Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 19, No. 2 (2022)
About the Authors
Rachel Azima, PhD is Writing Center Director and Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She served as Chair of the Midwest Writing Centers Association Executive Board, and her work has recently appeared in the Writing Center Journal. Her current collaborative research project focuses on the experiences of leaders of color in writing centers.
Mustapha Chmarkh, MA is Doctoral Candidate in Language Education at The Ohio State University. He is expected to receive his Ph.D. in June 2022. His dissertation research was titled “An Action Research Study into the Value of Role Play in the Teaching and Learning of Counter Argumentation in Undergraduate ESL Composition.” Mustapha received his MA in English from Tours University in France and his BA in English from Hassan II University in Casablanca, Morocco. Mustapha has taught ESL for 14 years in France, the Middle East, and the US. His current research interests include argumentation and counter argumentation in ESL, Writing to Learn in ESL and EFL classrooms, dialogic teaching in ESL Composition, scaffolding language and concept learning in the ESL classroom, and language attitudes.
Erica Cirillo-McCarthy, PhD is an Assistant Professor of English and directs the Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center at Middle Tennessee State University. Her research has been published in WPA Writing Program Administration, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, and in multiple edited collections.
Lauren Fink, PhD is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Previously, she earned her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, Davis. At Davis, Lauren served for one year as a Graduate Writing Fellow (2015-16) and three years, including the time of article writing, as the Lead Graduate Writing Fellow (2016-2019).
Genie Nicole Giaimo, PhD is Assistant Professor and Director of the Writing Center at Middlebury College. Their current research utilizes quantitative and qualitative models to answer a range of questions about behaviors and practices in and around writing centers. Their scholarly and programmatic interest in fair and "well" workplace practices have profoundly influenced their approach to writing administration to be inclusive, intentionally anti-racist, and focused on the wellness of both workers and students. The author of over two dozen peer reviewed articles and chapters, their forthcoming book, Unwell Writing Centers: Searching for Wellness in Neoliberal Educational Institutions and Beyond comes out winter 2023.
Gabi Kirk is a PhD candidate in Geography with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research at the University of California, Davis. She was a Graduate Writing Fellow from 2017-2019. She has published numerous public scholarship essays and enjoys reflecting on the feminist pedagogy of writing centers.
Kristin McCarty, PhD received her doctorate in Sociology from the University of California, Davis where she was a Graduate Writing Fellow and the Writing Partner Program coordinator from 2018-2020.
Brendan T. McGovern, BA is currently serving as a middle school English teacher for Teach For America Chicago-Northwest Indiana. He holds a B.A. in English and political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was an undergraduate writing consultant at the university’s Writers Workshop for four years and has conducted research on discourse community knowledge in the writing center.
Anna Rollins, MA serves as the director of the Writing Center at Marshall University. Her work related to Writing Center studies has been published in Writing Lab Newsletter and in Praxis (“Equity and Ability: Metaphors of Inclusion in Writing Center Promotion" in 2015). Prior to directing Marshall University’s Writing Center, she tutored in the Writing Center for five years. In Fall 2010, she was featured in Praxis’s column “Consultant Spotlight.”
Mitchell Simon, PhD received his doctorate in Cardiac Physiology from the University of California, Davis where he was a Graduate Writing Fellow from 2016-2019.
Karen de Sola-Smith, RN, PhD received her doctorate in Nursing Science and Healthcare Leadership from the University of California, Davis at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. As a Graduate Writing Fellow in 2018-2019, her role was specifically to support nursing students in master's and doctoral programs through all phases of thesis and dissertation writing.
Lisa Sperber, PhD is a continuing lecturer in the writing program at the University of California, Davis. At the time this article was written, she worked in the WAC program, where she facilitated the training of Graduate Writing Fellows. Previous publications include an anthology of interviews with composition scholars, Teachers on the Edge (Routledge, 2017). Her research interests include transfer, threshold concepts, and contract grading.
Jasmine Wade, MFA is a storyteller, curriculum writer, and PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at UC Davis. She studies radical aesthetic practices related to contemporary Black and Indigenous social movements. She is also a lecturer in Ethnic Studies at Sacramento State University. Her short stories have appeared in Drunken Boat, TAYO Literary Magazine, The Copperfield Review and others. Jasmine was a Graduate Writing Fellow from 2018-2020.
Stacy Wittstock, MA is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis, pursuing an emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies. She currently teaches developmental and first-year writing and serves as Assistant to the Director of Entry Level Writing. Her research interests include writing program administration, developmental writing and writers, and faculty identity and contingent labor. Stacy was a Graduate Writing Fellow in 2018-2019, then served as Lead Graduate Writing Fellow from 2019-2021.