Darius Stewart is a Lulu “Merle” Johnson Fellow and PhD student in English Literary Studies with a Graduate Certificate in African American Studies, specializing in African American Literature and Culture from 1831 to the present, while also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies.

Aileen Tierney is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Iowa. She studies avant-garde/experimental literature of the 20th-21st century with an emphasis on the emergent methodologies of the digital humanities.

Thelma Trujillo is a writer and educator from La Villita, Chicago. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in Literary and Cultural Studies from Illinois State University.

Ellie White is a first-year Ph.D. student and Teaching Assistant at the University of Iowa, where she intends to study Victorian literature and transnational coming-of-age novels.