Graduate
Alumni
Our alumni from all three of our tracks—literature (English MA, PhD), rhetoric and composition (English MA, PhD) and creative writing (MFA)—take many career paths when they leave our department. Some head to other graduate programs as others become tenure-track professors. Some leave academia and enter into corporate/business/NGO environments while others work in freelance positions as they continue to hone their art.
Summer 2021
Carolyn Gubala, PhD English Rhetoric & Composition
Dissertation: “A Field-Wide Examination of Cross-Listed Courses in Technical Professional
Communication”
Committee: Lisa Melonçon (Chair), Norbert Elliot, Kristen Gay, Glen McClish
Fall 2021
Kara Larson, PhD English Rhetoric & Composition
Dissertation: “Labor-Based Contract Grading in the Multilingual FYC Classroom: Unpacking
the Variables”
Committee: Lisa Melonçon (Chair), Norbert Elliot, Carl Herndl, Jessica Nastal
Maggie Romigh, PhD English Literature
Dissertation: “Oppression, Resistance, and Empowerment: The Power Dynamics of Naming
and Un-naming in African American Literature, 1794 to 2019”
Committee: Gary Lemons (Chair), Quynh Nhu Le, Cynthia Patterson, Cheryl Rodriguez
Spring 2022
Sariah Amin, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Readers Watch in Horror: Why Harriet Wilson Portrays Mrs. Bellmont Rejecting the Cult of True Womanhood” and “"Just Say It Now": How Julie Dash's Characters Use Voice to Overcome the Legacy
of White Supremacy in Ibo Landing”
Committee: Kristin Allukian (Chair), Quynh Nhu Le
Krysta Banke, PhD English Rhetoric & Composition
Dissertation: “Honors Writing Supports: An Applied Program Evaluation Study”
Committee: Lisa Melonçon (Chair), Jennifer Bleck, S. Morgan Gresham, Holly Donahue
Singh
Taylor Demichael, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Portianomics: Queen of the Caskets” and “The War of the Severed Head”
Committee: Emily Jones (Chair), John Lennon
Teddy Duncan, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Recognizing Exploitation and Rejecting Analogy: An Analysis of the Meat-Commodity”
and “The Inexplicable Real and Silent (Female) Desire: A Lacanian Approach to the
Unsaid in The Awakening”
Committee: John Lennon (Chair), Phillip Sipiora
Madison Frazier, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: Body Unblessed
Committee: Heather Sellers (Chair), Julie Koets, Natalie Scenters-Zapico
Jesse Gilleland, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Seeing Kes: Unintelligibility and the Queer Narrative in Stacey Gregg’s
Scorch” and “Maternal Transactions: Capitalism and 19th Century Motherhood in Harriet
Wilson’s Our Nig”
Committee: Susan Mooney (Chair), Kristin Allukian
Gabrielle Grilli, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: Cardinals & Ghosts
Committee: Jay Hopler (Chair), Natalie Scenters-Zapico, William Logan
Sarah Harder, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: In Case the Body is Mine
Committee: Natalie Scenters-Zapico (Chair), Jay Hopler, Julia Koets
Shelby Hennessy, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “How She Heals: Looking at Rape and Motherhood Through Contemporary Literature
and Film” and “Black Motherhood as an Intersection: Harriet Jacobs’ Slave Narrative
under a Theoretical Lens”
Committee: Quynh Nhu Le (Chair), John Lennon
Adam Phillips, PhD English Rhetoric & Composition
Dissertation: “Curricular Assemblages: Understanding Student Writing Knowledge (Re)circulation
Across Genres”
Committee: Lisa Melonçon (Chair), Norbert Elliot, Liane Robertson, Kristen Gay
Megan Stowe, PhD English Literature
Dissertation: “Anthropocene Fiction: Empathy, Kinship, and the Troubled Waters at
the End of the World”
Committee: Ylce Irizarry (Co-Chair), Gurleen Grewal (Co-Chair), Quynh Nhu Le, Ulluminair
Salim, John Lennon
Callie Treadway, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: Outside Cicadaville
Committee: Heather Sellers (Chair), Julia Koets, Karen Brown
Jade Weiss, MA English Rhetoric & Composition
Thesis: “PAD Beyond the Classroom: Integrating PAD in the Scrum Workplace”
Committee: Lisa Melonçon (Chair), Carl Herndl, Liane Robertson
Tyra White, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: The Grass is Greener Over Here
Committee: Natalie Scenters-Zapico (Chair), Julia Koets, Jay Hopler
Mckenzie Zalopany, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: Slutty Cool Mom
Committee: Jarod Roselló (Chair), John Fleming, Julia Koets
Summer 2020 graduating students
Spencer Bennington, PhD English Rhetoric & Composition
Dissertation: "Rhetorical Roundhouse Kicks: Tae Kwon Do Pumsae Practice and Embodied
Non-Western Topoi"
Committee: Carl Herndl (Chair), Lisa Melonçon, Steven Jones, Cathryn Molloy
Shauna Maragh, PhD English Literature
Dissertation: "Glamour in Contemporary American Cinema"
Committee: Phillip Sipiora (Chair), Victor Peppard, Hunt Hawkins, Quynh Nhu Le
Zita Rarastesa, PhD English
Dissertation: "Identity and Sexuality of Female Characters in Contemporary Indonesian
Novels"
Committee: Hunt Hawkins (Co-Chair), Gurleen Grewal (Co-Chair), Ylce Irizarry, Phillip
Sipiora
Fall 2020 graduating students
Cory Engle, MA English Literature
Portfolio: "Visuality and the Normalizing Gaze in Celine Sciamma’s Tomboy" and "Race
and Education in Nineteenth-Century Literary Genres"
Committee: Susan Mooney (Chair), Cynthia Patterson
Stephanie Phillips, PhD English Rhetoric & Composition
Dissertation: “The Power of Noncompliant Logos: A New Materialist Approach to Comic
Studies"
Committee: Meredith Johnson (Chair), Steven Jones, Nathan Johnson, Jarod Roselló
Kimber Wiggs, PhD English Literature
Dissertation: “‘We developed Solidarity’: Family, Race, Identity and Space-Time in
Contemporary American Fiction”
Committee: Ylce Irizarry (Chair), Gary Lemons, Quynh Nhu Le, Aisha Durham
Spring 2021 graduating students
Nicholas Brown, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: "Cleaned"
Committee: John Fleming (Chair), Jarod Roselló, Jon Chopan
Lauren Cross, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: "How to Preserve a Body: Essays"
Committee: Julia Koets (Chair), Heather Sellers, Ira Sukrungruang
Alison Denny, MA English Literature
Portfolio: "Ariel, Caliban, and Cuba's Struggle for Sovereignty" and "'Can you help
tear down the barn?: 'Patriarchy, Exploitation, and Environmental Harm in Helena Maria
Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus”
Committee: John Lennon (Chair), Emily Jones
Allison Duque, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Shifting Complicities in Eliza Potter’s A Hairdresser’s Experience in
High Life” and “Fanfiction: Stories Untold in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice”
Committee: Kristin Allukian (Chair), Emily Jones
Benjamin Kinney, MFA Creative Writing
Thesis: "Trail Magic"
Committee: Rita Ciresi (Chair), John Fleming, Jarod Roselló
Lauren Leonard, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Lights, Camera, “Crazy Sunday:” Hollywood as Modernity and Continuity
in the 1930s Literature of F. Scott Fitzgerald” and “Adapting the Attic and the Cherry
Tree: Hollywood Treatments of Jane Eyre”
Committee: Phillip Sipiora (Chair), Marty Gould
Katherine Lewis, MFA Creative Writing, Fiction
Thesis: Field of Mosquitoes
Committee: John Fleming (Chair), Rita Ciresi, Karen Brown
Mariel Marconi, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Performing Miss Havisham’s Age in Adaptations of Great Expectations” and
“Destabilizing Narrative Authority in The Marrow Thieves”
Committee: Susan Mooney (Chair), Marty Gould
Migien Mocke, MFA Creative Writing, Poetry
Thesis: “Thoroughfare//From Room to Room”
Committee: Jay Hopler (Chair), Julia Koets, Natalie Scenters-Zapico
Haley Morton, MFA Creative Writing, Poetry
Thesis: "Floodplain"
Committee: Julia Koets (Chair), Jay Hopler, Heather Sellers
Nicole Musselman, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Masculine Mothers of New England: How Landscape Impacted Motherhood in
New England Women Writings” and “Motherhood and the Grotesque in Louise Erdrich’s
Tracks”
Committee: Cynthia Patterson (Chair), Quynh Nhu Le
Elizabeth Ricketts, PhD English Literature
Dissertation: “Land Goddesses, Divine Pigs, and Royal Tricksters: Subversive Mythologies
and Imperialist Land Ownership Dispossession in Twentieth Century Irish and American
Literature"
Committee: Susan Mooney (Chair), John Lennon, Quynh Nhu Le, Stanley Gontarski
Emory Russo, MFA Creative Writing, Fiction
Thesis: “Human Subjects and Other Stories”
Committee: Rita Ciresi (Chair), Jarod Roselló, Jay Hopler
Kaelah Scheff, MA English Rhetoric & Composition
Thesis: “Generic Expectations in First Year Writing: Teaching Metadiscourse Reflection
and Revision Strategies for Increased Generic Uptake of Academic Writing”
Committee: Lisa Melonçon (Chair), Norbert Elliot, Carl Herndl
Shauna Slezak, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Shakespeare’s Portia: The Riddling Merchant” and “Female Imprisonment
Within Victorian Literature and its Modern Adaptations: Nameless, Isolated, and Confined”
Committee: Emily Jones (Chair), Marty Gould
Austin Smith, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “Djuna Barnes and the Existential Epoche of Nightwood” and “The Merchant
of Venice and the Comedy of Jewishness”
Committee: Phillip Sipiora (Chair), Emily Jones
Kelcee Sykes, MFA Creative Writing, Fiction
Thesis: “Jezebel”
Committee: Jarod Rosello (Chair), John Fleming, Rita Ciresi
Ashely Tisdale, PhD English Literature
Dissertation: “Reframing the Gothic: Race, Gender, and Disability in US Multiethnic
Literature.”
Committee: Ylce Irizarry (Chair), Kristin Allukian, Quynh Nhu Le, Maria Cizmic
Rodger Tornai, MA English Literature
Portfolio: “The Road to Nowhere: The Absurdity of Existence within the Liminal Space
of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.” And “Assurance of a Man: Masculinity, the
Maternal Body, and the Tragic Self-Fashioning of a Prince in William Shakespeare’s
Hamlet.”
Committee: Susan Mooney (Chair), Emily Jones
Adrienne Vivian, PhD English
Dissertation: “Intersections of Race and Place in Short Fiction by New Orleans Gens
de Couleur libres writers.”
Committee: Ylce Irizarry (Chair), Kristin Allukian, Gurleen Grewal, Kersuze Simeon-Jones
Katie Walkup, PhD English Rhetoric & Composition
Dissertation: “Mental Illness Diagnosis and the Construction of Stigma”
Committee: Meredith Johnson (Chair), Norbert Elliot, Nathan Johnson, Christa Teston
Jessica Watson, MFA Creative Writing, Poetry
Thesis: Bodywork: Essays
Committee: Julia Koets (Chair), Heather Sellers, Rita Ciresi
We are extremely proud of our graduates and want to keep in touch! If you were part of our graduate program, please contact our graduate program specialist to discover alumni events and to update your contact information.
Creative writing
- Haley Morton, MFA, spring 2021
- Courtney Clute, MFA, spring 2020
- Patrick Templeton, MFA, spring 2020
- Adam Carter, MFA, spring 2019
- Erika Staiger, MFA, spring 2019
- Allyson Hoffman, MFA, spring 2018
- Georgia Jackson, MFA, spring 2018
- Alysia Sawchyn, MFA, spring 2018
Literature
- Teddy Duncan, MA, spring 2022
- Taylor DeMichael, MA, spring 2022
- Meghan Hutton, MA, spring 2020
- Stephanie Lance, PhD, fall 2019
- Elan Pavlinich, PhD, summer 2019
- Susan Meeler, MA, spring 2019
- Heather Fox, PhD, fall 2017
- Seth Spencer, MA, spring 2017
- Christina Connor, MA, spring 2016
Rhetoric & composition
- Adam Phillips, PhD, spring 2022
- Katie Walkup, PhD, spring 2021
- Stephanie Phillips, PhD, fall 2020
- Natalie Kass, MA, spring 2017
- Lauren Cagle, PhD, summer 2016
Below you will find job placement information from our graduates in all three tracks over eight years (2013-2021) as well as spotlights on some of our recent graduates.

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Degree programs (PhD programs in English, unless otherwise noted) | |
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Assistant professor positions, tenure-track / full-time permanent | |
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Visiting instructor / FT temporary / adjunct positions | |
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Other humanities careers | |
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