Education
University of Pittsburgh
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
Pittsburgh, PA 2023
Ph.D. Film and Media Studies
Dissertation: Of Victims and Survivors: Representing Collective and Individual Rape Trauma
Committee Chair: Adam Lowenstein
Committee Members: David Pettersen, Mark Lynn Anderson, Neepa Majumdar,Bridget Keown
University of Southern California
School of Cinematic Arts
Los Angeles, CA 2016
M.A. Cinema and Media Studies
University of California, Riverside
College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Riverside, CA 2014
B.A. Media and Cultural Studies
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
Fall 2023
University of Pittsburgh, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
Dean's Tuition Scholarship
2022-2023
University of Pittsburgh, Richard C. and Barbara N. Tobias Dissertation
Fellowship [Awarded]
Summer 2020
University of Pittsburgh, English Department Research and
Development Grant
Summer 2019
University of Pittsburgh, English Department Research and
Development Grant
September 2018-August 2019
University of Pittsburgh, Provost's Humanities
Predoctoral Fellowship
Teaching Experience
University of Pittsburgh, English and Film and Media Studies
Fall 2023: Nazi Cultures (grader)
Spring 2022: Introduction to Film
Fall 2021: Introduction to Film
Summer 2021: Film Analysis
Spring 2021: Seminar in Composition: Film
Fall 2020: Film Analysis
Spring 2020: Seminar in Composition
Fall 2019: Seminar in Composition
Chaffey College, Broadcasting & Cinema
Spring 2018: Introduction to American CinemaUniversity of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts
Spring 2016: History of International Cinema from WWII-PresentSpring 2016: Theatrical Film Symposium
Spring 2016: International Cinema Post-World War II
Fall 2015: The Gangster in American Culture
Spring 2015: Moving Image Histories: Methods and Approaches
Spring 2015: Theatrical Film Symposium
Fall 2014: International Cinema Post-WWII
Publications
Peer Reviewed Journals
[Under Review] "Slut Punk: Feminist and Queer Punk and Non-Fiction Film,"
Spectator, University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Division of Cinema & Media Studies Journal
[Under Review] Spring 2025: Special Issue "Gendered Violence In/At/Around
Horror and Fantasy Video Games." Studies in the Fantastic. University of
Tampa Press.
[Under Review] "Trauma-Time and Mediated Depictions of Rape," The Disability and Horror Handbook,
edited by Raphael Raphael, Angela Marie Smith, and Sophia Siddique, Bloomsbury Academic Press.
[Under Review] Spring 2025: Special Issue "Gendered Violence In/At/Around Horror and Fantasy Video Games."
Studies in the Fantastic. University of Tampa Press.
[Under Review] Spring 2025: Disability Justice Pedagogy Teaching Dossier. Teaching Media,
Journal for Cinema and Media Studies, University of Michigan Press.
[Forthcoming] Fall 2024: "Wallowing in Blood: The Last of Us Franchise and
How Not to Imagine Otherwise." Studies in the Fantastic. University of
Tampa Press.
[Forthcoming] Fall 2024: "Disability Caucus Spotlight" Journal for Cinema and Media Studies,
University of Michigan Press.
Summer/Fall 2019: "Fungal Zombies and Tentacular Thinking: The Chthonic
Mother in the Game The Last of Us." Studies in the Fantastic Special
Issue: No More Room in Hell. University of Tampa Press.
Spring 2018: "Neverending Nightmares and the Epistemology of Mental Illness
and Horror Gaming." Spectator Special Issue: Subjected to Play. University of Southern
California Cinema Studies Journal. 38.1: 28-34
Spring 2017: "Sense8 Roundtable Discussion." Spectator Special Issue: Transgender Media.
University of Southern California Cinema Studies Journal. 37.2: 74-88.
Book Reviews
May 13, 2024: Gothic Things: Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety by Jeffery Weinstock, book review, H-Environment
June 26, 2023: The Squid Cinema From Hell by William Brown and David H. Fleming, book review, Synoptique.
December 2021: Monstrous Forms by Adam Charles Hart, book review,
Supernatural Studies.
March, 2018: Cinema's Bodily Illusions: Flying, Floating, and Hallucinating by Scott C. Richmond, book review, Somatechnics Special Issue "Cinematic Bodies."" Edinburgh University Press. 8.1: 119-124.
Non-Teaching Experience
Archival Work
University of Pittsburgh, August 2022-June 2023: Graduate Student Assistant, Archives and Special Collections, Horror Scripts and Ephemera and Comic Book Special Collections
Projects included: Devising, organizing, and participating in a roundtable on sexual violence in horror films through archival research; creation of a
digital interactive exhibit; multiple pop-up exhibits which included physical material selections, script-to-screen video presentations, and
audience engagement; creation of both a Library Guide and Finding Aid
on the history of horror comics and the University's holdings.
University of Pittsburgh, May-August 2019: Pre-processor Archives and Special
Collections, George A. Romero Collection
Projects included: Initial collection assessment for document and ephemera type; document and ephemera cataloging and record creation; selection of
materials for exhibition; composition of exhibit cases and tables; collection exhibit launch staff support.
Other Employment
New Review of Film and Television Studies,
March 2024-January 2025: Online Journal Editor
University of Pittsburgh,January 2023-May 2023:
Event Coordinator and AudioVisual Assistant, "Creating a Culture of Access" Disability Studies/Writing Institute Workshop Series
University of California, Riverside, 2010-2011:
Student Research Assistant, Social and Digital Media Trends, A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management
Podcasting and Public-Facing Scholarship
Evil in the Stacks Podcast
October 31, 2022, "Trifecta of Golden Age Horror Comics"
November 30, 2022, "Horror Hosts in Comics and TV: Chiller Theatre and
Creepy Magazine"
January 31, 2023, " Interview with Dr. Johnny Walker"
February 28, 2023, " Comics Horror Across Mediums"
March 2, 2023, " Interview with Gwendolyn Kiste"
April 5, 2023, " Transmedia, Gender, and Comics"
Open Ivory Tower Podcast
2016-2019, Stand-alone Podcasts (7 episodes)2017-2018, Season 3 : Evolution of a Genre: Art House Horror Then and Now (5 episodes)
2016, Season 2: Silver Screen Final Girls to TV Scream Queens (3 episodes) 5
2015-2016, Season 1: Everything is Liminal (3 episodes)
Horror Studies Blog
2017, Television Horror History, 1955-2017 (6 entries)2016-2017, Irish Horror Across Media and Literature (7 entries)
2016-2017, Why Monsters? The Development of the Monster Movie From Hammer Horror to Guillermo del Toro (5 entries)
Public Writing and Other Podcasting
March 1, 2021, "Haraway's Cyborg, ASMR, and Adjusting Faces" for In Media Res.October 29, 2019, "Gendered Horror, Sexual Assault, and Revenge (2017)"" for In Media Res.
September 19, 2019, "Roxanne Benjamin Profile" for Cut-Throat Women.
March 20, 2017, "Sonic Horror Geographies: 'Hush,' Gender, and Disability" for The Coachella Review Literary Magazine
Film Projects
Everything but the Pulp Original filming and production 2024. 5 minute experimental horror that probes the intersections of queerness, coming out, and gendered and sexual trauma.
Resonance Original filming and production 2024. 5 minute experimental, found-footage exploration at the intersection of videographer criticism and the rhetoric of gendered and sexual violence. This film uses audio of Amber Heard's testimony during the Depp v. Heard defamation trial and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony in the Congressional Hearing to appoint Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Blending personal narration, found footage, and experimental sound design, this short probes notions of victimization, testimony, and representability.
Lacuna Original filming and production 2023. 16 minute experimental short dealing into questions of memoir, documentary storytelling, sexual violence, and trauma.
Leakage Original filming and production 2023. This short, non-fiction experimental explores three genres of sexual violence narration: Open Letters, personal journals, and official complaints. Each genre in its own act is complicated or troubled. This short film is specifically produced with rape victim-survivors in mind as a primary audience, and as such, works actively and intentionally to build trust while delving into difficult and varied conversations about sexual violence.
Selected for the Doctober: Pittsburgh Collegiate Documentary Contest.
Awarded Best Cinema Award at Doctober: Collegiate Documentary Contest.
Small Leaks Original filming and production 2023 as part of the Derek Jarman Lab Birkbeck Filmmaking Program at the University of Pittsburgh. This rhythmic two-minute short serves as both standalone film and proof-of-concept for a longer piece in production, Leakage as part of my dissertation project. Small Leaks uses atonal audio patterns laid over graphic depictions of bodily fluids to confront the viewer with the visceral dimensions of sexual violence while a voiceover of fragmented open letters about rape and abuse plays intermittently.
Collective Original animation and production 2023. Utilizing personal archival journal entries from a rape and abuse victim-survivor paired with abstract, animated visuals, this short film builds a collective representation of gendered trauma. Produced in collaboration with multiple rape and/or abuse victim-survivors, including the film's experimental composer, this short piece works towards representing gendered violence as individual and collective simultaneously.
Exhibited at the Birkbeck Institute of Moving Images May 2023.
Dead Water Original filming and production 2015, University of Southern California,
re-edited 2022. Shot primarily in extreme close-up and utilizing intentionally unsteady camerawork, this piece strips away character and narrative to put all focus on tone and mood. Anxiety—Original filming and production 2011, University of California, Riverside, reedited 2022. In one single shot, played in reverse, this film features edited audio clips from public domain radio broadcasts at the onset of the Korean War, interspersed with "Dimension X," highlighting the eerie confluence of fantasy and reality during the Cold War era.
Original film exhibited at the University of California, Riverside Student Video Art Festival, Culver Arts Center May 2012.
Falling Original filming and production 2011, University of California, Riverside, reedited 2022. Loosely inspired by a scene from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, this film features increasingly erratic video and audio editing.
Lifeline [Editor] Original filming and production 2016, University of Southern
California. This short narrative film grapples with issues of race, gender, and carcerality in the context of urban, Black and Latinx queer life in the 2010s. Worked as editor in conjunction with the film's writer/director, Merawi Gerima.
Barbed Wire Barriers [Producer, Editor, and Interviewer] Original filming and production 2013, University of California, Riverside. 25 minute short documentary elucidates the structure and impacts of the school-to-prison pipeline. Specific attention paid to the Southern California, Inland Empire context in which class, race, and gender are significant factors in the life chances for urban, rural, and suburban youth alike. This documentary takes an intersectional approach to systemic, historical, and institutional implications of carcerality and its potential alternatives.
Service
Service to Institution
October 6, 2022: "Emerging Voices in Horror" Invited Presenter, University of
Pittsburgh
February 18-19 2021: "Striking Back at Empire" Graduate Student Conference
Organizer, Film and Media Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Fall 2013-Spring 2014: Student Festival Director, Media and Cultural Studies
First Annual Film Festival, University of California, Riverside
Fall 2012-Spring 2013: Organizing Committee Director, Media and Cultural
Studies Inaugural Film Festival, University of California, Riverside
Service to the Community
August 2023-June 2025: University of California, Riverside ARTS Volunteer
Docent, Barbara and Art Culver Center and California Museum of
Photography
August 2021-May 2023: Film and Media Studies Graduate Pedagogy Mentor
August-November 2022: Graduate Student Workshop Series Organizer (four
part), Sexual Violence in Graduate School
Spring 2022-Fall 2022: Queer Horror Week Co-Organizer
Spring 2021: Lecture, Georgetown University, Women and Gender Studies
Department, Introduction to Queer Studies, "How to Survive a Plague,
Messiness, and Personhood"
Service to the Field
2024-2025: (Virtual) National Queer Horror Conference Organizer, hosted by the University of Pittsburgh
Conference Year 2025: Programming Committee Member, Society for Cinema and Media Studies
August 2024: Peer reviewer, Journal of Communication
August 2024: Peer reviewer, Journal of American Culture
June 2024: Peer reviewer, TMG Journal for Media History
2023-2025: Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Horror Scholarly Interest
Group Co-Chair
May 31, 2024: Ann Radcliffe Conference (StokerCon 2024, San Diego, CA)
Event Volunteer
2023-2024: Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Disability Caucus Founder
and Interim Co-Chair
2022-2023: Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Horror Scholarly Interest
Group Graduate Student Representative
Spring 2021: Lecture, University of Pittsburgh, English Department, Composing
Digital Media, "Podcasting: Creative Selection, Narrative Design, and
Writing Structure"
2020-2021: President, University of Pittsburgh Film and Media Studies Graduate
Student Organization
Selected Conference Presentations
May 31, 2024: "Updating Frankenstein for the 2020s: On Consent and Disability Justice" Ann Radcliff Academic Conference, StokerCon
March 2024: "Cruel Productivity?: Navigating the Neoliberal Academy" Society for Cinema and Media Studies
April 2023: organizer: "Gender, Violence, and Media Representation" Society for Cinema and Media Studies
April 2, 2022: "From Paranormal to Parasocial: YouTubers, Twitch Streamers, and Online Horror Communities" Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Stream
Queens
October 22, 2021: "'It's Just Not Good Enough': New Approaches to Rape and Abuse After 2010" Cine-Excess, Obscenity: Performance, Politics and Policy
April 5, 2020: "'I'll Take Cthulhu Over You Devils Any Day': Rethinking Race and Lovecraft Across Mediums". Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual
Conference: Auteurs Revisited II. Conference Canceled.
March 13, 2019: "We Feel Time: Temporality and Embodiment in 2014's It Follows".Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Shifting Horror Boundaries.
March 30, 2016: "Fragmentation, Memory, and Intersectional Considerations of Identity in Contemporary Transnational Irish Cultural Production" American Society for Irish Studies National Conference: The Worlding of Irish Studies.
April 15, 2016: "Corporeal Zombies: Zombies, Colonial Haunting, and Irish Images of Infanticide" Popular Culture Association National Conference: Memory and
Representation
November 4, 2016: "Mobilized Temporality in Cult Media Across Mediums" MidAtlantic Popular and American Culture Association Conference: Science Fiction
and Fantasy
October 15, 2016: "Neverending Nightmares and the Epistemology of Mental Illness and Horror Gaming" University of Southern California First Forum Graduate Student Conference, Subjected to Play: Locating the Subject in the Promise of Play
November 24, 2015: "Paradox, Possession, and Radical Political Potentiality: The Politics of Disembodiment in The Shining" University of California, Riverside Graduate Student Conference: (Dis)Junctions
April 1, 2015: "Reimagining the Future and Concepts of Utility in The Maze Runner" Popular Cultural Association National Conference, Disasters, Apocalypses, and Catastrophes Panel Chair
Skills and Memberships
Skills
Web Building and Design: HTML 5, CSS, Wordpress, Wix
Video Editing: Avid, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, Open Broadcast Software (OBS)
Graphic Design: Photoshop, Canva
Audio: Audacity, Audition, PodBean, Apple Podcasts
Memberships
Society for Cinema and Media StudiesHorror Scholarly Interest Group (Graduate Student Representative, Co-Chair)
Gender and Feminisms Caucus
Queer and Trans Caucus
Video Games Studies Scholarly Interest Group
Disability Caucus (Founder, Co-Chair)
Horror Studies Working Group