Spotlight

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Spotlight

Spotlight

Achievements by CALS Grad Student Award Winners

Akash Belsare

Akash Belsare has accepted a tenure-track job beginning in Fall 2022 at University of Illinois—Springfield, where he will serve as Assistant Professor of English. Akash earned his PhD at Penn State in 2021 and he completed his dissertation--Humanimal Narratives: Genre and Animality in Contemporary Ethnic Literatures--under the direction of Tina Chen while being supported by a CALS Dissertation Support Award. Congratulations to Akash, and to Tina, for this outstanding success on the job market!

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Liana Glew

Liana Glew, former CALS Dissertation Fellow and CALS Graduate Research Assistant, has accepted the role of Prison Education Program Manager with the Penn State College of Education's Restorative Justice Initiative. The RJI eliminates barriers to educational access and civic engagement for those who are currently and formerly incarcerated; since its founding in 2015, the initiative has worked with and provided resources to over 200 incarcerated individuals. In her new role, Liana will work to recruit and train additional instructors as part of the RJI's Higher Education in Prison program. Congratulations, Liana, on your job-market success—an important reminder of the range of meaningful, impactful work one can do with an English doctorate!

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Evans Accepts Position at Howard University

Sabrina Evans, winner of the 2022 CALS Summer Graduate Fellowship, has accepted a faculty position at Howard University, where she will serve as an Assistant Professor of English specializing in African American Literature. Howard is home to the Moorland Spingarn Research Center, whose archives are central to Sabrina's research. Congratulations, Sabrina, on this outstanding job market success!

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Smith Accepts Position at Randolph-Macon College

Justin Smith, a past CALS Graduate Research Assistant and recipient of CALS travel funding, has accepted a position at Randolph-Macon College, where he will serve as an Assistant Professor of English and Black Studies. Congratulations, Justin, on this fantastic job market success!

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Achievements by Faculty and Grad Students

Aguilar Accepts Position at UT Arlington

Gabriel Lorenzo Aguilar has accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he will serve as an assistant professor in the Technical Writing and Professional Design program. The position will begin in Fall 2024 to enable him to complete his fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholars Program. Congratulations to Gabe (and his advisor, Stuart Selber) on this outstanding success on the job market!

Gabriel Aguilar

Rosas Accepts Position at Northern Arizona University

Ray Rosas has accepted a tenure-track position at Northern Arizona University, where he will serve as Assistant Professor in Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media Studies and direct the university writing program. He looks forward to the opportunity to research and develop Latinx perspectives in writing program administration at NAU, which recently became a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Congratulations, Ray, on this phenomenal job-market success!

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Evans Accepts Position at Howard University

Sabrina Evans, winner of the 2022 CALS Summer Graduate Fellowship, has accepted a faculty position at Howard University, where she will serve as an Assistant Professor of English specializing in African American Literature. Howard is home to the Moorland Spingarn Research Center, whose archives are central to Sabrina's research. Congratulations, Sabrina, on this outstanding job market success!

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Smith Accepts Position at Randolph-Macon College

Justin Smith, a past CALS Graduate Research Assistant and recipient of CALS travel funding, has accepted a position at Randolph-Macon College, where he will serve as an Assistant Professor of English and Black Studies. Congratulations, Justin, on this fantastic job market success!

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Nguyen and Aguilar Win Outstanding Graduate Research Awards

Robert Nguyen and Gabriel Lorenzo Aguilar have been awarded the Raymond E. and Roberta Lombra Outstanding Graduate Research Award from the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State. This award acknowledges "high-quality contributions" by graduate students in the humanities and social sciences whose work has been published in peer-reviewed journals or books. Rob was recognized for his article "Middle-out from Bottom-up: Engineering and Close Reading Code in HBO’s Silicon Valley," recently published in Configurations. Gabe was recognized for his article "World-Traveling to Redesign a Map for Migrant Women: Humanitarian Technical Communication in Praxis," recently published in Technical Communication. Congratulations, Rob and Gabe, on this great achievement!

Rob and Gabe

Gonzales Accepts Position at University of Richmond

Miriam Gonzales, a past CAL Graduate research assistant, has accepted the position of Associate Director of will (a nationally recognized gender and social justice program) and affiliate faculty in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) at the University of Richmond. In her administrative role, Miriam will mentor and advise student leaders and supervise will's internship program; in her faculty role, she will help expand WGSS course offerings to include queer studies and environmental humanities, among other areas. As a founding co-coordinator of Penn State's English Grad Futures initiative, Miriam has helped prepare graduate students for diverse career opportunities just like this one—congratulations, Miriam, on your own job market success!

Miriam Gonzales

Mackey Wins New Scholar Award

Yolanda Mackey has won the Dorothy Porter Wesley New Scholar Award from the Bibliographical Society of America. In addition to a stipend and travel funds, this award also comes with an invitation to publish in the society's quarterly journal, Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America.

Congratulations, Yolanda, on this wonderful recognition of you and your work!

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Martinez Awarded Dissertation Fellowship

Wendyliz Martinez has been awarded an American Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The fellowship, which provides significant financial support in the final year of dissertation-writing, recognizes woman scholars whose work is of the highest academic excellence and who are committed to serving women and girls in their personal or professional communities.

Congratulations, Wendyliz, on this major recognition of you and your work!

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Wong Co-Authors Black Poetry Syllabus

Carmin Wong has co-authored, with a collective of fellow scholars, educators, and artists, the Furious Flower Syllabus. This open-access syllabus, sponsored by James Madison University's Furious Flower Poetry Center, is designed for students at all levels and contains a series of lesson plans to introduce readers to the world of Black poetry. As she notes in an interview with Furious Flower, the purpose of the syllabus is "building a community—a network, a space—for Black poetry to continue to not only exist but to be celebrated."

Congratulations, Carmin, on the launch of this exciting and innovative project!

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Tuttle Accepts Position at Concordia University

Josh Tuttle has accepted a tenure-track position at Concordia University in Chicago. His research focuses on "spooky literature," and to that end he launched an undergraduate course at Penn State on "Weird Literature" in spring 2023. Congratulations, Josh, on this great job market success!

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Nguyen Accepts Position at Lycoming College

Rob Nguyen has accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of English at Lycoming College. He is currently a post-doctoral teaching fellow at Penn State, where he earned his PhD in English and Visual Studies in 2023. Congratulations, Rob, on this fantastic job market success!

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Murray Featured on C19 Podcast

Courtney Murray appeared as a guest on the most recent episode of C19 Podcast, produced by C19: The Society of Nineteenth Century Americanists. She currently serves as leader and editor of the G19 Collective, C19's graduate student collective.

In this episode of C19 Podcast, Murray previews the 2024 C19 conference with fellow C19 members, focusing particularly on the meaning and importance of this year's conference theme, "The End." "I want to hone in on ends being beginnings," says Murray, who sees parallels between her experience as "a graduate student coming to the end of my graduate career" and ongoing "conversations about the end of the humanities." The question remains, in Murray's words, "What needs to end so we can move forward and begin?"

Congratulations, Courtney, on this opportunity to represent G19 and the important contributions and concerns of emerging nineteenth-century Americanist scholars!

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