WRITING PROGRAM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director
- Aaron Colton Director of the First - Year Writing Associate Teaching Professor
- Director of First Year Writing, at
- Director of the First - Year Writing
- Professor
Aaron Colton is an Associate Teaching Professor and the Director of First-Year Writing in the Writing Program at Emory University. From 2020-2023, he was a Senior Lecturer in Writing Studies and the Assistant Director of the TWP Writing Studio at Duke University, and from 2018-2020 he was a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech, where he was also an Assistant Director of the Communication Center. His current book project, Writing Through Writer's Block, is under contract with the University of Iowa Press. In it, he argues that interpreting fictional narratives about creative blockage through the lens of writing studies yields substantial insights into how authors transform external constraints into literary material. He further argues that such transformations offer valuable pedagogical guidance to real writers and teachers of writing. His scholarship is forthcoming or has previously appeared in Pedagogy, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, Arizona Quarterly, and College Literature, among other journals. His recent public writing has appeared in ASAP/J, Public Books, and Inside Higher Education.
Job Titles:
- Ben Miller Coordinator of Technical Writing Associate Teaching Professor
- Coordinator of Technical Writing
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
Christian Gallichio is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Emory's Writing Program.He currently teaches First-Year Writing. Originally from Connecticut, Christian received his BA in English from Eastern Connecticut State University and his MA in English at the University of Massachusetts - Boston. After having taught in secondary education throughout the Boston area, he received his PhD in English Literature at the University of Georgia, where he taught First-Year Writing and Literature courses. His primary research is in transatlantic nineteenth century fiction and its literary adaptations. His dissertation focused on the afterlives of Puritan rhetoric in Victorian Christmas fiction and poetry, arguing that conversion was a key component to the birth of modern holiday celebration.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
Dan Abitz is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Emory's Writing Program. Before coming to Emory, he served as the Associate Director of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association for seven years, and he was fortunate enough to teach first-year writing at institutions such as Georgia State University, University of Central Arkansas, and Susquehanna University. His scholarly work can be found in Nineteenth Century Gender Studies, The Comparatist, Victorians, Henry James Review, Women's Studies, the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women Writers, as well as edited collections such as Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of Trump and Animated Mischief: Essays on Subversiveness in Cartoons Since 1987. He is the newly minted treasurer of the Victorians Institute.
Job Titles:
- Associate Teaching Professor
- Daniel Bosch Associate Teaching Professor
- First Member
California-born poet and translator Daniel Bosch is the first member of his family to complete a college degree. He took a B.A. in literature at New College of Florida, where he focused late 20th-Century American Poetry and wrote a thesis on the early poems of John Berryman. In graduate school at Rice University and Boston University, Daniel studied with scholar and translator Edward Snow, poet and translator Richard Howard, and poet and playwright Derek Walcott.
Daniel has taught expository writing, critical thinking, literature, and verse composition at Harvard University (where he was awarded the Henry Dunster Prize in Tutoring and served as Poetry Editor for Harvard Review), Tufts University, Boston University, and Merrimack College. For eight years he directed the Writing Studio at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, where his colleagues awarded him the E.E. Ford Prize for Faculty Excellence; in 2011, Daniel's work at the Writing Studio was celebrated with a Presidential Recognition Award from the U.S. Department of Education citing him as one of the top twenty arts educators in the country. In 2019 he was named winner of Emory's student-nominated Crystal Apple Award in Small Seminar Education. From 2013 until 2020, he was Senior Editor at Berfrois.com.
Daniel's poems riffing on Tom Hanks movies won the initial Boston Review poetry prize in 1998 and can be read here: https://www.bostonreview.net/poetry/daniel-bosch-first-annual-poetry-contest-winner-daniel-bosch
His review essay on the poetry of Frederic Seidel can be read here: http://www.berfrois.com/2013/01/golden-handcuffs-daniel-bosch/
His meditations on epitaphic verse can be read here: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/04/28/on-epitaphic-fictions-ben-franklin-w-b-yeats/
Job Titles:
- David Morgen Instructional Technologist Instructor
- Instructional Technologist
- Project Manager of Domain of One 's Own
David is the Project Manager of Domain of One's Own at Emory University and Coordinator of the Emory Writing Program. At Emory, he has taught courses in first-year composition and sophomore poetry class and used to help run the Writing Center. Before coming to Emory, he was a Brittain Fellow at Georgia Tech and also taught at the University of West Georgia and at Longwood University in Virginia. He did his graduate work in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University but left before finishing his dissertation (which was on child-raising and the frontier in turn-of-the-century America and ecocriticism).
David is the father of two wonderful daughters who, though he can't quite bring himself to believe it, are becoming teenagers. He's also a semi-professional photographer and an untalented but passionate painter. He's played rhythm and lead guitar in a few bands in recent years, though these days he mostly just regrets not being able to play more often. And he's the president and webmaster for his Unitarian Universalist congregation in Atlanta. He's been an actor in a community Shakespearean theater company (best roles: Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and Speed in Two Gentlemen of Verona).
In 2007, David took a photo and posted it on Flickr every day. In 2008, he tried to take a self-portrait every day but he only made it 228/366ths of the way through before throwing in the towel.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Teaching Professor
- Scientist, Writer
Donna McDermott is a scientist, writer, and teacher. In the Writing Program, she specializes in teaching science writing for public and professional audiences. Her PhD is in Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution.
Donna's scientific research background is in behavioral ecology. Most recently, she studied how bumble bees' foraging choices are influenced by both pesticides and the presence of their peers. Her scientific work has been published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Current Zoology, and Ethology. Her current research is in biology education. She is studying how instructors assess student ability to make connections across academic disciplines.
Donna has taught courses on science communication, animal behavior, interdisciplinary writing, and pedagogy. In addition to her work as an educator, she has worked as a journalist through the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service, and a program coordinator for Science ATL's community science outreach.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Teaching Professor
- Gregory Palermo Assistant Teaching Professor
Gregory Palermo (he/they) is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Emory University Writing Program. He specializes in the rhetorics of data, algorithms, and disciplinary formation. His teaching and research bridge the fields of writing, rhetoric, and digital humanities, focusing on data transformation and visualization as rhetorical practices.
Palermo brings research on citation analysis and metaphor into the classroom for students to work with data reflexively and transparently. Moreover, he teaches students to use data-driven methods to draw from and synthesize multiple academic traditions in their writing. His current project recuperates early methodology of co-citation analysis, a method for mapping the "landscape" of academic fields based on "networks" of published scholarship. This project offers an approach to co-citation for tactically linking distinct research areas with shared values and practices, as well as for supporting citational justice. He has additional interests in narrative approaches to inquiry, such as evocative autoethnography.
His work has appeared in the Journal of Writing Analytics and Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ). Most recently, he is collaborating on DHQ's Biblio project and co-edited an issue of The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP) with a forum on "Data and Computational Pedagogy" (2020). He serves on the JITP Editorial Collective, where he is currently Co-Editor of Reviews.
Job Titles:
- Director of the English Language Learning Program ( ELLP )
- Director of the English Language Learning Program ( ELLP ) Modern Languages
Jane O'Connor is the Director of the English Language Learning Program (ELLP) at Emory College of Arts and Sciences. In this role she administers the Emory English Assessment (EEA) for incoming international multilingual students, and advises them on the best communication courses for their specific needs. In addition to teaching courses designed to facilitate language skills development, Dr. O'Connor develops and teaches courses for prospective ELL teachers and tutors.
Jane has taught students of all ages and levels in the US, in her native country (the UK), and in Spain. As a teacher and teacher trainer, she has worked in private language schools, adult education centers, community colleges, public schools K-8, and universities.
This broad range of experience is reflected in her extensive credentials. She holds an EdD in Learning, Leadership & Organizational Development from the University of Georgia, an MEd in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the College of New Jersey (TCNJ), and a BA Honors degree in Sociology, English, and Education from Leicester University UK. Her teaching qualifications include a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), a Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA), a Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults, (DELTA), and GA Teaching Certificates of Eligibility for Elementary Education P-5 and ESOL Education P-12.
Jane is dedicated to the ESOL field and proud of her outstanding track record in instruction and teacher training. Her passion for bolstering the skills of English learners, and her intuitive sense of how best to accomplish it can be seen in her specifically learner-centric publications. These include the best-selling publications intended for that audience:
English the American Way: A Fun ESL Guide to Language and Culture in the U.S.
College the American Way: A Fun ESL Guide to English Language and Campus Culture in the U.S.
Celebrate the American Way: A Fun ESL Guide to English Language and Culture in the U.S.
Job Titles:
- Emerita Associate Teaching Professor
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of the Emory Writing Center
- Associate Director of the English Language Learning Program ( ELLP )
- Levin Arnsperger Associate Director of the English Language Learning Program ( ELLP ) Associate Director of the Emory Writing Center
Levin Arnsperger is the Associate Director of the Emory Writing Center (EWC) and the English Language Learning Program (ELLP). For the ELLP, Dr. Arnsperger teaches writing and communication classes for international multilingual students and helps to administer the Emory English Assessment (EEA). He has developed and run workshops and trainings for staff, faculty, and graduate instructors to help them more effectively communicate with and teach international students at Emory. For the EWC, he recruits, mentors, and trains tutors, and he leads the center's community engagement efforts, through partnerships with the Emory Autism Center and Freedom University, for example. From 2014 to 2019, he managed the ESL Tutoring Service, which then merged with the EWC. Prior to joining the ESL Program (now ELLP), he served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Kennesaw State University. He received his M.A. degree in American Studies, Political Science, and Modern History from the Free University of Berlin in his native Germany and his doctoral degree in English from Emory University.
Job Titles:
- Lex Hackney Senior Program Coordinator
- Senior Program Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Director of the Emory Writing Center
- Melissa Yang Director of the Emory Writing Center Associate Teaching Professor
- Writer
Melissa T. Yang is a multidisciplinary scholar and writer who teaches composition courses grounded in the environmental humanities. Her ​research explores how birds are embedded in everyday figurative language in ways materially tied to histories of human communication​. She is currently working on her first book.
Recent publications include musings on the etymology of "jizz" (as a birding term) in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2019) and explorations of Charles Dickens' pet raven's taxidermic hold on Edgar Allan Poe in FRAME: Journal of Literary Studies (2018).
Melissa holds a decade of experience in writing center work and has been employed as a writer, editor, administrator, and educator in diverse professional contexts, from preschool to art school. Melissa is passionate about collaboration and makes connections in her work across a wide range of interests. She can be found leading eclectic collaborative workshops and panels on topics from poultry to poetry to partner acrobatics at conferences around the world.
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
Nesar Uddin is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Writing Program.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
Rebekah Spera is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Emory's Writing Program. She graduated with her B.A. in Literature and Philosophy at Bennington College and earned her doctorate in Philosophy at Emory University. Her scholarly work focuses on social and political philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries, specializing in Marxism and critical theory in the Frankfurt school tradition.
Her dissertation, entitled "The Speculative Philosophy of History and Normativity: Habermas' Middle Period," tackles the question of how theorists interested in emancipatory projects should think about history and historical development. She is also the co-author of Professional Philosophy and Its Myths (forthcoming in winter 2024 from Lexington Books), which interrogates the gap between what philosophers believe about their own activity and the material and institutional realities of higher education.
During her time at Emory, Dr. Spera has served as graduate fellow and writing tutor at the Emory Writing Center as well as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Philosophy. She has taught dozens of courses ranging from upper-level philosophy classes to first year writing.
Job Titles:
- Professional Tutor and Developmental Editor
- Robert Birdwell Tutor & Developmental Editor
- Tutor & Developmental Editor
Robert Birdwell is a professional tutor and developmental editor at the Emory Writing Center. He works with undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, and faculty at every stage of their writing and publishing process. Robert does developmental editing and copyediting with university presses as well as individual authors from across the disciplines. In addition, he teaches courses on writing for publication, social sciences writing, business writing, and first-year writing. He received his Ph.D. in English from Penn State University in 2016.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Sarah Salter Director of the Writing Program Teaching Professor
Sarah H. Salter completed her PhD in English at Penn State University in 2014. Prior to joining the faculty at Emory, Sarah was an Associate Professor of English and serving as Interim Chair of the Dept of Interdisciplinary Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, where she co-founded the campus's first Black Studies Program. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at Penn State, Sarah was Coordinator and Full-Time Consultant in the Penn State Graduate Writing Center.
Sarah's research focuses on histories of editorship, cultural production, and collaboration in multiethnic, multilingual US periodicals. She regularly teaches courses introducing students to histories of mass media, community publication, and multimodal forms of professional writing, often through hands-on work in print culture archives. Her recent articles have been published in journals including American Literature, Criticism, Journal of Feminist Scholarship, and MELUS: Multiethnic Literature of the United States. She serves as the Editor of American Periodicals, the oldest journal of periodical studies scholarship in the US.
Job Titles:
- Director of Writing across Emory
- Vani Kannan Director of Writing across Emory Associate Teaching Professor
Vani Kannan completed her PhD in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric with a certificate in Women's and Gender Studies at Syracuse University (2018). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Kannan served as Assistant Professor of English and director of Writing across the Curriculum at Lehman College, CUNY. Dr. Kannan's research focuses on Asian/American rhetorics, community literacies, social-justice-oriented writing pedagogies, and multimodal/multigenre composition. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Women's Studies Quarterly, Enculturation, and Writers: Craft & Context. She received an ACLS Project Development Grant during the 2022-23 school year and served as scholar-in-residence at the Georgia State University Humanities Research Center.