Research Interests

Reproductive health and justice; Biopsychosocial factors of painful sex; MENA/Arab+ women ethnic and racial identities; Conceptions of Mother+hood

Biography

I am a reproductive health scholar activist and Associate Professor in the Human Sexuality Ph.D. program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. My equity-focused research investigates how institutions, particularly medicine, religion, and education, shape reproductive agency and rights in the United States. One line of this work focuses specifically on women's experiences of painful intercourse, birth, and pelvic care, examining how medical discourse and practice often fail to address or even acknowledge these embodied experiences. A second, intersecting line of inquiry explores how ethnic identity, race, and nationality shape the transnational experiences of MENA and Arab women at the crossroads of gender and religion.

I am also a founding member of the MotherScholar Collective, an interdisciplinary coalition of roughly 100 academic mothers+. Together, we developed a feminist, participatory research agenda to document the intersectional experiences of parenting young children during and after the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the lived experiences of academic mothers more broadly.

Education

Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, University of Memphis, TN

M.A. in Education & Media, University of Hagen, Germany

M.A. English Language Education & Communication, Utrecht University, Netherlands

M.Ed. German Language Education and Culture, Fontys University, Tilburg, Netherlands

Awards & Distinctions

2024-Judie Wexler Innovation Faculty Fund

2024-International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship (IAMAS) Innovation Award

2023-SSSS conference organizer’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion award for “Black women’s experiences with Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration Disorder (GPPPD) in the United States: An intersectional analysis” presentation

2022-Celebrated Woman of Leadership of United University Professions Union

2019-Editorial Board’s Invited Article, Public Health Post–Boston University School of Public Health, “Mothering in the margin: A narrative inquiry of women with children in a homeless shelter”

2019-SUNY at Buffalo Gender Institute Research Grant; “College Women’s Pelvic Health and Sexuality”

2017-Editorial Board’s Invited Article, Journal of Midwifery Science, “She said, she said: Interruptive narratives of pregnancy and childbirth”

2016-Editor’s Choice, Featured Article, Women & Birth, “At pains to consent: A narrative inquiry into women’s attempts of natural childbirth”

2015-Outstanding Graduate Award in Educational Psychology

2015-American Psychology Association Travel Award

2014-Engaged Scholarship Student Award

Courses

Global Sexualities; Methodology II

Publications

Azim, K. A., & *Multani, M. (co-guest editors). (2025). Special Issue: Embodying intersectional journeys: Autoethnographic assemblages in critical sexualities studies. The SoJo Journal, 11(1-2), 1-49.

Azim, K. A., & *Multani, M. (2025). From abstraction to visceral inquiry: Toward courageous spaces with reflexive autoethnography. The SoJo Journal, 11(1-2), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1108/SOJO-08-2025-0004

Happel-Parkins, A., & Azim, K. A. (2025). Legislative consequences: The accumulation of genital baggage. Health Education Journal, 84(6), 614-625. https://doi.org/10.1177/00178969251342002

Azim, A. A., & Azim, K. A. (2025). Innovation in endodontic education—cliché or necessity? A perspective on post-graduate training. International Endodontic Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/iej.14259

Azim, K. A., Lewis, A. A., Happel-Parkins, A., *Johnson-Benson, C., *Kraemer, M., & *Diallo, H. (2025). Medical gendered racism and Black women’s experiences of Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration Disorder in the USA – A conceptual exploration. Culture, Health, & Sexuality, 27(6), 751-766. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2024.2399292 

Brooks, T. P., Hughes, A. N., Azim, K. A., Bender, S. H., Blanks Jones, J. L., Parker-Barnes, L., Frazier, K. E., Greene-Rooks, J., Pennell, S. M., Richardson, I., Bielski, L. M., & Raftery-Helmer, J. N. (2025). Exploring the identities, barriers, and interventions for motherscholars during a global pandemic. Journal of Career Development, 52(3), 385-406.  https://doi.org/10.1177/08948453251323814

Happel-Parkins, A., Azim, K. A., *Barnes, K., *Neal, M., & Gnanadass, E. (2024). Stories from the “pressure cooker:” U.S. women navigating motherhood and work during the COVID-19 pandemic. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 8(2), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/14390

Azim, K. A., Happel-Parkins, A., Moses, A. & Haardörfer, R. (2023). Racialized differences across experiences and measurements of pain in GPPPD. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdac028

Azim, K. A., & Salem, W. M. (2022). The liminality of multinational Muslim motherscholaring during COVID-19: A feminist narrative inquiry. Peabody Journal of Education, 97(2), 132-147. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2022.2054634

Lim, S. R., Cerdeña J. P., Azim, K. A., & Wagner, K. (2022). Motherscholars with disabilities: Surmounting structural adversity during COVID-19. S. M. McCarther (Ed.), American Educational History Journal, 133-140. Information Age Publishing.

Azim, K. A., Happel-Parkins, A., Moses, A. & Haardörfer, R. (2021). Exploring relationships between genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder, sex guilt, and religiosity among college women in the U.S. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 18(4), 770-782. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2021.02.003

Azim, K. A., Happel-Parkins, A., & Moses, A. (2021). Epistles of dyspareunia: Storying Christian women’s experiences of painful sex. Culture, Health, & Sexuality, 23, 644-658. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2020.1718759

Happel-Parkins, A., Azim, K. A., & Moses, A. (2020). “I just beared through it:” Southern U.S. Christian women’s experiences of chronic dyspareunia. Journal of Women’s Health Physical Therapy, 44(2), 72-86. https://doi.org/10.1097/JWH.0000000000000158

Azim, K. A., & Happel-Parkins, A. (2019). Veiled aggression: Saudi women international students’ experiences of microcolonization in the United States. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(1), 1-20.

Azim, K. A., MacGillivray, L., & Heise, D. (2019). Mothering in the margin: A narrative inquiry of women with children in a homeless shelter. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 28(1), 34-43.

Happel-Parkins, A. & Azim, K. A. (2016). At pains to consent: A narrative inquiry into women’s attempts of natural childbirth. Women & Birth, 29(4), 310-320.

Human Sexuality Department