Current Graduate Students
Ashley Canter
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
avcanter@umass.edu
Ashley Canter's Website
Ashley is a PhD candidate in Composition and Rhetoric. She earned an Advanced Feminist Studies Certificate in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department. She currently teaches Writing & Society. Her dissertation research explores the ways that Appalachian women's community literacies at one non-profit organization connect to global political economic rhetorics that have led to extractive economies in the region. When she isn’t on campus, Ashley enjoys hiking, finding new houseplants, and admiring how cute her dogs are.
Thomas DeLapp
MA/Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
tdelapp@umass.edu
Thomas DeLapp (he/him) is a first year MA/PhD in composition and rhetoric and teaches in the Writing Program. His research interests center around the relationship between writer and writing; using writing to work through the many tangled cultural and personal narratives that shape our lives, bodies, and identities. He grew up in Minneapolis, MN, and received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire.
Oscar Ivan Garcia Santana
MA/Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
oigarcia@umass.edu
Oscar Garcia is a current MA/PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition. His research interests lie in critical race theory, multimodal pedagogy, first year writing instruction, writing pedagogy, code-meshing, BIPOC rhetoric and Hip Hop pedagogy. His research is posited in instructing and viewing language as a non standardized constantly evolving mode of communication acquisition and believes that writing instruction is no different. When he isn’t on campus, you can find him in the gym or out and about.
Elena Kalodner-Martin
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
ekalodnermar@umass.edu
Elena Kalodner-Martin's Website
Elena is a current PhD candidate in Composition and Rhetoric with specializations in technical communication, the rhetoric of health and medicine, and feminist rhetoric. She currently teaches writing in the disciplines courses in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Professional Communication program at MIT.
Specializations: Technical communication, rhetoric of health and medicine, feminist rhetoric, digital rhetoric
Stacie Klinowski
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
sklinowski@umass.edu
Stacie is in her fourth year of the MA/PhD program in Composition and Rhetoric and is currently Assistant Director of the UMass Writing Center. She is also an editorial assistant for Peitho, the journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, and is completing the graduate certificate in public history at UMass. Her research focuses on histories of composition in the U.S., writing and language ideologies, and community literacy work. In her free time, Stacie likes to hang out with her cats, hike, and watch compellingly bad movies.
Jeremy Levine
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
jeremylevine@umass.edu
Jeremy Levine's Website
Jeremy Levine is a PhD student from Long Island, New York. His main research interests involve the intersection of education policy and literacy development in high schools and colleges. He is particularly interested in how writing assessments create definitions of writing for students and teachers. Outside of academics, he is a musician, below-average bicyclist, and amateur breakfast chef.
Specializations: Writing Development, Education Policy
Miranda Lutyens
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
mlutyens@umass.edu
Miranda is an MA/PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric. She teaches College Writing and is also a Graduate Assistant Director in the Writing Program, where she mentors first-year teaching associates. Prior to coming to UMass, Miranda spent fifteen years teaching secondary English Language Arts, first in the Boston Public Schools and then at the American School of Lima, Peru. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and has two Master's in Education. Her research and praxis interests include: leveraging the study of multilingualism for enacting social justice pedagogy; rhetorics of voice and the aural; and freewriting as reflective practice.
Mike Lyons
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
michaellyons@umass.edu
Mike is a Ph.D. student concentrating in Composition and Rhetoric. His research focuses on the relationship between rhetoric, sound, and ethics, and he is especially interested in the world of sports. Mike received his B.A. and M.A. from Boston College, where he taught First-Year Writing classes and worked as a Teaching Assistant in the Carroll School of Management. Mike's work has been published in America Magazine and he served as an Associate Editor for "The Best of Journals in Rhetoric and Composition 2022."
Robert Murray
MA/Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
rmurray@umass.edu
Nha Chi Nguyen
MA/Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
nhachinguyen@english.umass.edu
Nicole O'Connell
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
nmoconnell@umass.edu
Nicole (she/her) is a PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric. She teaches in the Professional Writing and Technical Communication Program and the First-Year Seminar Program. Nicole earned an MA in professional writing and communication. She is interested in intersections between technical communication and public history.
Jade Yeen Onn
MA/Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
jonn@umass.edu
Jaclyn Ordway
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
jordway@umass.edu
Jaclyn received her BA in English/Communications and BS in Education from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Currently, she is PhD candidate in Composition and Rhetoric, whose interests include writing instructor training, digital literacies, and writing centers. She is also a Teaching Associate in the English Department, the office manager of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, and a tutor in UMass's Writing Center.
Danielle Pappo
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
dpappo@umass.edu
Danielle is a current PhD candidate in Composition and Rhetoric, focused in community literacy studies. She is a Writing Fellow for the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, where she provides full-time writing support to both instructors and students in the major. Danielle is also a 2021-22 Herstory / CCW Fellow, in which she works alongside a cohort of scholars and activists to practice and develop empathy-based writing pedagogy. Danielle is also a runner, a writer of poetry and creative non-fiction, and a home-baker.
Rachel Smith
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
racasmith@umass.edu
Rachel Smith is a third-year MA/PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition. Her research interests are in development, but she is preliminarily interested in the relationship between identity and digital circulation, as well as how to center these conversations in the first-year writing classroom. She also has a background in secondary English education and loves teaching writing. In her free time, she enjoys going to concerts and hanging out with her cat.
Sarah Stetson
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
sstetson@umass.edu
Sarah is a PhD candidate who specializes in composition and literacy studies. Her dissertation is a mixed-methods study of basic writing teachers' self-identified socially just writing assessment practices. Sarah's research and teaching interests include histories of basic writing, social justice in literacy studies, writing assessment, and qualitative methods.
Othniel Williams
Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
oowilliams@umass.edu
Othniel Williams is a vibrant educator who has taught writing at the secondary and the tertiary levels both in the U.S. and in Jamaica. He earned a BA in journalism and an MA in English Language from the University of the West Indies before he pursed a second MA at St. Cloud State University in MN, majoring in TESL. Othniel's research interests include culturally relevant and linguistically diverse pedagogies and assessments in composition classes, student writing perceptions and experiences, and writing program administration.
Danyea West
MA/Ph.D. Composition and Rhetoric
dlwest@umass.edu
Danyea (she/her) is a first year MA/PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric. Her research interests include how race shapes and informs writers' relationships with writing, feminist theories, writing program administration, and writing center studies. She grew up in Massachusetts and received her B.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. When not on campus, you can find her hiking, baking, and spending time with her cat, George.
