Alumni

Graduate Alumni Dissertations & Books

Graduate Alumni Updates

Submit your alumni news at Drop Us a Line, and check out the English Department Alumni e-Newsletter.

2006 Graduates

Amy Kaufman (PhD) accepted a position at Wesleyan College in Macon, GA, beginning Fall 2007. _{Updated 6/07}

Summer McLin (MAW) was accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Maryland, College Park, starting Fall 2007. _{Updated 10/07}

Michelle Teti (MA) accepted an offer for a Doctoral Assistantship while pursuing a PhD in Medieval Literature at Western Michigan University, starting Fall 2007. _{Updated 6/07}

2005 Graduates

Jennifer Jefferson (MA) was promoted from Writing Center Coordinator to Writing Center Director at Endicott College, Fall 2007. _{Updated 10/07}

Donna Decker Reck (PhD) is an Associate Professor of English, the Director of the Women in Leadership Certificate Program, and the Honors Director for the College at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire. _{Updated 4/07}

2004 Graduates

Mary Annas (PhD) teaches at Northeastern University and taught a Spring 2008 seminar at Boston University Medical School in Medicine and Literature. Mary has been licensed as an EMT-Basic in Massachusetts since August 2006. _{Updated 11/07}

Mark Bates (PhD) is an assistant professor at Quinsigamond Community College in Worchester, Massachusetts. _{Updated 10/07}

Ken Garriques (MA) was accepted, with support, into the PhD program at Drew University in 2004. _{Updated 4/04}

Karen Gulbrandsen (MTPW) is enrolled in Iowa State University's PhD program in Rhetoric and Professional Communication. _{Updated 10/07}

Lisa Perdigao (PhD) has a tenure-track position at the Florida Institute of Technology and has a number of publication projects in the works or forthcoming. Her essay "Re-membering Beloved" will appear in a collection of essays forthcoming from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), an essay on teaching William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying will be included in the MLA Approaches to Teaching series volume on Faulkner; and she has articles forthcoming in a collection on "Politics in Children's and Adolescent Literature" and in a collection titled 'Catch if you can your country's moment': Recovery and Regeneration in the Poetry of Adrienne Rich." Lisa has also won a teaching award for the second consecutive year. _{Updated 5/06}

Leane Perius (MA) is a full-time Instructor of Composition at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. _{Updated 10/07}

2003 Graduates

Pavel Cenkl (PhD) has recently been appointed Academic Dean at Sterling College in Craftsbury, Vermont, where he has been a faculty member in Humanities and Northern Studies since 2006. His first book, This Vast Book of Nature: Writing the Landscape of New Hampshire's White Mountains, 1785-1911, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2006. He is currently editing a collection of essays titled Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest, which is under contract with Iowa and should be published in 2008. _{Updated 4/07}

James Gorham (MA) is currently in the PhD program at the University of Rhode Island. _{Updated 10/07}

Brett Ingram (MA) is currently enrolled in the University of Massachusetts-Amherst's PhD program in Communication, with a concentration in Public Culture, Performance Studies, and Rhetoric. _{Updated 5/06}

2002 Graduates

Kara Scerra Yee (MA) received the Adjunct Faculty Teaching Excellence Award from Eastern Nazarene College on November 7, 2003. _{Updated 4/04}

2000 Graduates

Kara Andersen (MA) with a certificate in cinema studies from Northeastern, is a doctoral student and teaching fellow in the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh. _{Updated 4/04}

1999 Graduates

Erin V. Obermueller (MA) earned her Ph.D. from Saint Louis University (SLU) in 2004. The first chapter of her book project appears in Women's Writing (Spring 2004). Other publications include articles on Meridel LeSueur in Legacy (2005), and an article on post-colonialism in the work of Irish poet Eavan Boland. Erin is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Concordia College in Bronxville, NY. _{Updated 10/07}

Daisy Pignetti (MA ; Ph.D. expected in 2008, U of South Florida) has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, beginning August 2008. _{Updated 3/08}

Douglas Reichert Powell (PhD) has a tenure-track position at Columbia College, Chicago. This year he is celebrating the release of the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, for which he was an editor of the "Media" section, as well as the acceptance of his book manuscript, Critical Regionalism by University of North Carolina Press. _{Updated 5/06}

Mark Walsh (MA) is a member of the English Department at Massasoit Community College. His teaching focuses on Irish-American literature, science fiction, philosophy and online course development. He has developed two online courses and is active in mentoring faculty interested in teaching online. In June 2007, Walsh was awarded a Course of Distinction (COD) Award from Mass Colleges Online for his English Composition II course. _{Updated 12/07}

1998 Graduates

Erin (Corthell) Brenner (MA) is Copy Chief and Associate Editor for ClickZ, the largest resource of interactive marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion, research, and reference in the world, online or off-. Erin has been with ClickZ for seven years, starting as a copy editor and growing with the site, as Web publishing has taken off. _{Updated 11/07}

Jennifer C. Cook (MA, PhD Brandeis University) has been appointed to a tenure-track position at Bentley College in Waltham. Her book, Machine And Metaphor: The Ethics of Language in American Realism, was published by Routledge in 2006. She also has an essay appearing in The Best Women's Travel Writing 2007. _{Updated 4/07}

Aaron Kuntz (MA) received his Doctorate in Education from UMass Amherst and is now in a tenure track position at the University of Alabama as Assistant Professor of Qualitative Research Methodology._{Updated 11/07}

Karen Paley (PhD), is an Assistant Professor of English at Rhode Island College. Southern Illinois University Press published her book I-Writing: The Politics and Practice of Teaching First-Person Writing, in 2001. Her book manuscript, Caring for the Whole Student: A Look at Some Writing Assignments in the Disciplines, is now under review with Robert Brooke at Studies of Writing and Rhetoric. _{Updated 9/06}

1997 Graduates

Jennifer Rabold (MA) has been accepted into Boston University's School of Education as a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Teaching. _{Updated 4/07}

Tony Trigilio (PhD), is tenured at Columbia College, Chicago, where he directs the Graduate and Undergraduate Programs in Creative Writing - Poetry. His newest book came out in March 2008: an anthology of immigration literature (co-edited with Tim Prchal, who earned his M.A. in English at Northeastern in 1990): Visions and Divisions: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930 (Rutgers University Press). Tony also presented a paper at the 2007 Modern Language Association convention, "Allen Ginsberg's 1966 United States Senate Testimony: Language, Confession, and the Limit of Romanticism." His poems were published in various journals, including Cream City Review, MiPoesias, and Pebble Lake Review. In January 2008, Tony was interviewed by novelist Greg Herriges for a documentary film on T.C. Boyle's short story "Chicxulub," and in March 2008, he was interviewed by Ram Devineni (publisher of Rattapallax) for a documentary film on Allen Ginsberg's early-1960s travels in India._{Updated 4/08}

1996 Graduates

Karen Cajka (MA), who earned a PhD from the University of Connecticut in 2003, has been an Assistant Professor of English and Women's Studies at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN, since 2004. _{Updated 5/06}

Lolly Ockerstrom (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of English at Park University in Missouri. _{Updated 10/07}

1995 Graduates

Pegeen Reichert Powell (MA) has a B.A. in English and Spanish from the University of St. Thomas, an M.A. in English from Northeastern University, and a Ph.D. in English from Miami University (Oxford, OH). Her research interests include composition studies and pedagogy, critical discourse analysis, and more recently, feminist motherhood studies. She has published articles in College Composition and Communication and in edited collections, has presented at numerous conferences, and was named the "Maverick Mom of the Year" by Working Mother magazine for her activism surrounding parenting issues at Duke University. _{Updated 4/06}

1994 Graduates

Alexandra Polychronidou (MA) has been working for the Greek state, as a teacher of English, for 12 years now. She is an examiner for the Foreign Languages State Certificate in Greece, and has recently co-authored two books with practice tests for the Michigan Proficiency Exams. _{Updated 11/07}

1993 Graduates

Philip Cavalier (MA) earned his PhD at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He went on to become Associate Professor and Assistant Dean at Catawba College. In 2005-2006, he was a Fulbright Scholar at Kiev International University. _{Updated 5/06}

1992 Graduates

Patricia Fox (MAW) is director of the Coastal Georgia Writing Project. She also directs the National Writing Project Teacher Exchange program. _{Updated 10/07}

Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg (MA) earned her doctorate from Miami University of Ohio and has taught at a variety of campuses including Northeastern, Stonehill College, and Fisher College. She is currently an associate professor of English at Babson College in Wellesley, MA, where she was voted Professor of the Year, 2007. Her book, Beyond Terror: Gender, Narrative, Human Rights was released this year from Rutgers University Press. _{Updated 11/07}

Jeff Westover (MA), who earned his PhD at BC, is a tenure-track member of the English Department at Howard University. His first book, The Colonial Moment: Discoveries and Settlements in Modern American Poetry, was published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2004. _{Updated 10/07}

1991 Graduates

Christiane Donahue (MA) earned her PhD in 1999 at the University of Paris. She is now Assistant Professor and Director of the Composition Program at the University of Maine, Farmington. _{Updated 10/07}

1990 Graduates

Stuart Selber (MTPW), who earned a PhD from Michigan Tech in 1994, is an Associate Professor at Penn State, where he directs the composition program and holds faculty positions in English; Science, Technology, and Society; Information Sciences and Technology; and Distance Education. His research focuses on the social and pedagogical dimensions of human-computer interaction. Selber's 2004 book, Multiliteracies for a Digital Age (Southern Illinois University Press), won the Distinguished Book Award from Computers and Composition and was also named Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication by the National Council of Teachers of English. His 2004 co-edited collection, Central Works in Technical Communication (Oxford University Press), was named Best Collection of Essays in Technical or Scientific Communication by the National Council of Teachers of English. _{Updated 6/07}

Daniel Springer (MA) is currently the Chair of the Fine & Performing Arts Department at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School on Cape Cod where he teaches Studio Art, Drama, Advertising and Humanities classes. In addition to his work over the last thirteen years at the high school, Mr. Springer also teaches regularly at The Cape Cod Museum of Art, and has had two solo shows of his landscape painting (May 2006; October 2007) at the Brewster Ladies Library. His landscape paintings being represented by the Left Bank Gallery in Orleans, MA. _{Updated 4/08}

1989 Graduates

Beth (Schoenholtz) Udoma (MA) recently became the Senior Communications Editor for the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, at Tufts Medical Center, Boston. _{Updated 4/08}

1988 Graduates

Stephen Sutherland (MA) received his PhD in Composition at the University of Pittsburgh and has been teaching in the Expository Writing Program at Harvard University. He has just been appointed to a tenure-track position at UMass-Boston._{Updated 4/07}

1984 Graduates

Thomas Reilly (MA) worked in Corporate Information Services for State Street Bank for sixteen years. He was responsible for writing and/or editing many of the critical documents that company put out regarding the protection of data and personnel. In 2003, Tom took an opportunity to work closer to home in Millbury, MA and got his state teaching license. Tom writes, "I would love to hear from any of my former colleagues and classmates." He can be contacted at: reillythomasm@yahoo.com. _{Updated 11/07}

1983 Graduates

Ginny Gostanian Ryan (MA) has developed and instructed a wide variety of English courses for 22 years, most recently at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, NY as an Assistant Professor. _{Updated 11/07}

1981 Graduates

Barbara Lundeen Collins (MA), after leaving part-time instructor/lecturer posts in NU's English Department and University College, lived in England for nearly ten years. She taught for a short time at a private grammar school, and thereafter worked in various senior administrative posts for the U.K.'s National Health Service.

Barbara returned to the States in the fall of 1992 and worked as a medical transcriptionist from home, while caring for her terminally ill father. After her father's death, Barbara moved to Gloucester, MA where she continued to work on a contract basis for Children's Hospital Boston, and was a volunteer English tutor at her local adult learning center, working primarily with immigrants.

Barbara retired from full-time employment in 2007. She would enjoy hearing from graduate school classmates and faculty of the 1978-1983 era. Barbara can be contacted at: beblc@netzero.net._{Updated 2/08}

John Waggoner (MA) is a columnist at USA Today, in the Money section. He also appears monthly on PBS, for the Nightly Business Report and has written two books on personal finance. He writes poetry and is working on novel. _{Updated 4/08}

1975 Graduates

Ted Buswick (MA) and his wife Judy have recently published a book, Slate of Hand: Stone for Fine Art & Folk Art (Trafford, 2007). Ted was also a guest editor in 2005 for a special issue of the Journal of Business Strategy on arts-based learning. Ted's friends or alumni interested in the book or in the relationship between the arts and business can contact Ted at: buswick.ted@bcg.com._{Updated 11/07}

Find current student news at Graduate Student Accomplishments 2007-2008.