Presenters

Linda K. Allison
Rice University
Linda Allison is a 2016 graduate of Rice University's Graduate Liberal Studies program.  During her studies at Rice, Linda was introduced to the art of creative nonfiction and fell in love with it.  Hiker, photographer, and terrible golfer who loves to play, Linda lives in The Woodlands, Texas. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in McQueen's Quinterly, Dark Winter Lit, Star 82 Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Utah's Best 2023 anthology, among others.

Roberto Argentina
Rice University
Roberto Argentina is a U.S. History teacher in a public school in Houston, TX, and is working
on the capstone for his MLS program at Rice University.

Mike Breger
Stanford University
Michael holds a master's in liberal arts from Stanford University and a bachelor's in history and astronomy from the University of Virginia. A history buff and avid follower of international current events, Michael loves learning about different cultures, languages, and literatures. When he is not at work, Michael enjoys reading, music, and the outdoors.

Patricia L. Carlton, PhD
University of Central Florida
Dr. Carlton is a Graduate Faculty Scholar at the University of Central Florida and serves as an adjunct professor and occasional advisor for graduate students completing their master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. Her PhD is in "Texts and Technology" and her research interests include cultural memory as evidenced in memorials and archives of traumatic events, and fostering literacy in visual and digital media. Dr. Carlton teaches
Ways of Knowing as a path to enlightenment.

Mary Margaret Carrillo
Southern Methodist University
Mary Margaret Carrillo’s experience in communication, engagement, and community relations with diverse populations and creating successful community relationships, programming, and events for K-12, higher education, non-profit, and military communities, and commitment to communication, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and the impact of underrepresented communities in an educational setting aligns with her multiple degrees in communication. Mary Margaret’s doctoral dissertation, Cultural Educational Narratives: An Exploration of Latina Stories, will be completed in December at SMU.

Joshua Chambers
Johns Hopkins University
Joshua Chambers is an active duty Marine infantry and Force Reconnaissance officer with several deployments to Afghanistan and throughout the Indo-Pacific. He attended Saint Louis University as an undergraduate and the US Army's School of Advanced Military Studies for postgraduate studies. He is also completing postgraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Ying (Sophie) Chen
Southern Methodist University
Ying (Sophie) Chen is an educator, scholar, and artist, specializing in community-oriented public activities. With a doctorate in Liberal Studies, a Master of Fine Arts, and a Master's in visual communication, she brings a diverse background to her teaching and research. With over a decade of experience teaching at the undergraduate level, she is dedicated to fostering creative and critical thinking through the integration of teaching, research, and artistic practice.

Stephanie Chretien
Rice University
Stephanie's last class in the Rice GLS program was Foresight in Social Justice which was a fascinating look at the fact that no one will come and save us.  We must design and think our way out of the societal problems at hand.  She says that since we won't be around in 2050, she enjoyed thinking of ways to solve the problems plaguing society.  She became a futurist frightened only by the fact that she'll be long gone.

James Martin Costánzá, Jr.
Arizona State University
Creating scholarly environments wherein interdisciplinary data synergism flourishes is the prominent focus of James Martin Costánzá Jr.'s research methodology. Mr. Costánzá utilizes a master's degree with distinction in liberal arts (2023) from Arizona State University.  With a stance of respect and intrigue for interdisciplinary studies, the future holds a vast harvest of applicable theory and definition to base a career in working hand in hand with hungry students in all facets of development.

Carla Marian Cuevas
San Diego State University
Carla Marian Cuevas (they/she) holds a B. A. in Philosophy and a B. M. in Music Performance and is pursuing a M. A. in Liberal Arts and Sciences. As an artist, their interests are in experimental music and multimedia interdisciplinary arts. As a philosopher, her interests lie in existentialism, aesthetics, and continental philosophy.

J. Kelly Davis
Duke University
J. Kelly Davis is a student in the Graduate Liberal Studies program at Duke University where he focuses on how storytelling and narrative shapes our understanding of the world. He is also a Research Program Leader in Duke's Department of Population Health Sciences where he worked on a range of projects focused on health services, implementation science, and medical decision-making. Mr. Davis received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from Guilford College.

Anne Doventry
Rice University
Anne Doventry is an artist, author, apiarist, and anglophile. She has studied poetry with Ellen Bass and Irish folklore with Kate Chadbourne; she holds a M.Ed. from Harvard and is currently a student in the Master of Liberal Studies program at Rice University. Born and bred deep in the heart of Texas, Ms. Doventry currently spends her time traipsing through New England, but mostly lives in a world of her own making.

Brian Eckert
Johns Hopkins University
Brian Eckert is an MFA candidate at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where he currently lives. He enjoys the outdoors, which are now in close proximity, and often explores philosophical and ecological themes in his poetry. Brian plans to complete a PhD program and pursue a career in academia after earning his MFA. His poetry has appeared in Confluence, THINK Magazine, Sandstorm, Beatific Magazine, Rainbow Poems, & others.  

Kennii Ekundayo
Duke University
Kehinde "Kennii" Ekundayo is an independent art curator based in Lagos, Nigeria and San Diego, USA. Her specializations are in modern and contemporary African art, and contemporary world art.  Ekundayo has a Master of Arts (in view) in Liberal Arts and Sciences from the San Diego State University where she also currently functions as an Art History Teaching Assistant, as well as Editorial and Marketing Associate for the university press.

Hana S. Elysia
San Diego State University
Hana S. Elysia is a graduate of San Diego State University. Her short fiction has appeared in journals such as pacificREVIEW, The Horror Tree, and on Fifty Word Stories. She aspires to write a fantastical series someday that she can pair alongside her artwork and create an immersive space where readers can find a second home.

Ivan Fernandez
San Diego State University
Ivan Fernandez also goes by the nom de plume Afroxander. He is an academic, a journalist, an amateur photographer and a lover of the beautiful game.

Mohammed Forero Bucheli
Rollins College
Mohammed Forero Bucheli is an international graduate student from Peru, currently pursuing a Master of Liberal Studies at Rollins College, in Winter Park, Florida. Previous to his studies at Rollins, he obtained a Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad de Lima (Peru) and a Specialization in Communicational Design at Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). 

Kim Gudmundson
Stanford University
Kim Gudmundson graduated from the Stanford MLA program in 2020, and now enjoys retirement in Colorado. She previously conducted research on civil rights, healthcare and education at think-tanks, and later worked in human resources, communications and management development at technology companies in the Silicon Valley. Kim feels very fortunate to have participated in Stanford's MLA program.

Austin Caldwell Haigler
North Carolina State University
Austin C. Haigler is a second-year PhD student in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (CRDM) Program at North Carolina State University. A lifelong member of the NC State Wolfpack, Austin completed his Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) under the tutelage of Michael D. Garval in 2017, and earned his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 2012. He is a proud North Carolinian who loves hiking, cooking, eating, and Wolfpack wrestling. 

Gina Haney
Stanford University
Gina Haney specializes in the intersection of community engagement, economic development, and cultural heritage. Her experience spans 20+ years across Africa, Asia, North and South America. She has written extensively about the architecture of enslaved spaces in North America and strategically shaped global initiatives enhancing connections between communities and the cultural assets that are found within and around them.

Michael Wyatt Harper
Mount San Antonio College
Michael Wyatt Harper teaches English and American Studies at Mount San Antonio College. In particular, his teaching and research squarely target intriguing and diverse facets of American cultural identity.

Kelly A. Harrison
Stanford University
Kelly A. Harrison (she/her) studies in Stanford's MLA program, focusing on the history of science. She has a BA in English, a BS in Aviation, and an MFA in creative writing. She teaches technical communication, writes book reviews, and edits West Trade Review. She has been a technical writer and an aircraft mechanic. Her works appear in academic and literary journals and anthologies. 

Cherie Hoepfl
Rice University
Cherie Hoepfl, LMSW pursued her therapeutic credentials because of the struggles her son, who suffers from OCD, persevered through and the overwhelmed helping hands that supported him. She compiled creative non-fiction essays detailing trials and successes of parenting a child with OCD as her capstone project at Rice University (2021).  Cherie graduated from the University of Houston with a Master of Social Work and trained at Baylor College of Medicine Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Program (2019). 

RL Holmes
Southern Methodist University
Ryan holds a BFA in Computer Art from Savannah College of Art and Design, a MA in Media and Communication from Dallas Seminary, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Doctor of Liberal Studies program at Southern Methodist University. His dissertation focuses on the emerging field of epistemic ignorance, identifying the different expressions that ignorance takes, how they are produced and sustained, and what role they play in cultivating knowledge and cultural narratives.

Stephanie Jares
North Carolina State University
Stephanie Jares is the Director of Academic Advising for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at NC State in Raleigh, North Carolina and a MALS Alumni (2018) and a MEd from NC State (2021). She is the recipient of the NC State New Academic Advisor Award and the NACADA Outstanding New Advisor Award. She is from California, is married and has a daughter in college at ECU. 

Aneesh Kanthan
Johns Hopkins University
Aneesh is in the final semester of his MLA journey at Johns Hopkins.  After completing his MLA in December of 2023, he hopes to continue this endeavor by pursuing a PhD, where modern relevance of Greek and Renaissance Classics is his area of interest.  Beyond the MLA, Aneesh serves as President of his local Board of Education.  And in his free time, he also daylights as a Software Engineer to pay the bills.  

Anahad Kaur
Duke University
Anahad is a graduate from Duke University and currently working towards helping brands build meaningful connections through marketing, brand strategy and psychology. 

Nishi Khodaria
San Diego State University
Nishi is a second-year MA student in the English and Comparative Literature program at SDSU, She identifies as a decolonial, intersectional Feminist, and her area of research is centered around representations of gender in Feminist works of fiction. Consequently, through the medium of her research, she seeks to centralize the women's narratives of the female bodily experience.

David Griffin Knight
University of Oklahoma
David Knight is retired from the Hertz Corporation, where he was employed as a Systems Trainer.  He currently resides in Tulsa with his partner, Rosemary, with whom he shares interests related to gardening and outdoor cooking.  His hobbies include three-mile walks in his neighborhood, and reading a wide-range of non-fiction, with a concentration in mid-20th century military history.  Most interesting, "Stalingrad", by Antony Beevor, and "The Best and the Brightest," by David Halberstam.

Lue Kraltchev
Southern Methodist University
Lue Kraltchev, MLS, BA, is a culture strategist, storyteller, polyglot, writer, and creative. She founded and leads Gluemanity, a culture consulting firm. She has a BA in French and MLS in Organizational Dynamics and Humanities. In Fall 2022, she began her Doctor of Liberal Studies at SMU in Dallas.  Her interdisciplinary research is focused on the human experience of culture and creativity within organizations.
You can learn more about Lue at www.gluemanity.com 

Robert Lang II
San Diego State University
Robert Lang is a Californian native who came up in psychology and took his passion for mental health advocacy to the page to give a voice to the mentally ill who suffer in complete silence. 

Patsy Gee Liao
Rice University
Patsy Liao completed her Master of Liberal Studies at Rice University in 2017. Since then, she has retired from accounting and moved to San Marcos, Texas to be near family. Here she volunteers with several organizations, including hosting a few classical music programs for the community radio station.

Xiaotian Vera Liu
Dartmouth College
Xiaotian (Vera) Liu is currently a MA student at Dartmouth College. After gaining a BA degree in International History from the London School of Economics and Political Science, she attended the MALS program at the Dartmouth College for the Medical Humanity track. Her areas of interest include Cultural Studies, East Asian history, and Medical Humanity. She is currently focusing on exploring the battles of schools of medicine in Republican China.

Thor Madsen
Reed College
Thor is a graduate student at Reed College and a creative strategist with ThinkResults LLC. His line of academic inquiry is the impact of performance during the interregnum between one society and the next. Thor advises and speaks on change and social innovation.  Before Reed and ThinkResults, he was at Gartner, Inc., PwC, and instructed at Columbia University. Thor has performed on stage in Chicago and Portland and received his B.A. at DePaul University.

Patricia Delnore Magee
University of Delaware
Patricia's life began in Nagasaki, Japan, where she was born into an Army family.  After a childhood spent moving every few years, Patricia settled in Amherst and earned two English degrees at the University of Massachusetts.  She taught English at the University of Delaware for 33 years, and after retirement, she enrolled in UD's Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, where she is currently enjoying life as a returning graduate student.

Andrea Marion
Dartmouth College
Andrea is from the Dartmouth College Master of Arts and Liberal Studies Program ' 23, writing concentration. She has numerous awards/publications including the AGLSP Washington D.C. Conference Presentation Award '19 for research on "Mindfulness and Human Exceptionalism".  She has practiced meditation for 35 years with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Swami Durgananda, and Shinzen Young. She uses mindfulness daily, throughout her 20-year career in business management followed by the past 15 years as a yoga/mindfulness teacher and studio owner.

Dianne Violeta Mausfeld
University of Bern
Dianne Violeta Mausfeld received her PhD in History at the University of Bern in 2022. Violeta's doctoral dissertation explores the history of Chicano Hip-Hop in Los Angeles during the 1980s and '90s. She has published first research findings in Popular Music History (2019), on the audio-visual platform Norient (2020), and in the series Lied und Populäre Kultur/ Song and Popular Culture (2021) by the Zentrum für Populäre Kultur und Musik at the University of Freiburg.

Cally Mervine Kiser
Cally is an eternal world traveler and a modern Renaissance woman. She is inspired by at art, architecture, literature, and great philosophical thinkers. She is a teacher and doctoral candidate.

David Carter Morreale
Loyola University, Baltimore
David Morreale, a high school AP Language/Composition and Film Studies teacher, received his Masters in Liberal Studies from Loyola University. His research centers on American heroism, race, and the search for meaning through studies of popular music, songwriting, graphic novels, and film. David gave the Commencement Speech at Towson University's School of Secondary Education Graduation in 2013 and is a Riverside High School student's choice "Triple I" Award winner.

Paula Celeste Neeley
Metropolitan State University
A queer, Black, cisgender female, Paula Celeste Neeley is a graduate student at Metropolitan State University, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Recently, she was commissioned to create a BIPOC workshop, Contemplation & Action, where she leveraged post-traumatic wisdom in a peer-mentor model. She holds a BA from Indiana University and certificates in: Associate Prevention Services (substance abuse), process management (University of Minnesota), and project management (St. Thomas University). Paula has worked in Brazil, Switzerland, and Finland.

Cynthia McMillian Newberry
Stanford University
Cynthia McMillian Newberry is a writer, editor, and digital media strategist from San Jose, California. She is a fourth-year student in the Stanford University Master of Liberal Arts program. Her academic interests include literature, writing, and public policy, and her personal interests include photography, music, and creative writing. 

Rose Padilla
San Diego State University
Rose Padilla is a graduate student in the English M.A. program at San Diego State University. Her research interests include migrant literature, graphic novels, and video games that spark identity crises. Occasionally, she teaches.

Christopher Pastore
University of Pennsylvania
Christopher Pastore is a Director of Graduate Liberal Arts programs and a Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. from Penn in 2003 and is contemplating revisiting his work on Sixteenth Century Italian villa culture. His other projects include a re-characterization of Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina as republican propaganda, a study of early modern personifications of America and the importance of gender, and research into the relationship between art and optical science.

Tricia Patterson
Southern Methodist University
Tricia is in private practice as a Licensed Professional Counselor at True Inspiration Counseling Services, and she is currently a Doctor of Liberal Studies student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Her personal motto:  I am at my best when I am helping others be their best. 

Chase Pikarsky
Duke University
Chase was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Currently, he is a Graduate Liberal Studies student at Duke studying philosophy. Chase hopes to further his education after Duke to the doctorate level. He enjoys reading Charles Taylor and Arthur Schopenhauer. 

Carson Poole
San Diego State University
Carson is (as of Fall 2023) in her final semester of the MALAS program. Her research interests include the intersections between the arts, technology, and political history. She is also a painter, writer, and all-around creative person. 

Travis Poppleton
Harvard Extension School
Travis has been immersed in, writing about, and discussing storytelling for over a decade.
With an emphasis on classic film and foundational world-building, Travis has contributed to publications around the country concerning the evolution of visual media. Proudly ASD, he is currently completing a Master of Liberal Arts at the Harvard Extension School.  

Rachel Privett
University of Memphis
Rachel Privett is a second-year Doctorate of Liberal Studies student at the University of Memphis. Her areas of study are History, Qualitative Research, Education, and Human Development. She has worked in education for over 7 years and is an active member of her community, in Nashville, TN. She values radical ideas and believes in the power of story-telling. 

Candace Reese
Southern Methodist University
Dr. Candace Reese recently graduated from the DLS program at SMU. Her research explores storytelling as an act of power, transformation, and legacy building in midlife. Her dissertation, entitled Creative Power: Womanist Storytelling and Soul Sharing in the Work of Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, and the Twenty-First Century Woman explores narrative creative expression as a method for positive psychological growth in the generative years. She is currently writing a book on Juneteenth pilgrimages. 

Elizabeth Rose
Southern Methodist University
Elizabeth Rose is a doctoral candidate in the SMU Graduate Liberal Studies program. Before beginning graduate school, she was a full-time homemaker and occasional writer. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. 

Shashwat Vidhu Sher
Stanford University
Shashwat Vidhu is a perpetual academic with a diverse background in both technology and the humanities. His educational journey has led him through the realms of software engineering, and he is currently pursuing his second master's at Stanford University. This pursuit is fueled by his deep passion for philosophy and the social sciences, areas that have always captivated him. Throughout his academic career, he's engaged in a wide range of research endeavors, exploring topics that span from the intricacies of retirement security to the intersection of artificial intelligence and society. This dual fascination with both the technical and humanistic aspects of our world drives his academic pursuits and shapes his vision for the future.

Julia Shiller
Georgetown University
Julia Shiller is a first-generation immigrant, born and raised in Ukraine. After immigrating to the U.S., Julia started a small consultancy focused on project management, business development, and marketing. In 2015, inspired by its liberal arts curriculum and striving to improve her English language skills, she attended St. John's College and earned a second Master's degree in the Liberal Arts. Fascinated by liberal arts, she currently pursues a doctorate degree in liberal studies at Georgetown University.

Jasmine Shirey
Dartmouth College
Jasmine Shirey received their BA in Literature and Neuroscience from Claremont McKenna College in 2018. After living in Zimbabwe for three years, Jasmine joined the MA in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth with a 'Cultural Studies' concentration. Their research lies at the crossroads between semiotic theory, collective memory, and 'developmentalism' as it relates to U.S. Imperialism. 

Cheryl A. Solis
Stanford University
Cheryl Solis is a graduate of the Stanford MLA program, where she focused on interdisciplinary studies in paleography and the works of James Joyce. She graduated from Trinity University with a major in English Literature and a minor in Computer Science. She has been a technical writer, manager, and writing consultant in Silicon Valley for many years. Her interests include the material culture of the book, modernist fiction, and science fiction.

Karyn C. Thomas
North Carolina State University
Karyn Chalmers Thomas, a native of Raleigh, North Carolina was educated in Raleigh's Public School System. She received both a BA in Political Science in 1979 and a Master of Art in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Communications and Social Change in 2022 from North Carolina State University.  Currently, Mrs. Thomas resides in Morrisville, North Carolina with her husband Dr. Lester Thomas, who is a retired educator. 

Martha Williams
Johns Hopkins University
Martha is a part-time student in the Hopkins MLA program and lives in Ketchum, Idaho. She holds an undergraduate degree in English from Vanderbilt University and is currently the director of programs and education at The Community Library, a non-profit cultural institution, where she oversees adult enrichment and lifelong learning.

AD Wilson
Stanford University
Alice Devine Wilson lectures at the University of California, Berkeley. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from UC Berkeley and a Master of Liberal Arts from Stanford University. An expert in land development, Wilson has authored many articles pertaining to sustainable design and building. Her analysis of photographer Carleton Watkins' work combines her land use expertise with her love of the visual arts. 

Lee Woodward
Johns Hopkins University
Lee Woodward is the city secretary/PIO for the City of La Porte, Texas, and an instructor on election law, parliamentary procedure, and records management. She is a Professional Registered Parliamentarian (NAP), Certified Parliamentarian (AIP), Texas Registered Municipal Clerk, Texas Certified Public Manager, IIMC Master Municipal Clerk, and ICRM Certified Records Manager and national board member of the League of Women in Government. Woodward is a graduate of Texas A&M University and Johns Hopkins University. #MalibuBarbieGeneration

Lynette Yetter
Reed College
Lynette Yetter is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet, 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation finalist, and a panpipe-playing Buddhist lesbian artist who shares her time between La Paz, Bolivia and Portland, Oregon. Her Reed College master's thesis led to her bilingual Spanish/English book Adela Zamudio: Selected Poetry & Prose (Fuente Fountain Books, 2022). Learn more about Lynette Yetter's music, movies, books, and art to touch your soul and make you think at www.LynetteYetter.com.

Yunmeng Zhang
Indiana University South Bend
April Zhang got her BA in Teaching Chinese as A Foreign Language in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Sichuan Normal University. She has four years of study in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at East China Normal University. She graduated from the Master of Liberal Studies program this May at Indiana University South Bend, and is currently working on finishing her thesis project on Asian American education and education equality in the US.