Heidi Lewis Is the New President of the National Women’s Studies Association

Heidi Lewis, an associate professor of feminist and gender studies at Colorado College, has been elected president of the National Women’s Studies Association.

Established in 1977, the NWSA prioritizes promoting and supporting knowledge about women and gender through teaching, learning, research, and service in academic settings. Their mission statement includes “a commitment to illuminate the ways in which women’s studies are vital to education.”

“As a leader, I aim to amplify the knowledge and experiences of my collaborators, as well as my own, in service to transformational work guided by a collaboratively defined mission that communicates who we are and a vision for who we aim to be,” says Dr. Lewis. “This requires building substantial relationships and developing meaningful institutional knowledge. My learning from people who aim to serve and who are served by an organization — from those who joined recently to those who have been members for decades — is paramount.”

Dr. Lewis joined the tenure-track faculty at Colorado College in 2018. She is currently completing work on the book Make Rappers Rap Again: Interrogating the Mumble Rap ‘Crisis,’ forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

Dr. Lewis is a graduate of Robert Morris University in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree in English literature from Ohio University and a Ph.D. in American studies from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.