Fall 2026.