March 2020

Prof. Dr. Katharina Sykora received her doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1983, after which she worked as a research assistant in archives and museums. From 1994 to 2000, she was Professor of Middle and Contemporary Art History with a focus on gender studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. From 2001 to 2018, she was Professor of 19th and 20th Century Art History at the Institute of Art History at the University of Fine Arts Braunschweig. Between 2013 and 2018, she also held the post of head of the DFG Research Training Group The Photographic Dispositive. Her research focuses on the construction of gender, authorship and affects in visual culture and the media comparison of photography, painting and film. Katharina Sykora also works as an exhibition curator.

Patricia Shiu is a consultant on diversity and inclusion policies that reflect an organization’s mission, culture, and brand. Appointed by President Barack Obama, Ms. Shiu served as the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) at the Department of Labor (DOL) in Washington, DC from 2009-2016. OFCCP enforces laws that prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and veteran status. OFCCP regulates the federal contractor community that employs approximately 20% of the American workforce.

While at DOL, Ms. Shiu and her team updated OFCCP regulations prohibiting discrimination and requiring affirmative action on the basis of sex, disability and veteran status. They also finalized new regulations, adding sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories, and prohibiting discrimination against applicants and employees who inquire about, discuss or disclose their or another employee’s compensation.

Birte Meier, born in 1971, studied at the FU Berlin, the University of Chicago and the University of the Arts Berlin and holds a master's degree in North American Studies, Modern History, and Journalism. Since 2007, she has been a Frontal21 editor, producing investigative stories on politics and business - primarily on digitalization, globalization and the transformation of the market economy and democracy.

During her current fellowship at Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, Birte Meier researches and publishes on Equal Pay: In California, there has been a cultural change in the matter of Equal Pay. Women are beginning to successfully demand equal pay for equal work. How did California do that? What can Germany learn from California so that women are empowered to effectively demand their constitutional right to equal pay?