![](https://cenes.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2023/06/SC-Headshot-21.jpg)
![](https://cenes.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2023/06/SC-Headshot-21.jpg)
Photo by Tyler Daniels
MA student, Susanna Cassisa, from the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies was recently selected as a recipient of a Diversity and Inclusion graduate research grant from the Waterloo Centre for German Studies.
The grant will support Susanna’s research for her podcast and experimental MA thesis, Groomer Rumor. The podcast explores the historical roots and functions of the ongoing moral panic that labels queer people as sexual predators, or “groomers.”
Incorporating archival audio footage, interviews with scholars, and original narration, Groomer Rumor uses historical examples from Germany and the United States to trace this trope over the last century.
Congratulations Susanna!