Graduate Students - PhD

Rebekah Cavallo

Email Address: rcavallo@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2025-2026

Biography:

Interests: Classics, Comparative Myth Studies, Eco-Criticism, Disability Studies, Feminist and Queer Theory, Colonialist Theory, Animal Studies and Thing Theory. Obtained an M.A. in English with an emphasis in Literary Criticism at Sonoma State University in the summer of 2024.

Research Interests:

I'm interested in the cross-cultural presentation of myth, how shaped by the continual historical shifts towards and against the dominating hegemonies of colonialism, patriarchy, humanism, ableism, homophobia, and ethnocentrism, together with how myth can be deconstructed & repurposed even now.

Publications:

• M.A. Thesis: "Patriarchal Petrification or Chthonic Alterity?: Dissolving the Aegis Screen" 

Academic Background:

• M.A. in English with an emphasis in Literary Criticism - Sonoma State University, 2024
• B.A. in English as a Single Subject - Sonoma State University, 2022

Qiyan Chen

Email Address: qic031@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2024-2025

Research Interests:

Sinophone and Tibetan literature and cinema; intersectionality of race/ethnicity and gender; media technologies; philosophy of language

Highlights:

• Yingjin Zhang Fellowship, 2024

Academic Background:

• M.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
• B.S. in Biological Science, Peking University.
• B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University.

Cristina Dinu

Email Address: cdinu@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2024-2025

Biography:

Born and raised in Romania, a small Eastern European country with a rich history and sensibility, my curiosity about the world led me to study foreign languages and cultures but also to travel and explore the world. One of my goals is to become a teacher and share my love of literature with others.

Research Interests:

East West Intertextual and Intercultural Relations; Classical, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature; Medieval, Renaissance and Modern English Literature; Film, Theatre/Drama Studies; Trauma, Post-dictatorship, Memory and Post-memory Studies; myths, supernatural folklore.

Publications:

• “The Narrative Motif of the Ghost in Classical Chinese Literature”, International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Culture, No.1, Vol.9, March 2022 pp. 1-8.
• “The Fallen Women of Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd and of The Limehouse Golem directed by Juan Carlos Medina”, Journal of Student Research in Languages and Literatures, No.10, 2021, pp. 4 - 7.
• “A Comparative Study of the Ghost Literary Motif in Snow in Midsummer by Guan Hanqing and Hamlet by Shakespeare”, Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures, No. 1 Vol. 5, June 2021, pp. 125 - 134, Article ID: 2096-4374(2021)01-0125-10.

Academic Background:

• M.A. in East Asian Studies, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, 2022
• B.A. in Chinese and English Philology, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, 2020

Catherine Nina Evarkiou

Alexandra Feldman

Email Address: apfeldman@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2024-2025

Biography:

Alexandra Feldman was born in Los Angeles, California. Her research focuses on new forms of online cultural exchange, translation, and interaction between East Asian and Western digital literatures.

Research Interests:

Sinophone literature and culture, popular fiction, digital literature, reader-response criticism, queer studies, fantasy and the fantastical.

Academic Background:

• M.A., Yenching Academy at Peking University, 2024
• B.A. in Political Economy, UC Berkeley, 2022
  

Melina Jung

Samuel Kim

Jasmine (Yueming) Li

Email Address: yul282@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2023-2024

Biography:

Jasmine (Yueming) Li is a Ph.D. student in the Literature Department at University of California, San Diego. Her research interests focus on contemporary Chinese theatre and performance art. Her broader interests include performance theories and contemporary East Asian literature and media studies.

Research Interests:

Chinese theatre and performance art, performance theories, contemporary East Asian literature and media studies

Publications:

• Li, Jasmine Yueming. “Reinvigorating Reality through Materiality and Theatricality: A Rethinking of Science Fiction through Li Jianjun’s World on a Wire (2021).” In Theatre, Performance and the Fantastic, Volume 1: Stages and Scripts, edited by Farnell, Ian. London: Bloomsbury Publishing (Methuen Drama). (forthcoming in 2026)
• Li, Jasmine Yueming. “Understanding Reality Through Science Fiction and Digitalization: The Hybrid Theatrical Space in Sun Xiaoxing’s Rhinoceros (2020).” Asian Theatre Journal. 41.2, 2024, p. 385-410.

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Bilingual Bicultural Education, Columbia University, 2023
• B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature, Nankai University, 2021

Caleb Mertz-Vega

Email Address: cmertzvega@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2021-2022

Biography:

Caleb Mertz-Vega is a PhD candidate in the Comparative Literature track in the Department of Literature at UCSD. He received a B.A. in English and in Spanish at UC Berkeley after transferring with an Associates for Transfer degree in English and Spanish from San Diego City College.

Research Interests:

Latin American Literature, Contemporary American Literature, Northern Andean Region literatures, LGTBQ+ literature, Queer Theory, Affect Theory, reader response, Gender studies, psychology and literature, religion and culture.

Publications:

• Mertz-Vega, Caleb. Review of Queer Relajo: Feeling the Nightscapes of Mexicanidad, by David Tenorio, GLQ, Forthcoming
• Mertz-Vega, Caleb A. “Apetito «contra natura»: Celestina and Her Same-Sex Desires.” Celestinesca, vol. 46, Dec. 2022, pp. 97–117.

Highlights:

• Literature Department Dissertation Fellowship – UCSD – 2026-27
• Preparing Accomplished Transfers to the Humanities (PATH) Integrated Fellowship – Andrew W. Mellon Foundation - 2025-26
• Speculative Environmental Futures Mellon Grant, Jan. 2024
• 2018 Phi Theta Kappa All-California Academic Team (First Team), Apr. 2 2018
• Leora Dumlao Honors Scholarship – SDCC (2018)
• Peace Studies Scholarship – SDCC (2017, 2018)
• Judith Keller Marx Krumholz Scholarship – San Diego Foundation (2018)

Academic Background:

• B.A. in English, UC Berkeley, 2021
• B.A. in Spanish, UC Berkeley, 2021
• A.A. in English & Spanish, San Diego City College, 2018

Mubashir Shahid

Yomira Varela Guadiana

Yaroslav Vozlomytel

Dingding Wang

Email Address: diw004@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2020-2021

Research Interests:

Animal studies; eco-criticism; eco-media

Publications:

• "Dreaming Fish, Becoming Fish: Animating Modern Mythology and Zhuangzian Philosophy in the Fantasy Film Big Fish & Begonia" Journal of Chinese Film Studies, 2024.
• “Mapping Chinese Science Fiction and Science Writing as World Literature”, Chinese Literature and Thought Today, 54:3-4, 46-51, 2023.
• Translation: Nathaniel Isaacson, Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction. (Jiangsu People’s: 2024).
• Translation: N. Katherine Hayles, Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious. Proofread. (Jiangsu People’s: 2024).
• Translation: Jason Goodwin, The Gunpowder Gardens: Travels through India and China in Search of Tea. (Jiangsu People’s, 2019).

Academic Background:

• Non-degree, Inter-University Center, Japan, 2022-23
• M.A. in Critical Asian Humanities, Duke University, 2019
• B.A. in English Language and Literature, Wuhan University, 2017
  

Yuchen Yan

Email Address: y9yan@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2021-2022

Alice Zheng

Email Address: q9zheng@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2023-2024

Bahar Abdi

Ngoc Linh Bui

Manuel Carrion Lira

Email Address: macarrio@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2019-2020

Bernice Chau

Email Address: b1chau@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2025-2026

Academic Background:

• M.A in History, University of Toronto, 2024
• B.A in Honours History, University of British Columbia, 2023

Monique Dixon

Tatum Howey

Email Address: thowey@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2021-2022

Nilufar Karimi

Farid Khuri-Makdisi

Email Address: fkhurimakdisi@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2025-2026

Biography:

I'm a first-year PhD student from Beirut, Lebanon.

Research Interests:

19th century French and British literature, post-colonial theory, space and place, history of academia

Academic Background:

• B.S. in Physics with an Additional Major in Literature and Culture, Carnegie Mellon University, 2024

Siqi Li

Ziyang Li

Email Address: zil042@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2020-2021

Biography:

Literature, film & artwork.

Research Interests:

Sinophone Southeast Asia; Asian American and Asian diaspora; body, religion, and sensual geography; gender and queer studies

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Critical Asian Humanities, Duke University
• B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature, Zhejiang University

Timothy Malik

Bianca Negrete Coba

Email Address: bnegrete@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2020-2021

Biography:

Bianca Negrete Coba is a mixed-race Chicana from Chula Vista, a border town in San Diego, CA. She is currently a PhD Candidate in Literature, Cultural Studies with a Specialization in Critical Gender Studies.

Research Interests:

Bianca's research highlights palimpsestic hi/stories of Chicanx displacement & Indigenous dispossession in what is known as San Diego & Los Angeles, thinking about intertwining cultural & environmental impact, asking what it means for one community to be displaced on land dispossessed from another.

Publications:

• Co-transcriber with Kathryn Walkiewicz, Yomira Varela Guadiana, and Vyxz Vasquez. “New England Type and Stereotype Foundry Letterbook, 1825-1831.” Transcription completed between 2022-2025.
• Negrete Coba, Bianca. “The Liminal Space.” California Best Emerging Poets, Z Publishing, 2017.
• Negrete, Bianca Michelle Lindsay. “Burned-Up Zombies.” The Vernal Pool, University of California, Merced’s Undergraduate Creative Arts Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, Fall 2015.
• Negrete, Bianca Michelle Lindsay. “Semillas.” The Vernal Pool, University of California, Merced’s Undergraduate Creative Arts Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, Fall 2015.

Highlights:

• Migration & Borders: Reimagining Refuge Fellowship | UCSD Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, 2026-2027
• Speculative Environmental Futures Collective Dissertation Fellowship | Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2026
• PATH Integrated Fellowship | Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (UCSD & SDCCD), 2025-2026
• Shen Fellowship | UCSD Literature Department, 2020-2024

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Literature, UC San Diego, 2023
• M.A. in Interdisciplinary Humanities, UC Merced, 2019
• B.A. in English, Minor in Writing, UC Merced, 2016

Devanshu Pandey

Biography:

A lifelong student of Literature, Culture, and Life! From small-town central India to Stratford-upon-Avon, reading Shakespeare, performing with the RSC, guiding at Shax's Birthplace, and now, on to San Diego. Off the page, I'm always listening: everything from qawwalis to jazz rap, and beyond!

Jessica Silbaugh-Cowdin

Email Address: jsilbaug@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2019-2020

Yi Sun

Email Address: yis020@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2019-2020

Biography:

Born in 1991 in Beijing, came to the United States in 2016. Completed a MA in East Asian Studies at Duke University in 2018, and currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Literature at UCSD.

Research Interests:

I am interested in Animal Studies and modern/contemporary Chinese literatures and cultures. The dissertation that I am currently working on focuses on how the non-verbal communication between humans and animals redefines the boundary of human language.

Academic Background:

• M.A. in East Asian Studies, Duke University, 2018
• M.A. in Contemporary Chinese Literature, Soochow University, 2016
• B.A. in Tourism Management, Soochow University, 2013

Yichen Tan

Chad Valdez

Evelyn Vasquez

Email Address: evvasque@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2019-2020

Biography:

I am from East LA, Lincoln Heights (Clifton St., Ave 28, and Ave 26) and worked on Whittier Blvd. and Arizona Ave. throughout my childhood up to an adult. Triqua for life. I rep sopes from King Taco all day every day. Rap is my harmony. Cumbias are my jams.

Research Interests:

I currently research architectural depictions of poor housing in American novels (mid19th and early 20th century) and policies that impact how and where characters and real people live. Previous research included analyzing comic book panels and tenement drawings of Eisner, Harrington, Outcault.

Highlights:

• Travel Award for MELUS Conference, 2024
• Institute of Arts and Humanities Fellowship for LARB, 2024
• CSS Honorable Mention for the Hillary Chute Award, 2023
• UC Humanities Consortium Graduate Society of Fellows Dissertation Award, 2023
• CalRBS Scholarship, 2023
• Interdisciplinary Research Award 2022

Academic Background:

• B.A. in English (Literature, Criticism, and Theory Emphasis), University of California, Davis, 2016
• A.A in English Literature, Humanities, and Social and Behavioral Sciences, Pasadena City College, 2013

Constance Von Igel De Mello

Email Address: cvonigeldemello@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2023-2024

Biography:

I'm Constance (she/her), a scholar and writer from São Paulo, Brazil, where I was born and raised. I lived in Germany during my undergrad and then moved to the U.S. for grad school in Orange County, where I did my MA/MFA.

Research Interests:

I'm interested in articulating the formulations of race and gender in the Americas, in particular as it pertains to national imaginaries and Latinidad more broadly. In particular, I interrogate how exclusions of Black and gendered bodies facilitate citizenship belonging.

Publications:

• "Wonderbread" (poetry chapbook), Ghost City Press, 2024.
• "Swallow the Pit" (poetry chapbook), Bottlecap Press, 2022.
  

Highlights:

• Presenting at PAMLA in November on "20th and 21st Century Poetry," analyzing Kate Rushin's "The Black Back-Ups" and its interventions into the poetic form.
• Participating at a roundtable discussion for Renee Hudson's "Latinx Revolutionary Horizons" at ASA.

Academic Background:

• M.A. in English and MFA in Creative Writing, Chapman University, 2023
• B.A. in Cultural History & Theory and Gender Studies, Humboldt University, 2020

Shiya Zhang

Chengfan Zhou

Swarnika Ahuja

Camellia Azzi

Email Address: cazzi@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2024-2025

Biography:

Camellia Azzi is a PhD student in Literature and teaching assistant at UC San Diego.

Research Interests:

Postcolonial and transnational literatures, diasporic and continental African literatures and traditions, Francophone literatures of North and West Africa, comparative Indigenous studies, anticolonial theory, decoloniality, translation, migration studies

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Literature, Miami University
• B.A. in English Literature & Writing with a minor in French, Ohio University

Oscar Garcia

Email Address: o4garcia@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2021-2022

Biography:

Oscar is from Fresno, California. Outside of work, you'll likely find him sipping on an iced latte, spending time with loved ones, checking out the San Diego scenery, or all of the above.

Research Interests:

Chicanx cultural politics, Latinx literature, LGTBQ+ literature, critical race theory, women of color feminisms, queer of color critique, urban/rural landscapes

Highlights:

• University of California, San Diego Literature Department nomination for Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) Master's Thesis Award 2024
• University of California, San Diego Diversity Fellowship 2023-2024
• University of California, San Diego Literature Department Fellowship 2021-2022

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Literature, University of California, San Diego, 2024
• B.A. in English with a minor in Journalism, University of California, Irvine, 2021
• B.A. in Spanish, University of California, Irvine 2021
  

Aimee Jurado

Email Address: ajurado@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2020-2021

Biography:

Aimee is from Southern California and studies food, family, war, persistence, and trauma across 20th-21st century multiethnic literature.

Research Interests:

20th-21st century Asian American literature, food studies, trauma studies, persistence literature, and Post WWII multiethnic literature

Academic Background:

• M.A., University of California, San Diego
• B.A., California State University, Fullerton

Gurleen Kang

Email Address: gkkang@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2025-2026

Biography:

Gurleen Kang grew up in SoCal and has lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Boston, and London. When not at work, you can find them cloud gazing, knitting/crocheting, writing short stories, playing video games, and spending time with their friends, family, and cat, Karma.

Research Interests:

Their research interests include 20th/21st-century post-colonial and diasporic literature, transnational literature, decolonial and anti-colonial theory, South Asian anglophone literature, affect theory, Subaltern Feminism, horror literature, and monster theory

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Humanities, University of Chicago
• B.A. in English (Creative Writing Emphasis), University of San Diego

Samuel Lyons

Barış Özkuzey

Email Address: oozkuzey@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2023-2024

Biography:

Barış Özkuzey is a reader, a scholar, a writer, and an educator. Originally from Istanbul, he called Ankara, Turkey, home, but never stopped hearing the call of Bosphorus. Now he searches for new inspiration in San Diego, often returning to questions of how stories shape our sense of place and time.

Research Interests:

My M.A. thesis focuses on the literary use of Foucauldian heterotopias. Currently interested in narrative fragmentation in digital storytelling.

Publications:

• "Wilkie Collins in Context, ed. by William Baker and Richard Nemesvari (Review)," Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (Special Issue: Wilkie Collins), 92-94.

Highlights:

• Presented paper titled "Chromatic Whispers and Pheromonal Scripts: Decoding Khepri Communication in Perdido Street Station" at The 121st Annual PAMLA Conference.

Academic Background:

• M.A. in English Literature, Middle East Technical University, 2022
• B.A. in Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University, 2018

Sutirtho Roy

Email Address: s8roy@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2024-2025

Biography:

I am interested in the various ways in which storytelling and language can help in conservation of non-human animals by generating media awareness. To that extent, I hope to study how speculative media can pose an alternative, imaginary space to intraspecies and interspecies dynamics of power.

Research Interests:

I am interested in animal studies and ecocriticism, and am interested to explore how post-colonial research can help us realize the various kinds of intraspecies and interspecies relationships. I am also interested in linguistics, speculative fiction, creative writing, and graphic narratives.

Publications:

• Nature Strikes Back: A Post-human Gaze into Eco-critical Narratives of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’; Published by Nesir Journal of Literary Studies.
• Can the Non-human Subaltern Speak? Addressing Injustice through Parakeets, Penguins and Blue Macaws: Published by ‘Theorizing Literary Animals’ (special issue of Studia Philologia).
• “Life, uh, finds a Way”: reading Post-human Agency in the EcoGothic Spaces of ‘Jurassic Park’: Published by The Aeternum Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies.
• Reading the Animal beyond Anthropocentric Paradigms of Power: A Post-anthropocentric Study of ‘Beastars’ as “Un-Disneyfied” Zootopia by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• “A Dog is Man’s Temporary Friend: An Ethical Critique of Human-Pet Relationships in India Post-Pandemic” published by National Institute of Agartala, as part of conference proceedings in “Emerging Trends in Post Pandemic Literary and Cultural Studies” by AuthorsPress.
• Jumbo: A Film Review published in The Association for Children’s Literature in South Asia.
• Reading Woody as a Figure of Freedom: A Post-anthropocentric Analysis of Toy Story and its Allegorical Slave Narrative published in book ‘Figures of Freedom in the Anthropocene’.
• The 'Child'/ 'Animal' Bond in Flora and Ulysses, Free Willy and The Water Horse: Envisioning Sites of Non-human Resistance by Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht Verlag, a part of the series ‘Culture, Environment, Society: Humanities and Beyond’ (an imprint of BRILL).
• Exotic Prehistory or Relevant Science? Sukumar Roy’s Post-human Subversion of Victorian Travel Literature by Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave Handbook of Neo-Victorian Literature) – Forthcoming publication
• Seeing through the Other’s Gaze: A Post-anthropocentric Study of Animal Masks in Indian Theatre and Dance by Routledge (as part of the series Revealing Post-human Encounters in Performance) – Forthcoming publication
• The Post-human Ontology of Dark Eco-Fiction: Defying Anthropo-denial in Watership Down, The Plague Dogs and Padak by Routledge (as part of the series ‘Heterotopia’) – Forthcoming Publication
• The Desire to tame the Fantastic: A Post-human Critique of Dragons in Fiction published in the series ‘Dragons in Literature, Film and Pop Culture’ – Forthcoming publication
• Nature, Non-humans and More-than-human Agency: Ecolinguistic Engagements through Non-Western Lenses in The Adventures of ‘Professor Shonku’ published in the book ‘Ecocritical Engagements in Select Indian Children’s Literature’ (Bloomsbury India) – Forthcoming publication
• How Conspiracy (Fringe) Theories challenge Anthropocentric Anxieties: A Post-human Critique of Humanism through the Lens of Inside Job published in book ‘Lizards, Illuminatis and Deepfakes: Conspiracy Theories at Play in Popular Culture’ – Forthcoming publication
  

Highlights:

• National winner of the M Krishnan Memorial Award for Nature Writing 2024
• Best dissertation at Post-graduate Diploma in Comparative Mythology
• Invited to speak at National Institute of Technology, Agartala
• State winner of essay contest on evils of drug abuse
• Presented at NEMLA etc

Academic Background:

• Post-graduate Diploma in Comparative Mythology, University of Mumbai, 2023
• B.A. in English Honours, The Bhawanipur Education Society (affiliated to Calcutta University), 2020
  

Tramaine Suubi

Email Address: tsuubi@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2025-2026

Biography: 

Tramaine Suubi is a multilingual writer, editor, and teacher from Kampala. Tramaine is the author of two books and has published creative writing in over fifteen literary magazines.

Research Interests:

Black poetics, Indigenous studies, anticolonial literature, precolonial linguistics, and performance studies

Publications:

• phases
• stages

Academic Background:

• M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Iowa Writers' Workshop
• B.A. in Philosophy & French, Wheaton College

Camille Uglow

Email Address: cuglow@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2022-2023

Biography: 

Outside of research, Camille enjoys spending time with family and friends, going to the beach, cooking, traveling, and painting. Having grown up in SoCal, the ocean serves as the main inspiration for her oil paintings. Her love for the ocean and environment informs her studies as well.

Research Interests:

Early Modern English and French drama, Early Modern English and French literature, ecocriticism, dramaturgy, performance studies, Renaissance studies, eco-Shakespeare, environmental humanities

Publications:

• “On Overthinking.” Alchemy, Issue 22, August 2023 (creative translation)

Highlights:

• Speculative Environmental Futures Collective Grant, UCSD Lit/Ethnic Studies Dept. Aug. 2025
• Conference Presentation: “Palimpsests of the Stage: Ecological Adaptations of Shakespeare in Yosemite,” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA), Nov. 2025
• Conference Presentation: “Shakespeare’s Blue Globe: An Ecocritical Examination of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Writing Environments: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air Symposium, Literature Department, University of California, San Diego, June 2023
• Conference Presentation: “Returning to Materiality: Nostalgia in the Age of AI.” The RenAIssance: Graduate Student Lightning Talk Series. Renaissance Society of America, June 2025
• Literature Department Fellowship, University of California, San Diego 2022-2023
• Speculative Environmental Futures Collective Grant, UCSD Lit/Ethnic Studies Dept. Dec. 2023

Academic Background:

• B.A. in Literature (General Literature, Intensive), University of California, Santa Cruz, 2021
• M.A. in Literature, University of California, San Diego, 2025
• C.Phil. in Literature, University of California, San Diego, 2025

Vyxz Vasquez

Email Address: lmvasquez@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2021-2022

Phuong Vuong

Email Address: pvuong@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2020-2021

Biography:

Phuong T. Vuong is a Vietnamese American poet and writer from Oakland. She is a PhD candidate in Literature with a specialization in Critical Gender Studies whose research explores Asian American feminist and queer creative refusal of recognition and legibility as a decolonial tool.

https://www.phuongthaovuong.com/ 

Research Interests:

Critical race theory, gender studies, queer theory, Asian American studies, decolonial/Indigenous studies, and 20th and 21st century ethnic US literatures

Highlights:

• Phuong is the author of two poetry collections including A Plucked Zither (Red Hen Press, 2023), which won the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award 2021.
• She has publications in American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Prairie Schooner, The Asian American Writers' Workshop: The Margins, and elsewhere.

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Literature, University of California, San Diego, 2023
• M.F.A. in Creative Writing, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2020
• B.A. in Black Studies, Amherst College, 2009

Yingjie Fei

Email Address: yifei@ucsd.edu 
Year of Entry: 2020-2021

Veronica Perez Garcia

Carolina Ramirez Moreno

Email Address: cramirezmoreno@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2021-2022

Biography:

Carolina Ramirez Moreno is a first generation PhD student in Literature and the Critical Gender Specialization. Carolina grew up in el Estado de Mexico and during her teenage years moved to Arvin, California, a farming community in the Central Valley. She considers both places home.

Ana Villalpando

Email Address: anvillalpando@ucsd.edu
Year of Entry: 2023-2024

Biography:

Ana Villalpando is a queer fronteriza researcher and artist born in Tijuana. Her pedagogical approach has been shaped by her career in public libraries, binational teaching experience and community-focused programming. As an artist, she explores the porous frontier between materiality and discourse

https://www.anniedetijuana.com/

Research Interests

Latin American women writers; 20th and 21st century Latin American literature; biopolitics and necropolitics; critical gender studies, 19th century feminist periodicals

Publications:

• Garcia Villalpando, Ana Karen, translator. David Lamelas: A Life of Their Own. Edited by María José Herrera and Kristina Newhouse, Getty Publications, 2017
• Garcia Villalpando, Ana Karen. “Untitled.” Bones - Journal for Contemporary Haiku, 31 July 2015. P. 16.
• Herrán Paz, María Evangelina, et al. “Narrative Review of Scales Assessing Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and Adolescents.” Medwave, vol. 14, no. 01, Medwave Estudios Limitada, Jan. 2014, pp. e5887–e5887.

Highlights:

• 2023-2024 Literature Diversity Fellowship
• "¿Cuándo fue la última vez que le leyeron un cuento?" PCI Webinar, May 8, 2024
• "La ficción del progreso: Distancia de Rescate como relato del maldesarrollo" at XIV Graduate Student Conference, Hispanic Studies, UCR, April 25, 2024

Academic Background:

• M.A. in Social and Cultural Analysis of Education, California State University, Long Beach, 2009
• B.A. in Philosophy, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, 2014
  

Catalina Zappia

Research Interests

Catalina is interested in studying diverse depictions of motherhood and the relationships between mothers and their children in contemporary Latin American literature.

Academic Background:

• B,A. in Letras, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, 2025