Current PhD Students

Fields: Early modern and medieval studies, gender and sexuality studies, ecocriticism, digital humanities

Degrees(s): BA (English), Creighton University; MA (English), University of Miami

Kate M. Albrecht (email) is a fourth-year PhD student of English literature. She is a mentor for Empower Me First and the secretary of the English Graduate Organization. She has presented at conferences such as the International Conference on Education, Symposium on Education and Culture Development of the Greater Bay Area, Medieval and Early Modern Studies Festival, and SAMLA. She has chaired panels at the Nova Southeastern Crossroads Conference and NEMLA. A former instructor of Writing Studies, she is currently the UGrow Writing Studies fellow. She has been awarded fellowships to work on DH projects such as Archbio and co-directs the Early Modern Care project.

Qualifying Exam Committee: Pamela Hammons (chair), Jessica Rosenburg, Lindsay Thomas

Dissertation: “The Pornographic Isle”: Jamaica and the Purchase of Postcolonial Modernity

Fields: Caribbean Studies, Queer and Trans Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Porn Studies.

Degree(s): BA (English; Anthropology & Sociology), Lafayette College.

Jovante Anderson (email) is a sixth-year PhD candidate. He is also a pre-doctoral fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute at The University of Virginia. His dissertation traces the multiple imaginaries of erotic sovereignty articulated through the circulation practices, aesthetic investments, and performance cultures of pornography in late colonial and postcolonial Jamaica. The project reads a diverse historical, literary, and visual set of archives from the early twentieth century to the contemporary moment, considering how pornography underwrites multiple, and sometimes contradictory, visions of what it means to be a modern Caribbean subject. Jovante has presented work at various annual meetings including the American Studies Association, The Caribbean Studies Association, West Indian Literature Conference, and Beyond Homophobia. His work has been supported by grants from the American Ethnological Society, the Center for Global Black Studies, and the Nomadic Archivist Project. He also has a journal article forthcoming in GLQ: Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies that examines contemporary trans aesthetics in relation to ecological crisis in the Caribbean. 

Beyond the academy, Jovante enjoys creative writing and was the first co-recipient of the Poet Laureate of Jamaica Young Writers’ Prize for Poetry in 2018. Jovante was also named “LGBT Person of the Year” by the Equality Foundation for All Jamaica in 2020 for work that he continues to do around queer and trans housing insecurity in Jamaica. 

Dissertation: A.I. Got a Feeling: Exploring Hallucinations and the Rhetorics of Computational Distress

Fields: Medical Humanities; Digital Humanities; Caribbean Studies; Postmodern Studies; Critical Geography

Degree(s): B.A.H. (African & African-American Studies, with honors), MA (Anthropology), Stanford University

Ra Bacchus  (email) is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of English. He is a UM Fellow for the 2024-25 academic year and a co-convener of the Queer Studies Interdisciplinary Reading Group. An active digital humanist, he has presented at multiple conferences in Florida, including the 2024 Crossroads Applied Humanities Conference at NSU and the 2024 Marxist Reading Group  Conference on “Marxism & the Digital Public” at UF. Ra’s projects with texts and technologies advocate for interdisciplinary, multimodal, and affective ways of knowing from the Black Atlantic.

Dissertation Committee: Chair Dr. John Funchion (English), Dra. Susanna Allés Torrent (MLL), Dr. Joel Nickels (English), (external reader unconfirmed).

Fields: Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Religion Studies, Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, Postcolonialism, Digital Humanities

Degrees: BA (English), State University of Ceara (Brazil); MA (Applied Linguistics), State University of Ceara (Brazil), MA (English) , University of Miami

Vanessa Barcelos is a 4th-year English student, whose research focuses on the racial dimensions of discourses of witchcraft in the late medieval and early modern period and women writers in the pre-modern era. Before joining UM’s PhD program, she worked for more than a decade as a teacher of English as a Second Language in Brazil. At UM, Vanessa has taught Writing and Literature courses as a Teaching Assistant. She’s recently authored “She, her, me - a witch? Women join the theological debate of witchcraft in 17th-century England” in the journal Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft (to be published soon). She has presented at several national and international conferences, including RSA (Renaissance Society of America) and CSRS (Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies). She also served as a UGrow Fellow at UM’s Center for the Humanities (2023-2024).

Qualifying Exam Committee: Pamela Hammons, Brenna Munro, Viviana Balsera

Fields: immigrant literature, literature by women, gender and sexuality studies, queer studies, Brazilian diaspora

Degrees: BA (English and Portuguese), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul; MA (English), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul; MA (English), University of Miami

Mariana C. Petersen is a student in the PhD program. She has published in journals such as Estação Literária, Letrônica, Anuário de Literatura, and Plath Profiles and presented papers at the 11th Annual Conference of the Association of Adaptation Studies, at the VII Congresso Internacional de Estudos sobre a Diversidade Sexual e de Gênero, and at the The International Margaret Cavendish Society Biennial Conference, among others. She has served as a UGrow Fellow at HistoryMiami (2029-2020) and has experience teaching English and Portuguese languages and literatures to students of different backgrounds and origins. Her dissertation project focuses on Anglophone literature of the Brazilian diaspora and queer studies.

Dissertation Committee: Brenna Munro (chair), Timothy Watson, Steven Butterman (MLL)

Fields: Early Modern and Renaissance literature, Shakespeare, Exile studies

Degrees: BA (English), Florida International University; MA (English), Florida International University

Madeline Cisneros is a second-year PhD student whose research focuses on modernizing inquiries into Shakespearean drama, particularly through the lens of exile. Before arriving at UM, her Master’s thesis “Forced to Be the Fine Line: How Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Henry V, and George Lucas’ Anakin Skywalker Embody Exile and Estrangement” deconstructed the Shakespearean characters of Hamlet and Henry V alongside the contemporary character of Anakin Skywalker using theories of alienation and metaphoric exile. Before defending, Madeline also competed in FIU’s “3 Minute Thesis” competition, winning second place. As a third-generation Cuban-American, her doctoral research aims to bring Shakespearean texts into close conversation with the Cuban-American exilic condition. 

Qualifying Exam Committee: Pamela Hammons (chair), Joel Nickels, Noa Nikolsky

Fields: 19th-century British literature, 19th-century children’s literature, the gothic, monsters, Women’s Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Degrees: B.S. (Biology), University of Miami; MA (English) University of Miami

Erica Christmas (email) is an English Ph.D. candidate whose dissertation explores intersections between gender, sexuality, and materiality in the late 19th century gothic and children’s literature of E. Nesbit. Her research investigates the deconstruction of human identity through corpses, wax figurines, statues, and other collections of inanimate objects. During her time at UM, she has served as the instructor of record for multiple Writing Studies courses that include topics such as “Monsters in Literature.” 

Dissertation Committee: Tassie Gwilliam (chair), John Funchion, Catherine Judd, Renée Fox (external reader)

Fields: 20th Century US Literature, Modernism, Digital Humanities, and Queer Studies

Degree(s): BA (English), University of Virginia; MA (Comparative Literature), Dartmouth College.

Elizabeth Cornick is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of English. Her research focuses on representations of American mobility in 20th century US literature. Prior to beginning her Ph.D at the University of Miami, she spent three years working as a high school educator and lacrosse coach in Miami and received an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College. Elizabeth was formerly a Digital Humanities Graduate Fellow on “Mapping Imaginary Miami,” supervised by Dr. Allison Schifani. Elizabeth has presented work at the 17th Annual Samuel Armistead Colloquium hosted by UC Davis. As a co-convener of the Queer Studies Interdisciplinary Reading Group, she focuses on the role of critical theory and art in identity [re]formations. In addition, she is a first-year writing instructor and a representative of UM’s English Graduate Organization.

Fields: Disability studies, media and cultural studies, digital humanities, contemporary literature 

Degrees(s): BA (Creative Writing, Sociology), SUNY Oswego; MA (English), University at Buffalo

Micaela Donabella (email) is a fourth-year PhD candidate. Her research focuses on representations of disability and technology within literary and internet cultures. Prior to beginning her PhD, she spent three years working as a K-12 educator and received an M.A. in English from the University at Buffalo. Micaela served as the UGrow Writing Studies Fellow during academic year 2023-2024 and was formerly a Digital Humanities Graduate Fellow on “Mapping Imaginary Miami,” supervised by Dr. Allison Schifani. Micaela has presented work at various conferences including the American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting and the Northeast Modern Language Annual Convention. She is the current Vice President of UM’s English Graduate Organization.

Dissertation Committee: Tim Watson (Chair), Lindsay Thomas (Co-chair), Marlon Moore, Brenna Munro 

Fields: Memory and Trauma Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Speculative Fiction, Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Degree(s): BA (English; Spanish; Women’s Studies), University of Georgia 

Meredith Eget (email) is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of English. Her research examines the role of literature in shaping collective memory following periods of state violence and collective trauma. She is the 2023 recipient of the University of Georgia’s Virginia Rucker Walter Scholarship. Prior to beginning her Ph.D., she worked on the staff of UGA’s Stillpoint Literary Magazine for two years. She has published two works in The Classic Journal and presented at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference, the UGA IWS Student Research Symposium, and the 22nd Tri-University Graduate Conference, where her research project “Re/Visions of History: The Truth Commission as a Site of Dynamic Truth” placed 2nd in the poster presentation category. She is currently working as a first-year writing instructor.

Fields: Jane Austen, long 18th century, colonial literature, postcolonial literature and theory, adaptation studies 

Degree(s): BA (English and French Language and Literature), Rollins College; MA (Postcolonial Studies) SOAS University of London

Iman Gareeboo (email): is a third-year PhD candidate. Her current research focuses on diasporic and postcolonial adaptations of Jane Austen,. Her interests include the legacy of British colonial education, coloniality and decoloniality, studying diachronic representations of Muslims in Western literature, and rhetoric and learning theory. Iman presented a paper at the British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference on decoloniality as explored in dark academia novels in February 2024.  Prior to the University of Miami, she spent a year working as a teaching assistant in France and a year working in elementary education. She is currently serving as the 2024–2025 UGrow Fellow for the Writing Department and as the Secretary for UM’s English Graduate Organization.

Exam Committee: Tassie Gwilliam (chair), Kathryn Freeman, and Tim Watson

Fields: Black Diaspora, Black Queer Studies, Cinema Studies, Caribbean Studies, Black Europe, Ethnography

Degrees: BA (African American Studies, French), Yale University; MA (English), University of Miami

Jordan Rogers (email) is a PhD Candidate in English. He is writing a dissertation on Black Queer Cinema, from a global perspective. During his time at UM, he has held a range of fellowships, including the University of Miami Fellowship and the Mellon Graduate Fellowship at the University of Miami Center for Global Black Studies. He is the recipient of the 2019 Brazilian Initiation Scholarship (BRASA), and two UM Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas/Tinker Grants (2019, 2023). He has also translated work from Italian and Portuguese to English, interned in film archives, produced documentary films, and curated museum exhibitions.

Dissertation Committee: Marlon Moore (Chair), Patricia Saunders, Brenna Munro, Terri Francis (Outside Reader)

Dissertation: Techno-poetics in the Caribbean: Digital and Post-digital Writings

Fields: Expanded Writing, Electronic Literature, Caribbean Studies, Computation, Migrations

Degree(s): BA (Latin American Literature & Linguistics), UCAB, Caracas; MFA (Creative Writing in Spanish), UI, Iowa City

Nicolas Gerardi Rousset  (email) is a first-year PhD student. His dissertation explores expanded writing projects from the insular and continental Caribbean that use electronic writing to envision alternative futures. His research examines electronic literatures that merge digital computation with poetic thought, tracing developments from the early 1950s through 2019, the year the first quantum computer became operational. Nicolás has presented video art installations, conferences, and readings at various institutions, including the British Council in Venezuela, the Contemporary Art Museum in Caracas, FotoFocus Biennial, Houston Art League, the University of Iowa, Public Space One, and Cruce NYU. Over the past two years, he has received the Ruth Davis Summer Fellowship and the Letterpress Scholarship at La Ceiba Gráfica in Mexico. His MFA thesis, Biolibro de Anacaona, is an artist book with augmented reality that explores, through speculation, a new form of hybrid mycelium humanity. The poetry book narrates how Anacaona transfers her memories and ancient knowledge to a new, younger body, coexisting within it.

Beyond academia, Nicolás is active in creative writing and book arts, engaging in editing, design, and producing artist books such as Uy, Uy, Uy, Ur, Ur, Ur, Viaggio a Tulum, Le Kino Tooj, Tulum Tierra y Manglar, ¿Quién Mora en estas Islas?, Casi Todo, and Chulos x Luminaria. He currently prints books in Miami under Koontie Press (@koontiepress).

Fields/Research interests: Caribbean Studies, Afro-diasporic literature, Afro feminisms

Degree: BA (English and Africana studies), CUNY Hunter College

Sadé Gordon (email) is a second-year PhD student with interests located in Caribbean Space, Migration and Afro-diasporic feminisms. Her latest project "Finding Our Mothers Garden: The Feminine Spirit in Aeriel Space", explores artist Firelei Baez's  visualization of an Afro-diasporic global feminine network in her Untitled mural, which takes a turn toward the spirit to answer Alice walkers  call in "In Search of My Mother's Garden". Sadé is also a former Ronald E McNair scholar and was awarded The Helen Gray Cone Fellowship for Graduate Study in English (2020-2021).

Dissertation: Black Feminist Cosmologies: Spiritual Healing in Haitian Women’s Literary and Visual Culture

Fields: Haitian Studies, Black feminist theory, Caribbean Digital Humanities

Degree (s): BA (English and Secondary Education Youth Services), CUNY Queens College; MA (English), University of Miami

Gabrielle Mary Jean-Louis (she/her) (email) is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Miami, specializing in contemporary Caribbean women's literary and visual culture. Her research delves into the presentation of healing methodologies within intimate Black diasporic feminine spaces. Focusing on literary works by authors such as Edwidge Danticat, Francesca Momplasair, and Debbie Rigaud, as well as visual art by Myrlande Constant and Naudline Pierre, Gabrielle examines how diasporic communities provide Haitian female subjects with avenues for spiritual healing through interfaith dialogues, exposure to African spiritual practices, and Western psychotherapy. In her forthcoming works for the Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Caribbean Cultural Institute and the Journal of Haitian Studies, she applies Haitian feminist theory to analyze spiritual iconography in Myrlande Constant and Naudline Pierre’s works. She has presented her research at the Haitian Studies Association Annual Conference, Modern Language Association Annual Convention, American Studies Association Annual Convention and the West Indian Literature Conference.

Dissertation Committee: Patricia J. Saunders (chair), Kelly Baker Josephs, Kate Ramsey, and Jerry Philogene (external reader)

Fields: Caribbean Speculative Fiction, African and African Diasporic Literary Studies, Pan-African studies and movements, African Feminisms, Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies

Degree(s): BA (Literatures in English), University of the West Indies, Mona; MA (Pan African Studies), Syracuse University 

Nardia Lipman (email): Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Ms Lipman is currently a third-year English doctoral student at the University of Miami. Focusing on how African and Afro-Caribbean epistemologies and ontologies are re-engaged in contemporary Caribbean speculative fiction, her dissertation explores themes of enslavement, African retention, pan-African concerns, temporality, and women's experiences, with an emphasis on resistance, liberation, and survival. Prior to her doctoral studies, Ms. Lipman earned her MA from Syracuse University, where her thesis examined the Black Lives Matter Movement and its impact on African American fiction. Ms. Lipman's professional experience includes teaching English in Colombia-South America, Literature and Communication Studies in Jamaica, as well as various administrative roles in the fields of banking and journalism. At the University of Miami, she was honoured as a Dean's Fellow for 2022-23 and received a DEI Mini Grant for her Caribbean Literary Studies Archiving Project in May 2023. An active participant in academic discourse, Ms. Lipman has presented papers at numerous conferences, including the West Indian Literature Conference, the British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference, Society for Caribbean Studies, UK, and the Tri-University Latin America and Caribbean Studies Graduate Student Conference, where she won second place in the Oral Category. At the university, Ms Lipman is a member of both the Caribbean Student Union and the African Student Union, maintaining her connection to her cultural roots, and has held the position of Department Representative in the English Graduate Organisation. She is also a member of several professional organizations, including the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), and the Society for Caribbean Studies, UK (SCS). 

Exam Committee: Kelly Baker Josephs (Chair), Tim Watson, and Brenna Munro

Fields: Medieval and Early Modern Literature, Women’s Writings, Travel Literature, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Degrees: BA (English and History) and MA (English), Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Hyekyung Jung (email) is a second year PhD with research interests in the topics of (fe)male bonds, women’s travels in writings, and emotion and masculinity.

Fields: Caribbean Studies, Diaspora Literature, Gender Studies, 20 and 21st Century Literary Studies

Degree(s): BA(English; Studio Art), New York University; MA(Liberal Studies), University of Miami

Fields: 1900 to present science fiction, ecocriticism, animal studies, posthumanism, digital environmental humanities

Degree(s): BA (English), MA(English), Lamar University

Dissertation: Choreographies of Value Transfer in 1970s Literature of the United States

Fields: Late 20th Century US Literature, Black and Indigenous Literatures of the Americas, Finance and Economics

Degree(s): BS (Secondary English Education), New York University; MA (English), City College of New York

Rachel Northrop (email) is a fifth-year PhD candidate. She has presented at the NSU Crossroads Humanities Student Conference, UM Graduate Research Symposium, and UM Modern Languages and Literature Graduate Student Conference. In her role as a first-year writing instructor, she has integrated archival visits to the Library’s Special Collections and digital StoryMap-making into her classes. Rachel’s dissertation analyzes a wide range of literary texts to ask how their narratives physically describe–choreograph–scenes where value moves from one place to another. Her project argues that the various ways in which value moves through, with, between, among, and beyond people and their environs show that worth and mattering cannot be contained in money, despite contemporaneous efforts to contain value within standardized (and therefore infinitely tradeable) units of currency.

Fields: Disability studies, Medical Humanities, Crip Theory, Monstrosity, Gender and Sexuality, 18th & 19th c. Transatlantic Studies, Gothic Literature, Victorian Literature, Psychoanalysis, Feminist Theory, Narratology, Critical Race Theory

Degrees(s): BA (English, Anthropology, Women’s & Gender Studies), Florida International University; MA (English), Florida International University

Tiffany Oharriz (email) is a first-year PhD student. Her research focuses on representations of disability, bodily difference, gender and racial alterity and their intersections with monstrosity within literary devices. Tiffany is an Andrew W. Mellow HSI Pathways to the Professoriate Fellow. Prior to beginning her PhD, she focused on interdisciplinary studies at FIU while obtaining an M.A. in English. Her thesis, “The Monster Within: Disability Narratology and the Representations of Bodily Difference and Monstrosity in Gothic Fiction” analyzes the various depictions of monstrosity in Gothic literature through the lens of a new theoretical framework, disability narratology — coded patterns operating within literary texts that pertain to the impaired body and its portrayal as monstrous through repetitive tropes that paint bodily differences such as race, gender, and disability as horrifying. During her studies at FIU, Tiffany has presented her research at various conferences including the HSI Pathways Cross Institutional Conference, Andrew Mellon Humanities Edge Conference, and the 2nd Annual Lorde-Morrison Graduate Student Conference

Fields: Border and Migration Studies, Global South Feminisms, 20 and 21st Century Literary studies, World Literatures, Caribbean Studies

Degrees: BA (English Literature and Languages), MA (Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature) Durham University, UK

Email: pxp691@miami.edu 

Dissertation: ‘This printing blood’: Reproductive Materialities in Early Modern English Literature

Fields: Early Modern Studies, Manuscript Writing, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Digital Humanities

Degree(s): BA (English and History), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; MA (Early Modern English Literature), King’s College London; MA (English), University of Miami

Claire Richie (email) is a fifth-year PhD candidate. Her dissertation research explores the language of reproduction across genres in early modern England through a lens of fluidity and liquidity. She has presented at conferences such as the Sixteenth Century Society Conference, BritGrad, and the Renaissance Society of America conference. She is a recipient of a Digital Humanities Graduate Fellowship and served as the 2022-23 Center for the Humanities UGrow Fellow. Claire has also held short-term fellowships at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library, the Ransom Center, and the Huntington Library. She is co-director of the Early Modern Care project, and her work appears in the Early Modern Digital Review. She is a contributor to the Pulter Project. 

Fields: Black Diaspora, Black Queer Studies, Cinema Studies, Caribbean Studies, Black Europe, Ethnography

Degrees: BA (African American Studies, French), Yale University; MA (English), University of Miami

Jordan Rogers (email) is a PhD Candidate in English. He is writing a dissertation on Black Queer Cinema, from a global perspective. During his time at UM, he has held a range of fellowships, including the University of Miami Fellowship and the Mellon Graduate Fellowship at the University of Miami Center for Global Black Studies. He is the recipient of the 2019 Brazilian Initiation Scholarship (BRASA), and two UM Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas/Tinker Grants (2019, 2023). He has also translated work from Italian and Portuguese to English, interned in film archives, produced documentary films, and curated museum exhibitions.

Fields: Nineteenth-century American literature and twentieth-century American literature

Degrees: BA (English), Iona College; MA (English), Iona College

Michael Sacks (email) is a sixth-year graduate student in the English Department’s PhD program.  Michael’s dissertation explores the portrayal of urban and rural areas in selected works of the following writers: Mary Wilkins Freeman, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and Sinclair Lewis.  Michael has previously served as the managing editor of the James Joyce Literary Supplement.

Dissertation: The Portrayal of Urban and Rural Areas in Selected Works of Mary Wilkins Freeman, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and Sinclair Lewis

Dissertation: “All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on”: Libertine Performance, the Diseased Body Politic, and the Rise of Empire from Rochester to Defoe

Fields: Restoration and 18th-century English Literature; early modern studies; comparative global history of colonialism and empire; gender, sexuality, and disability studies; plagues and pandemics; Caribbean studies; Florida history; Puritanism, witchcraft, and the occult; English Civil War and the Age of Revolutions 1650-1850; Romantics, special collections

Degree(s): B.A. magna cum laude (English, honors), B.A. magna cum laude (History) Rutgers University; M.A. (English) University of Miami

Daniel Scherwatzky  (email)  is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate and scholar of 17th & 18th-century English literature whose current research is focused on the works of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester and Daniel Defoe. His scholarly interests include libertinism, the intersections of sexuality and politics, global colonial history, the cultures of Florida and the Caribbean, disability studies, Romanticism, and the history of witchcraft and the occult. He also has professional experience in academic libraries, working with rare books and archival materials, including Richter Library’s Cuban Heritage Collection and Florida International University’s Miami Metropolitan Archive. He was a fellow of the JET (Japan Exchange Teaching) Program for two years in Hino, Tokyo, Japan. He holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Rutgers University in English Literature & History and an M.A. from the University of Miami in English Literature.

Dissertation committee: John Paul Russo (chair), Tassie Gwilliam, Catherine Judd

Fields: British early modern drama, science studies, performance studies, gender studies, Renaissance literature

Degree(s): B.A. (English, University of Mississippi); MA (English, University of Miami 2024)

Sydney Shamblin Anderson (email) is an English Ph.D. candidate with a Medieval and Early Modern Studies Concentration. Sydney’s dissertation examines the intersections of experimental science, anatomy, and performance studies in early modern revenge tragedies, charting how the materiality of live performance affords playwrights revolutionary means of anatomical “experimentation.” Her research investigates how Renaissance playwrights utilized stage properties as experimental technologies to challenge and reshape emerging anatomical and cultural conceptions of the female body. Sydney’s interdisciplinary approach to science studies, gender studies, and Renaissance literature is reflected in her pedagogy. As an instructor of record at the University of Miami, she has designed courses such as “Bad Women in Renaissance Literature” and “Ecocritical Shakespeare.”

In addition to her research, Sydney is deeply engaged in academic service. As the Founding Chair of the Shakespeare Association of America (SAA)’s Graduate Committee (est. 2024), Sydney leads initiatives to promote graduate student scholarship in one of the leading academic associations for Shakespeare studies. At the University of Miami, she currently serves as President of the English Graduate Organization, UGrow Fellow for the Center for the Humanities, Vice President of the Graduate Student Association, and Graduate Representative to the Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee. 

Fields: 19th century studies, radical print history, seriality studies, digital humanities, media and television studies, Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Degree(s): BA (English), Florida International University; MA (English Literature), University of Miami

Michael Soriano (email) is a fourth-year PhD candidate. His research focuses on serialized print production, distribution, and consumption among 19th-century US and Caribbean radicals in the labor movement, abolitionist movement, and socialist and anarchist political movements. Prior to his PhD, Michael worked as a substitute teacher, media studies instructor, and English teacher for Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Michael is an Andrew W. Mellow HSI Pathways to the Professoriate Fellow. Since the 2023 academic year, Michael has served as the UGrow Digital Humanities Fellow and was a DH Graduate Fellow on “Mapping Imaginary Miami” under the supervision of Professor Allison Schifani. As a UGrow Fellow, Michael works under the supervision of Dr. Kelly Baker Josephs on “Manchineel + Seagrapes,” a dramatic archive for unpublished and out-of-print plays by Caribbean playwrights. He is co-organizer of the Digital Humanities Research Institute (DHRI) and the Digital Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Group (DH IRG) at the University of Miami. In 2024, Michael was awarded a DH Graduate Fellowship for his work digitizing the Chicago-based anarchist periodical, The Alarm. He has presented at various conferences, including The Caribbean Digital and the International Television Commercial as Short Film Conference, and has written pieces in In Media Res. He is currently the Department Representative for UM’s English Graduate Organization.

Dissertation Committee: John Funchion (Chair), Allison Schifani, Tim Watson

Fields: Caribbean Studies, Ecocriticism, Contemporary Literature, Science and Literature, Digital Humanities

Degree(s): BA (English), University of Miami

Rebecca Vargas  (email) is a second-year PhD student with current research intrests in the intersection between humanities and STEM fields (Biology, Ecology) in interpreting human embodiment in the natural world, with a specific focus on Florida and the Caribbean. They also have an accompanying interest in digital communities and how the formation thereof foster differing ideas of embodiment connected to expanding perceptions of taboo and monstrosity.