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Peace Through Education

Alumni Data

Welcome to our graduate English alumni page!

This page provides:

  • a link to our Alumni Profile Blog
  • key statistics and placement data for our graduate programs
  • a list of alumni who have graduated from the M.A. and Ph.D. Programs in English since 2013

We encourage you to review our list of alumni to get a sense of the wide range of careers, both academic and alt-ac, that our graduate students have chosen to pursue.  If you would like to contact one or more of our alumni, please send an e-mail request to lxp04@uark.edu.

Key Statistics and Placement Data for Our M.A. and Ph.D. Programs
Updated Summer 2019

M.A. Statistics

  • 86 – M.A. Graduates since Fall 2011
  • 3 years – Average Time to Degree Completion since 2011 (all M.A. graduates)
  • 2 years - Average Time to Degree Completion for M.A. graduates choosing the portfolio option (offered to students since 2018)

Select Placement Information Over the Last 12 Years:

  • over 45 – Ph.D. Program Enrollments
  • over 15 – K-12 Teaching Positions
  • over 15 - Corporate, Non-Profit, and Entreprenuerial Positions (e.g., with ArcBest, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, Walmart, KUAF, B-Unlimited, Environmental Defense Fund, Bookish Independent Bookstore, and the Northwest Arkansas Gazette)
  • over 15 – College English Instructor and Academic Administrative Positions
  • 7 – Library Science Graduate Program Enrollments or Library Administrative Positions

Ph.D. Statistics

  • 56 – Ph.D. Graduates since Fall 2011
  • 6 years – Average Time to Degree Completion since 2011

Select Placement Information Over the Last 12 Years:

  • over 35 – Assistant or Associate Professor Positions
  • over 15 – Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Positions
  • 7 – K-12 Teaching Positions
  • 4  – Academic Administrative Positions
  • 4 – Alternative-Academic Positions
    • Acquisitions Editor (HarperCollins Christian Publishing)
    • Educ. Program Spec. (U.S. Dept. of Education)
    • Founder of Interrobang (brand storytelling co.)
    • Real Estate Broker (Reese & Co., New Orleans)

List of Alumni Who Have Graduated Since 2013

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Portfolio
 Position Employer or Graduate Institution
Anna Burton Portfolio                                                      No Information Currently  Available  
Addison Cornwell Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
Brigitta Field Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
Sheffield Spence  Portfolio No Information Currently Available  
Vee Lawson Portfolio Doctoral Student Program in Writing, Rhetoric, and
American Cultures, Michigan
State University (East Lansing, MI)

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Luis Paganelli Marin
 Medieval Liteture and Culture
 “‘We Are Strangers in this Life’: Theology, Liminality, and the Exiled in Anglo-Saxon Literature” 7th and 8th Grade Literature Teacher Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy (Bentonville, AR)
Tim Nelson        

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Portfolio
 Position Employer or Graduate Institution
Patrick Angyal Portfolio                                                      No Information Currently  Available  
Gracie Bain “Feeling Clumsy, Feeling Alien: Affect and Gender in Victorian Sensation Fiction” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Dana Blair Portfolio Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Andrew Blume Portfolio No Information Currently Available  
Coty Darst Portfolio Coordinator II Walmart eCommerce
Isaiah "Bo" Desmond Portfolio ESL Teacher English First, China
Erin Gloster Portfolio General Office Clerk U.S. Census Bureau
Emily Holmes “Losing Faith: Emily Brontë's Revolutionized Religion” Law School University of Arkansas
Phyllis LeBert “‘A Woman’s Story’: Lady Macbeth and Performing Femininity in the Early 1600s – Late 1900s” No Information Currently Available  
William "Kelly" Reeder “On the Variations of Occupatio in Richard II” Freelance Writer  
Nathan Riggs “Spirit Don't Ever Die: Apocalypse and Denial in an Infinite Universe” Long-Term English Substitute Teacher Haas Hall Academy
Autumn Weese “Monstrous Mobility in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula” Library Staff Rogers Public Library
Noel Wheeler Portfolio Doctoral Student in Comparative Literature Indiana University at Bloomington

 Ph.D. Graduates

 

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Nathan Fayard Medieval Literature and Culture      
Nathan Haydon
 Medieval Literature and Culture
 “‘We Are Strangers in this Life’: Theology, Liminality, and the Exiled in Anglo-Saxon Literature” 7th and 8th Grade Literature Teacher Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy (Bentonville, AR)
Brent Linsley        
MaryKate Messimer Ecofeminism, Queer Ecologies, and Science Fiction “Gender in Apocalyptic California: The Ecological Frontier” English Instructor Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA)
Stuart "Sam" Morris Literacy Theory and Instruction, Secondary English Education, and Young Adult Literature “Remembering How to Listen: A Pedagogical and Theoretical Approach to Literacy, Adolescence, and Young Adult Literature” Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of English and the Program Coordinator for the English with Secondary English Language Arts Licensure Bachelor of Arts University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC)
Michael Pitts        
Leila Sadegh Beigi Exile, Translation, and contemporary Iranian women writers      

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Portfolio
 Position Employer
Justin Barfield
 Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
Luke Carothers Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
Robert Ellis Portfolio Employer Relations Coordinator, Division of Student Affairs Career Development Center, University of Arkansas
Sait Ibiši “Middle Eastern Themes in Contemporary American Fantasy: The Political and Socio-Religious Implications” No Information Currently  Available  
Michel LaCrue “Establishing Influence and Authority in Ancient Civilizations and Modern Politics: The Rhetoric of Oracles and the Oracular Maneuvers of Political Action Committees” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Kimberly Marquez
  Portfolio Advertorial/Content Writer Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
David Morledge  Portfolio No Information Currently Available   
Allison Treese “A Flourynge Aege: Tracing the Sacred and Secular in the Book of St. Albans” No Information Currently Available
  
Mitchell Simpson Portfolio No Information Currently Available   
John Stout “Pynchon and Place: A Geocritical Reading of Thomas Pynchon” English Teacher Haas Hall Academy
Mary (“Katie”) Voss Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
Amanda White Portfolio Content Marketing Specialist J.B. Hunt (Lowell, AR)

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Uyen Dang
 Rhetoric and Composition
 “Activating Schemata in ESL Writing” Instructor of English Hung Vuong Specialized High School, Binh Duong province, Vietnam
Jonathan Green Composition Pedagogy “Best Practice: Bringing the Elements of Effective Practice to the College Writing Classroom” Writing Center Director and Assistant Professor Cottey College (Nevada, MO)
Garrett Jeter 19th-Century Gothic Literature “Gothic Voids: Nineteenth-Century Reader Experience and Participation” Assistant Professor Georgia Military College (Warner Robins, GA)
Yendountien (“Noellie”) Lare-Assogba Southern Literature “Presumed Innocent: The Child Figure in U.S. Southern Literature, 1945 – 2004” Substitute Teacher in the Combined Middle and High School System ("Secondaire") Marie-Victorin Board, Quebec, Canada
Sara West
 Technical Communication “The Challenge of Anonymous and Ephemeral Social Media: Reflective Research Methodologies & Student-User Composing Practices” Assistant Professor of Professional and Technical Writing San Jose State University

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Eric Bontempo “‘A Magic Deeper Still’: Sacramental Poetics in William Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti, and C. S. Lewis” Doctoral Student in English University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC)
Chris Borntrager  “Mechanisms and Implications of Identity Hybridization in Online Advertorials” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Karly Eaton  “Race, Place and Young Adulting in Southern and Adolecscent Literature” English Teacher Haas Hall Academy (Bentonville, AR)
Amanda Elmore Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently  Available  
Benjamin Enyart Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently  Available  
Logan Hilliard Comprehensive  Director of First Year Programs and Career Services Rockford University (Rockford, IL)
Myles Melancon Comprehensive Exam 6th Grade Language Arts Teacher St. Mark's Episcopal School (Houston, TX)
Morgan Scholz “Curricular Analysis of the University of Arkansas Composition I Pilot Course: ENGL 1013, Community Ethnography” Director of People and Culture B-Unlimited (Fayetteville, AR)
Shavawn Smith "We Can Come Back From This: Navigating the Perils of the Anthropocene in The Walking Dead" Travel Administrator Business Services, University of Arkansas
Tessa Swehla “The Two-Sided Coin: Madness and Laughter as Subversion in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Sandman” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Stephanie Tangman “Wayward Women, Macho Men: Linguistic Construction of Gender Binaries in Yxta Maya Murray's Locas and Denise Chavéz's Loving Pedro Infante” AP Teacher Science & Engineering Magnet High School (Dallas, TX)
Taylor Weeks “Understanding Discourse Transition” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Evan Wordlaw Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently Available  

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Farzana Akhter Contemporary Ethnic and Immigrant Literature “The Net of Nostalgia: Class, Culture, and Political Alienation and Nostalgia in Contemporary Latino and South Asian American Literature” Associate Professor East West University (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
Christy Davis Southern Studies “The Caribbean Imaginary in Southern Women's Literature” English Professor San Jacinto College (Houston, TX)
Sinan Gul Modern and Contemporary Drama, Drama from the Renaissance and Reformation Ages “Persistence of Memory: Revision, Nostalgia, and Resistance in Contemporary American Drama” No Information Currently Available  
Whitney Martin African American Literature “The Hollow Class: African-American Class—Passing and the Popular” Assistant Teaching Professor in African American Literature University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park (Long Beach, MS)
Linda Shaffer Southern Studies and Indigenous Women's Studies “Cultural Reimagin​ing and Literary Voice: Southeastern Tribal Women Negotiate Cultural, Social, and Political Identity through Literature” Part-Time Faculty, Department of Languages and Literature Northeastern State University (Tahlequah, OK)
Megan Vallowe Indigenous Studies “Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy” Assistant Professor of English Dalton University in GA
Paula White African American Literature  “The Black Maternal and Cultural Healing in Twentieth Century Black Women's Fiction” Instructor Department of English, University of Mississippi (Oxford, MS)

 

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Judith Bell “‘Deliberate Voluptuousness’: The Monstrous Women of Dracula and Carmilla” No Information Currently  Available  
Alex Blomstedt “Divining the Southwest: Liminality, Pragmatism, and Regionalism in Death Comes for the Archbishop” No Information Currently  Available  
Sally Ferguson “[Re]Visiting the Rime: A Case Study of Adaptation as Process and Product with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Full-Time English Faculty University of Arkansas Community College at Hope-Texarkana
Sharon Fox “Dandy as Disease: Gender Hygiene and British Nineteenth-century Literature” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Luis Marin “The Stories of Junot Díaz: Genre and Narrative in Drown and This is How You Lose Her” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Kristi Pierse “‘Everyone Has Thought about Killing Someone - One Way or Another′: Cannibalism and the Question of Morality in Bryan Fuller's Hannibal” Office Manager of New Student & Family Programs University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) 
Jessica Schnebelen “Literature as Virtual Reality: An Exploration of Subjectivity Formation in the Digital Era” Tutor Coordinator for the Business Communication Lab Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Alicia Troby “Revision and Re-Writing as Adaptation: Using Adaptation Theory to Encourage Student Recognition of Rhetorical Situations” Social Studies Teacher Heritage High School (Rogers, AR)

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Edward Ardeneaux, IV 20th- and 21st-Century American Literature (with a focus on representations of technology and digital subjectivities) “Mapping the System, Completing the Circuit: The Hacker Figure as Techno-Interface in Contemporary Novels of Speculation and in Popular Films” Assistant Professor  Department of English, University of the Ozarks (Clarksville, AR)
Angela Cox Rhetoric, Composition, and New Media “The Power Fantastic: How Genre Expectations Mediate Authority” Assistant Teaching Professor Department of English, Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana)
Paige Hermansen Rhetoric and Composition/Rhetoric of Education Policy “Selling College: Student Recruitment and Education Reform Rhetoric in the Age of Privatization” Assistant Professor of English Westfield State University (Westfield, MA) 
Sarah (Nikki) Holland Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy “Designing Place-sensitive Professional Development: A Critical Ethnography of Teaching and Learning Argumentative Writing” Writing Center Faculty Western Governors University
Eric Larson British Literature “Telling New Tales: Modernizations of Chaucer in the Eighteenth Century” Writer/Editor
Headquarters Office for the Transportation Security Administration (Arlington, VA)
 
Note: Eric is also an 
Adjunct Professor for George Mason University and an Online Instructor for Central Michigan University.
Rebecca Quoss-Moore Renaissance Literature “The Threat at Court: Subversive Uses of Translation, Transcription, and Tradition in the Henrician Court” Assistant Professor in Early Modern British Literature Department of English, University of Central Oklahoma (Edmond, OK)
Amy Oatis American Literature and Literary Theory “‘The Best Soil of Their Hearts’: Protestant Explorations of Catholic Spirituality in Cooper, Longfellow, and Hawthorne” Associate Professor of English University of the Ozarks (Clarksville, AR)
Lindsey Zachary Panxhi Medieval Literature “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature” Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program, Oklahoma Baptist University (Shawnee, OK) Oklahoma Baptist University (Shawnee, OK) 
Jennifer Pastoor Medieval Literature  “‘Good to Think With’: Women and Exempla in Four Medieval English Texts” No Information Currently Available   
Rachael Price Modern and Contemporary American Literature  “Beyond Main Street : Small Towns in Post-‘Revolt’ American Literature”  Assistant Professor of English  Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (Tifton, GA) 
Ashley Robinson 19th-Century American and British Literature  “Cowboys and Victorians: The American West in English Victorian Literature”  Founder and Lead Storyteller Interrobang (a brand storytelling company)
Amanda Schafer 19th-Century British Literature  “‘A Band of Sisters’: Female Detectives, Authority, and Fiction from 1865 to the 1930s"  Adjunct English Faculty University of Arkansas at Fort Smith
Justin Tinsley  20th-Century American Literature, Modernism, and Postmodernism "Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South, and 20th Century American Literature" 11th-Grade English Teacher Arkansas High School (Texarkana, AR)

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Alex Abrams “Decoding Literary AIDS: A Study on Issues of the Body, Masculinity, and Self Identity in U.S. AIDS Literature from 1984-2011” Communications and Marketing Specialist UNC Greensboro's School of Nursing (Greensboro, NC)
Kimberly Allen “Past Traumas, Present Griefs: Exploring the Effects of Colonialism, Microaggressions, and Stereotyping from Wild West Shows to Indigenous Literature” Doctoral Student in English Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK)
Rebecca Chatham “The Many Faces of Cleopatra: How Performance and Characterization Change Cleopatra in Geoffrey Chaucer's ‘The Legend of Cleopatra,’ William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, and John Dryden's All for Love; or, The World Well Lost” Doctoral Student in English Education Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)
Jason Curlin Comprehensive Exam English Teacher, Arkansas Teacher Corps Lee County High School (Marianna, AR)
Allison Carter Fanney Comprehensive Exam Communications Manager - Tax AICPA (Durham, NC)
Marisa Grippo Comprehensive Exam Registrar’s Assistant/Software Support Technician Office of the Registrar, Southern Arkansas University (Magnolia, AR)
Joshua Jackson “Architectures for a Future South: Posthumanism and Ruin in the Novels of Cormac McCarthy” Doctoral Student in English Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA)
Laurel Loh “Intersectionality in Jane Eyre and Its Adaptations” Teacher's Aide Northport-East Northport School District (Northport, NY)
Shirley Rash “Maybe It Was You: The Implications of Southern Gothic Elements of Criminality, Sexuality, and Race in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood”  Freelance Editor, Library Associate Shirley Rash Editing; Berryville Public Library (Berryville, AR)
Phillip Stephens “The Technological Singularity: An Ideological Critique”  No Information Currently Available  
Alexis Stephenson “What the Fuck Is This?:  Aesthetic Nature of Being or Ontology in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins”  No Information Currently Available   
Ian Whitlow “‘Keep Funding or Else . . . It's Mustaches’: Building a Community of Literacy at Owl Creek School”  Video Production Manager Tyson Foods, Inc. (Springdale, AR)

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Huseyin Altindis Southern Literature  "Immigrant Labor in Southern Literature, 1980-2010" Assistant Professor Department of English, Alanya University (Turkey)
Jennifer Mallette Rhetoric and Composition “Engineer as Writer and Woman: Gender, Identity, and Professional Discourse” Assistant Professor of English (Technical Communication Program) Boise State University (Boise, ID) 
Mindy Trenary Modern and Contemporary American Literature “Jewish-American Immigrant Narratives and Modernist Cosmopolitan Aesthetics” Assistant Professor Department of English & Literature, Butler Community College (El Dorado, KS) 
Andy Trevathan 20th-Century Literature (Secondary Emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition) “At Home In Exile: Ezra Pound and the Poetics of Banishment” Full-Time Instructor Department of English, Louisiana State University--Baton Rouge (Baton Rouge, LA)
Megan Troutman American Popular Culture “(Re)Animating the Horror Genre: Explorations in Children's Animated Horror Film”  English Instructor King's HIgh School (Seattle, WA)
Afrin Zeenat American Literature and Culture before 1900 “The Spectacle of Orphanhood: Reimagining Orphans in Postbellum Fiction” English Faculty Member School of World Languages, Cultures & Communications, Richland College (Dallas, TX)
Malek Zuraikat Medieval Literature  “The Anti-Crusade Voice of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales” Associate Professor Department of English Language and Literature,  Yarmouk University (Irbid, Jordan)

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Laura Leighann Dicks “The Influence of Literacy on the Lives of Twentieth Century Southern Female Minority Figures” Doctoral Student in English University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS)
Natalie Hotary Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently Available  
Jacqueline Lawrence “Queer Tastes: An Exploration of Food and Sexuality in Southern Lesbian Literature” C orporate HR Business Partner J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc. (Lowell, AR)
Timothy Nelson “Welsh Manipulations of the Matter of Britain” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Aaron Nugent Comprehensive Exam English Teacher Fayetteville High School (Fayetteville, AR)
Sara Putman Comprehensive Exam Co-Owner Bookish, an independent bookstore (Fort Smith, AR)
Benjamin Ring Comprehensive Exam English Teacher Bentonville High School (Bentonville, AR)
Rachael Schaffner “Facing the Wreck: Death, Optimism, and the Fragmented Form” Implementation & Innovation Coordinator The Sustainability Consortium (Fayetteville, AR)
Katie Smith “Transitioning to Writing about Writing: A Consideration of the Metawriting Teaching Approach at the University of Arkansas” Associate Communications and Engagement Manager Kroger (Nashville, TN)
Elizabeth Vammen “A Melting Pot of Voices: Public Discourse and the Latino Immigrant Experience in the United States” No Information Currently Available  
Mia Wendel Comprehensive Exam Product Development Specialist Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Bentonville, AR) 

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Aya Akkawi Postmodern Literature  “Salman Rushdie in the Postmodern Current: New Venues, New Values” Assistant Professor of English Literature Yarmouk University, (Irbid, Jordan) 
James Anderson  Rhetoric and Composition “‘We can’t reclaim what we don’t understand’: Teachers’ Perceptions of Advocacy and Voice in a Rural Institute of the National Writing Project” Assistant Professor of English and English Education Lander University (Greenwood, SC) 
Jeremy Burns  American Popular Culture after 1945 “Monsters in Common: Identity and Community in Post-apocalyptic Science Fiction After 9/11” Director of Communications Enrollment Management Support, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) 
Mary Leigh  19th-Century British Literature  “The Cultural Crime of Femininity: Advocating for Viable and Successful Womanhood in Charles Dickens and George Eliot” Humanities Instructor  Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts (Hot Springs, AR) 
April (Thompson) Young  Southern Literature  “Trashed Whites: The Myth of the Southern Poor White” Assistant Professor of English  Volunteer State Community College (Gallatin, TN) 

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Rachel Hancock “Humor and Howells: From Sit Down to Stand-Up” Associate Director of Donor Engagement Office of Donor Engagement, University of Arkansas
Drew Walker Comprehensive Exam Compliance Specialist International Students & Scholars, University of Arkansas
Elizabeth Walker Comprehensive Exam Manager, Digital Strategy and Brand Engagement Walmart’s Digital Strategy Brand Engagement Team (Bentonville, AR)

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Jack Ayres Modern British Literature  “After Orwell: Totalitarian Fears and the English Political Novel, 1950-2010” Associate Professor of English Texas A&M University--San Antonio (San Antonio, TX)
Eve Baldwin Rhetoric and Composition “Reading and Religion: Reconciling Diverse Reading Patterns and the First-Year Composition Classroom” Lecturer of Writing and Critical Inquiry in Undergraduate Education University at Albany (Albany, NY)
Jake Edwards Rhetoric and Composition “E-Readers, Reading Practices, and Adolescent Readers: Observations on the Intersection of Technology, Literacy, and Identity” Assistant Professor of English Georgia Gwinnett College (Lawrenceville, GA)
Karon Reese Modern and Contemporary American Literature “Occupying the Pedestal: Gender Issues in Ellen Gilchrist” Broker

Reese & Co. Real Estate (New Orleans, LA)
Nancy Romig Modern and Contemporary American Literature  “‘A Man Is Hard Enough to Be’: History and Masculinity in the Texts of E. L. Doctorow” Assistant Professor of English Howard Payne University (Brownwood, TX) 
Carol Westcamp Modern and Contemporary American Literature “A Place Where You Can Reckon with Yourself: Loss of Place in Sam Shepard’s Plays” Associate Professor of English University of Arkansas—Fort Smith (Fort Smith, AR)