L&E Alumni
Graduates of UNR’s Literature and Environment MA and PhD programs have gone on to achieve success in a wide range of advanced graduate programs, professional careers, and public service fields. Among MA graduates who have proceeded to advanced graduate studies, our alumni have been accepted to Columbia University, Brown University, University of Virginia, University of Arizona, University of Oregon, University of Minnesota, Georgia State University, Washington State University, CUNY, Essex University, University of Birmingham, and elsewhere, and have pursued PhD and other advanced programs in literary studies, comparative literature, rhetoric and composition, creative writing, environmental studies, educational administration, popular culture studies, African studies, American studies, culinary and food studies, peace studies, women’s studies, library science, and environmental law. Other MA graduates have gone directly into careers in editing, publishing, marketing, communications, journalism, digital design, public lands management, environmental education, museum administration, non-profit consulting, and into teaching at the secondary, junior college, or college levels. Yet others have started field institutes, served in the Peace Corps, or become Fulbright Scholars. Alumni of our PhD program have gone on to careers in teaching and research, editing and publishing, and nonprofit administration, and have received faculty appointments at University of Massachusetts, University of Alaska, Kanazawa University (Japan), Okanagan College (Canada), Idaho State University, Humboldt State University, Boise State University, Northern Michigan University, Mansfield University, University of California-Santa Barbara, Concordia University, University of the Ryukyus (Japan), Lake Tahoe Community College, Fordham University, Appalachian State University, IULM (Italy), Northland College, University of California-Davis, Young Harris College, and elsewhere. A number of L&E dissertations and spinoff projects have been published as books, and many of our alumni have won major teaching, research, and service awards.
PhD
Patrick Barron (2003)
Winner of the Rome Prize, Patrick is a scholar, novelist, editor, and translator who has produced a number of books including Italian American Environmental Literature (co-edited with L&E alumna Anna Re) and The Selected Poetry and Prose of Andrea Zanzotto. He is now Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.Jim Bishop (2009)
Jim, whose dissertation is entitled “Manly Natures: Masculinity and Environment in American Literature, 1782-1806,” is Assistant Professor of English at Young Harris College in Georgia. His work has appeared in a number of venues, including the journal Early American Literature.Paul Bogard (2007)
Paul is the editor of the book Let There Be Night and is currently at work on a creative book project about the night. After graduation he was a visiting professor at Northland College in Minnesota, and is now in a visiting appointment at Wake Forest University.Meg Cooke (2009)
Meg, whose dissertation is entitled “The Place of Madness in American Culture and Discourse,” is teaching literature, film, and writing as an Instructor at Eastern Oregon University.Jennifer Dawes-Adkison (2001)
Jennifer’s dissertation on place and nineteenth-century women’s fiction in entitled “The Wide, Wide West: Women, Sentimental Fiction, and the Western Environments.” After graduation she became an Assistant Professor of English at Idaho State University.Richard Hunt (2000)
After completing his dissertation, “Heaven and Earth: The Integration of Faith and Science in American Nature Writing,” Richard taught in Minnesota and Iowa before accepting a position as Assistant Professor of English at Potomac State College in West Virginia. His current work examines the confluence of music and environmental crisis in Appalachia.Jerry Keir
Jerry is Director of the Great Basin Institute, which he helped found in 1997. GBI is an interdisciplinary field studies organization that promotes environmental research, education, and conservation throughout the West. The Institute advances ecological literacy and habitat restoration through educational outreach and direct service programs.Corey Lewis (2003)
Corey’s dissertation was published by University of Nevada Press as Reading the Trail: Exploring the Literature and Natural History of the California Crest. He is currently Assistant Professor of English at Humboldt State University, and is also co-editor of the journal Green Praxis. He is currently at work on an anthology of literature about the Pacific Crest Trail.Susan Lucas (2002)
After completing her dissertation, “Traveling in Place: Contemporary American Nature Writing and the Question of Culture,” Susan (now Susan Wiggins) became Assistant Professor of English at University of Alaska, Southeast. She is currently studying traditional Chinese medicine at Yo San University in Southern California.Kyhl Lyndgaard (2010)
Kyhl is a tenure-track professor of writing and environmental studies at Marlboro College in Vermont. His dissertation, "Landscapes of Removal and Renewal: Cross-Cultural Resistance in Nineteenth-Century American Captivity Narratives," is under consideration as a book manuscript. His scholarly and creative work has appeared in many venues, including Great Plains Quarterly and Ecopoetics. "Currents of the Universal Being: Explorations in the Literature of Energy," an anthology which Kyhl co-edited by Scott Slovic and Jim Bishop, is under review. Kyhl was the ACM-Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in English and Environmental Studies at Luther College in Iowa in 2010-11.
Barbara "Barney" Nelson (1997)
Barney’s dissertation, “Mary Austin’s Domestic Wildness: An Ecocritical Investigation of Animals,” was published by University of Nevada Press as The Wild and the Domestic: Animal Representation, Ecocriticism, and Western American Literature. The author or editor of six other books, she is Associate Professor of English at Sul Ross State University in Texas.Deidre Pike (2010)
Deidre, who is a journalist and a lecturer at UNR’s Reynold’s School of Journalism, recently defended her dissertation, “Enviro-toons: How Animated Media Communicate Environmental Themes.”Suzanne Roberts (2008)
Suzanne, who teaches English at Lake Tahoe Community College, is the author of seven published or forthcoming books of poetry and nonfiction, including the forthcoming Plotting Temporality (Pecan Grove, 2011) and Three Hours to Burn a Body (Wordtech). She has won many writing contests and awards, including being named by National Geographic as “The Next Great Travel Writer.”Chris Robertson (2003)
Chris’s dissertation is entitled “Ground Truth: a Memoir of Family and Place.” She is Assistant Professor of English at Bemidji State University in Minnesota.Teresa Ryan (2007)
After graduation Terre accepted a visiting position at Fordham University. A revised version of her dissertation is forthcoming from University of Massachusetts Press.Ceiridwen Terrill (2004)
Ceiridwen is Associate Professor of Science Writing and Environmental Journalism at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. Her dissertation, “Voyage of the Grebe: Island Observations in the Desert West, Baja California, and Coastal California,” was published by the University of Arizona Press. Her next book, tentatively entitled Craving Wild: A Tale of Wolves and Dogs, is forthcoming in 2011 from Scribner.Denice Turner (2009)
Denice’s dissertation, “‘The Surly Bonds of Earth’: Discourses of Transcendental and American Flight Autobiography,” is forthcoming from Rodopi as Writing the Heavenly Frontier: Flight Autobiography in America, 1927-1954.Jennifer Hughes Westerman (2008)
Jen’s dissertation is entitled “Landscapes of Labor: Nature, Work, and Environmental Justice in Depression-Era Fiction.” She is currently co-editing a volume on environment and labor, and she is a Lecturer in the Sustainable Development Program at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.Gioia Woods (1999)
Gioia, whose dissertation is entitled “Making Place in Western American Memoir: Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, William Kittredge, Lorena Hays, and Maxine Hong Kingston,” is Associate Professor of Humanities in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at Nothern Arizona University. She is co-editor of Western Subjects: Autobiographical Writing in the North American West (University of Utah Press), and is currently at work on several projects, including a critical biography of Milan Kundera and a cultural history of City Lights Bookstore.Shin Yamashiro (2003)
After completing his dissertation, “Peter Matthiessen and the Literature of Environmental Justice,” Shin, who is an expert on the literature of the sea, became a professor of American Literature at University of the Ryukus in Okinawa, Japan.Masami Raker Yuki (1999)
Masami’s dissertation is entitled “Towards a Literary Theory of Acoustic Ecology: Soundscapes in Contemporary Environmental Literature.” Masami, who has done work in a variety of areas including sonic ecology, is Associate Professor of English at Kanazawa University in Japan. Her first monograph, published in Japanese, is titled Mizu no oto no kioku: ecocriticism no kokoromi (Remembering the Sound of Water: Essays in Ecocriticism) (2010).MA
Crystal Koch Atamian (2002)
Crystal has done work in various areas of literature, aesthetics, and science, and is currently on the Board of Directors for The Art Cure, a breast cancer awareness art project in Spokane, Washington.Robert Azzarello (2004)
After completing his MA at UNR, Robert taught at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania, before earning his PhD at CUNY Graduate Center. He is now Assistant Professor of English at Southern University New Orleans. His book Queer Environmentality: Ecology, Evolution, and Sexuality in American Literature is forthcoming from Ashgate in 2011.Geoff Baker (1999)
After graduation Geoff entered the Educational Administration doctoral program at Columbia University Teachers College.Fay Beebee (2005)
After completing her degree with a thesis entitled “Reimagining an Ethic of Place: Terry Tempest Williams’s New Language for Nature and Community,” Fay joined the doctoral program at University of Essex, in the U.K.Melissa Blake (2002)
Melissa’s graduate program combined literary studies with work in Environmental and Resource Sciences.
George English Brooks (2011)
George English Brooks lives in Reno where he teaches writing and humanities at UNR and Truckee Meadows Community College. His research and teaching interests include ecocomposition, bioregionalism, inter-American literatures, border studies, postcolonialism, environmental justice, and globalization.
Renee Bryzik (2009)
After graduation Renee was accepted into the MA program in Eighteenth-Century Studies at King’s College London.Leigha Butler (2005)
Leigha teaches English and Communications at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, New York. She also teaches Vinyasa yoga, is a contributor to an online magazine of yoga, sustainability, and politics called Elephant Journal, and blogs for Willows Wept Review, a journal of art, literature, and the environment.Michael Colpo (1998)
Mike saw no reason to leave the Eastern Sierra after graduation. He's currently a copywriter and editor for the clothing company, Patagonia, based here in Reno, and an instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School.Sarah Cumbie (2005)
After graduation Sarah pursued work in environmental law at Syracuse University College of Law.Todd Fisher (2001)
Todd lives in Riverside, Pennsylvania, where he works at Geisinger Medical Center and also freelances as a Manuscript Editor for Baobab Press.Madison Furrh
After completing his thesis, “Cartesian Philosophy and Newtonian Physics in the Literature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony,” Madison entered the doctoral program in American Literature at University of Washington, where he dissertated on Herman Melville.Paul Formisano(2005)
After graduating from UNR, Paul became a doctoral student in American Literature at University of New Mexico, where he is now dissertating on Colorado River discourses.Ayano Ginoza (2003)
After graduation Ayano was accepted to the American Studies doctoral program at Washington State University.Quinn Gorman (2004)
After graduation Quinn taught overseas before moving to Georgia.Kerry Grimm (2005)
After graduation Kerry was accepted to the interdisciplinary Environmental Science doctoral program at Oregon State University.Lilace Mellin Guignard (2005)
Lilace, who also holds an MFA from UC Irvine, publishes poetry and scholarly work—often concerned with gender and the environment—and teaches in the English Department at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in many literary journals, including Ecotone and Hawk & Handsaw.Keira Hambrick (2011)
Keira, whose MA thesis is entitled "The End of Apocalypse: The Rhetoric of Apocalypse in Contemporary Environmental Discourse," was recently inducted into Phi Kappa Phi--the nation's oldest, largest, and most selective honor society. Currently, she works as a composition teacher at UNR and as a freelance grant writer and communications director for sustainable non-profit organizations in Reno.