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Graduate Students

Literature graduate students.

Richard Allberry

Graduate Student

• rallberr@indiana.edu

Richard Allberry is a PhD student studying Victorian literature and culture. Before joining the graduate program at IU, he studied English at the Community College of Rhode Island and the University of Rhode Island. His primary research interests are cultural attitudes surrounding and literary representations of gambling in the Victorian novel and evolutionary theory's influence on novelistic form. His dissertation aims at once to account for the ostensible Victorian aversion to and marginalization of gambling through contemporaneous cultural anxieties surrounding changing, slippery conceptions of causality, and to examine the formal affordances these conceptions made available to novelists such as George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, and George Eliot.  

Amber Alsaigh

• amalsa@iu.edu

Amber Alsaigh is a Literature M.A./Ph.D. student with interests in Victorian literature, women writers, and the transatlantic nineteenth century. Her work is concerned especially with women’s vocality as a mechanism for female agency and creative authority. Prior to studying at IU, she received her B.A. in English from Fairfield University.

Shataparni (Titir) Bhattacharya

• shabhat@iu.edu

Shataparni, who usually goes by Titir, is an international student from Kolkata, India, who is currently pursuing a PhD in English Literature and is also an Associate Instructor of Composition at IU. She holds a BA and an MA in English from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She is interested in women's writing, queer writing, and the gothic, with a soft spot for horror narratives and the supernatural. She is also interested in medieval and pre-modern death cultures and Restoration theatre. Before starting her PhD, she was a freelance copyeditor with Penguin Random House India. In her spare time, she enjoys eating good food, drinking colourful beverages, reading in the sun, painting, watching TV shows, or missing her cat back home in India.

Amber Bowes

• arbowes@iu.edu

Amber Bowes is a PhD student studying Victorian literature and culture in IU’s English Department. She is especially interested in masculinity as written by long 19th century women writers, and has recently become invested in illustration and reception history. Before coming to IU, Amber received her BA from the University of Florida and taught in the public school system. Now, she loves her job at Indiana University’s rare book library, where she helps researchers handle old manuscripts and editions.

Anne Boylan

• anboylan@iu.edu

Anne Boylan is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in Victorian literature with interests in gender, sexuality, and cultural studies. She is currently working on a dissertation on manifestations of liberal gender ideology in Victorian literature and its persistence in Western neoliberal feminism. She is currently managing editor of Victorian Studies and has worked as manuscript assistant at the Lilly Library since 2018. She received a B.A. from Bard College in 2013 and before coming to IU she was marketing manager for Boston Review.

Martha Clare Brinkman

• mcbrinkm@iu.edu

Clare Brinkman is an English Literature PhD student. She focuses primarily on Victorian Literature, with a particular interest in the poetry of Robert Browning. Her general interests include religion, morality, and feminist criticism. Prior to attending IU, she earned her BA in English, with minors in Creative Writing and Medieval/Early Modern Studies, from Florida Gulf Coast University and her MA in English from the University of Denver.

Hrishita Chatterjee

• hchatte@iu.edu

Hrishita is a Literature PhD student with contemporary autobiographical studies as her prime focus. She is interested in mapping how transgender identities are shaped through social performances and visible spaces (like pride walks and nightclubs) that are reflected in the autobiographies that they write. She delves into the cultural spectrum of "desire" and the rudiments of "life-worlds" of the transgender communities and in the grand scheme of her research would want to make a paradigm shift from mainstream autobiographies and probe into the undocumented life narratives of the subaltern queer. Before joining Indiana University, Bloomington, Hrishita completed her B.A in English from Lady Brabourne College in Kolkata, India and her M.A in Literatures in English from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Hrishita is an Associate Instructor of Composition at IU, Bloomington and is an ardent reader of postcolonial literature of the Indian diaspora. Some of her favorite authors are Jhumpa Lahiri, Ania Loomba, Mahashweta Devi and Amrita Pritam. During her free time, Hrishita scribbles verses and poems on paper that she calls "artistic rants".

Sam Chirtel

• schirtel@iu.edu

Sam is an MA/PhD student, science fiction writer, and former biophyicist. His research will probably focus on late twentieth century and early twenty-first century British and American science fiction, particularly space-noir, the Singulatiy, and cosmic horror, but who can predict the future? He is also developing an interest in Victorian Spiritualism to round things out. Before coming to IU, Sam received a B.A. in Biophysics from The John Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The University of Colorado Boulder. A lifelong animal lover, Sam dreams about the giant squid, misses the moose in Colorado, and is the proud parent of a three-year-old American Bulldog named Panda Bear. 

• kyuncho@iu.edu

Kyung Cho is an early modernist and a Ph.D. student in Literature at IU. Before studying at IU, she earned her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Ewha Womans University in South Korea. Her primary research focuses on English Renaissance literature, with particular emphasis on themes related to race, postcolonialism, and body politics.  

Abby Clayton

• aclayto@iu.edu

Abby Clayton is a PhD student specializing in Victorian studies and nineteenth century transatlanticism. She is particularly interested in the formation, dissemination, and interrelation of British and American national and/or imperial identities during the nineteenth century She grounds her study of these cultural exchanges in the media, travel, and personal and public heritage practices of the period.

Thade Jude Correa

• tcorrea@iu.edu

My scholarly interests are centered on modern/contemporary poetry and poetics, with emphases on poetic thought, literature and cognition / embodiment, and the interrelationships among the arts and critical theory. I am also a writer--of poetry, primarily--and a musician and composer. A previous graduate of IU Bloomington (B.A. in English & music, 2006) as well as University of Chicago (M.A., 2010) and University of Notre Dame (M.F.A. in Creative Writing / Poetry, 2013), I taught English classes at IU Northwest in Gary in addition to private music lessons before returning to IUB's English Department in 2021.  

Raheem Elmore

• rtelmore@iu.edu

I am a dual Ph.D. student in the departments of English and African American and African Diaspora Studies. I specialize in African American Literature and 20 th   and 21 st   century American Literature. I received my B.A. in English: Pre-Education from the Ohio State University and my M.A. in English: Teaching from the University of Dayton. I am a former k-12 educator. My research is interested in examining relationships between and developments in multicultural and Black-centered educational models. I am interested in understanding how literature choices, pedagogical approaches, and literary interpretations influence the teaching and learning experiences of educators and students in the English and Language Arts classrooms at k-12 schools that implement culturally sustaining and multicultural   pedagogies.     

Zachary Engledow

• zacclift@iu.edu

Zachary Engledow is a native of Alabama where he received an Honors B.A. in English Literature from the University of Montevallo. While at Montevallo, he completed an Honors thesis exploring moments of beheading, penetration, and castration as queer, suggesting that the medieval romance is in itself a queer genre. He is a medievalist in the M.A./Ph.D. program and his research interests include: medieval romance, queer theory/history, and the relationship between modern queer identity and the medieval past. He is also interested in exploring Germanic and North Sea literature and culture in relation to queerness and transmission. 

Maggie Ephraim

• mephraim@iu.edu

Maggie Ephraim’s research focuses on women who resist gender roles and social convention in literature of the British Isles. She is an English Literature Ph.D. student  who earned her B.A. in English from DePauw University in 2021, where she also completed a minor in Ancient Greek. Maggie’s current research focuses on how stories change—or don’t change—through translation, time period, and adaption.  

Samuel Evola

• sevola@iu.edu

Samuel Evola is a PhD candidate studying English and cognitive science. He is broadly interested in the question of how narratives influence readers in the real world. His dissertation uses empirical methods typical of the social sciences to analyze the ways that character and plot are negotiated by readers of Victorian multiplot fiction. Other projects include examining the role of foreshadowing in shaping the reading experience and investigating how readers consider multiple, incompatible possibilities while reading. A former high school teacher, he has an abiding interest in curriculum and pedagogy, especially interdisciplinary approaches and those that situate the unique contributions of the humanities within a broader educational context.

Renissa Gannie

• rrgannie@iu.edu

Renissa R. Gannie is pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature at Indiana University with a minor in History. She focuses on the question of how postcolonial countries read and study British Literature. She is interested in 18th and 19th century British Literature and Caribbean Literature, particularly the works of Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Mary Davies, Eliza Haywood, Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Samuel Selvon, Jamaica Kincaid, and Edgar Mittelholzer. Renissa received her BA in English Literature and distinction in History from the University of Denver. She received her MA in English Literature from the University of Denver, where she focused on Native American Studies.

Maggie Gilchrist

• magilch@iu.edu

Maggie Gilchrist is a PhD student specializing in late medieval literature. Her work primarily deals with representations of death and the (un)dead, especially with regards to the ways in which dead and dying bodies convey meaning to and for the living​. In addition, her research explores the corpse as a site for working through both personal and cultural traumas.  

Lindsay Gill

• lg8@iu.edu

Lindsay Gill is a PhD student in English and Medieval Literature. She has an MLitt from the University of St Andrews in Medieval English, after which she taught at Tougaloo College. She is interested in how language, literature, and material objects (such as manuscripts) develop out of cultural and historical forces across a dynamic space and time. Her research critically examines intersections and mutuality through feminist, post-colonial, and materialist theory. She likes long walks and a spontaneous road trip. 

• tjgiven@iu.edu

Tess J Given is a PhD student of English literature and associate composition instructor. They graduated Grinnell College with a BA in Biology and English, and have a MA from the University of Kentucky in English. They focus on cyborg studies of the transatlantic eighteenth century and contemporary SF genre, focusing on reproduction and futurity through the lens of queer theory, new materialisms, and trans- and post-humanisms. They try to bridge contemporary theoretical conversations with texts across their archive, and with their pedagogical practice.  

• gunnhe@iu.edu

Helen Gunn is an English PhD student specializing in modern drama. Her interests include theories of temporality, language, and trauma, along with playwrights such as Beckett and Churchill. Before attending IU, she earned her BA from Rice University and her MA from Boston College.  

• zlhenry@iu.edu

Zoë Henry is a Bloomington-based writer and literary critic. Her first book, "The Public Interior: Modernism, Theatricality, and Interracial Aesthetics," desegregates the landscape of modernist studies by reevaluating narrative form in texts by interracial women writers. It argues that women negotiated visibility in the twentieth-century city by using its resources as a metaphorical stage play to remain “private in public.” From the fin de siècle to the incipient Civil Rights Movement, the novels, poems, and performances surveyed reflect the emergence of women in public space, where new forms of waged labor and increasing sexual freedoms came coupled with risks. Women thus turned the city’s presumed open and collective dimensions into a private landscape in the service of liberation. Other academic work has appeared or is forthcoming in the journals Modernism/Modernity , Feminist Modernist Studies , The Modernist Review , Virginia Woolf Miscellany , and the edited collections Teaching James Joyce in the 21st Century and The Routledge Companion to Virginia Woolf . Her journalism has appeared in Slate , HuffPost , Business Insider , and Inc. magazine, among other national publications. She is currently a PhD candidate (ABD) in English Literature at Indiana University, where she received her MA in 2020. She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Creative Writing from Brown University.

• milohick@iu.edu

Milo Murphy Hicks is a PhD candidate in English, with a minor in Cognitive Science, who studies 20th and 21st century writing that exists at the limits of genre. Their master’s work at McGill University was in British modernism but has recently shifted to a Post45 American context with the stories of Diane Williams and other writers influenced by Gordon Lish. Milo's research is informed by the phenomenology of reading; consciousness, affect, perception, and sensation; philosophies of mind, language, and embodiment; the unit of the sentence in short stories; as well as formal experimentation.​ Milo is also part of Fritz Breithaupt's Experimental Humanities Lab.

Benjamin Hiskes

• bhiskes@iu.edu

Ben Hiskes is a joint PhD student in English literature and Cognitive Science. His research focuses on the seventeenth century, particularly on wonder as both a historical concept and cognitive process. Currently, he is trying to connect renaissance poetry and modern models of creativity and curiosity to come to ecological and historically-relevant understandings of the processes of discovery and invention. He is part of the Experimental Humanities Lab at Indiana University, where he conducts research on the psychology of narrative.  

Benjamin Hoover

• bhhoover@iu.edu

Ben comes to the English PhD program from Southern California, where he received his MA from California State University, Long Beach and his BA from the University of California, Riverside. He works on medieval English and Scottish literature with particular focuses on chivalric romances, Chaucer, outlaw narratives and how some or all of these intersect with notions of masculinity, violence, and theories of space and place.  

• dki2@iu.edu

Daeun Kim is a Ph.D. student in English at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests lie in British Romanticism poetry and contemporary comics and graphic novels. She focuses on comprehending Romantic literature from postsecular and feminist theological perspectives. She is also searching for human and nonhuman solidarity Romantic writers imagine by recognizing mutual recognition and interdependence of marginalized beings on earth, in which she finds a space for new materialistic thinking. For South Korea’s newspaper Women’s News, Daeun writes monthly feminist critiques of Korean women artists’ webtoons (online comics) on various topics, including woman labor, domestic violence, lesbian desire, religion, colonialism, veganism, and more.

Hoi Na Stephanie Kung

• hkung@indiana.edu

My research examines the intersections between embodiment and citizenship in twentieth-century century African American and Asian American literature. Drawing upon affect theory, theory of the senses and critical race theory, I investigate the ways in which embodied subjects maintain desire, attachment, and sense of belonging to the national body-politic in the face of ongoing material, political, and psychic exclusion. I am also interested in considering alternative models of citizenship that do not deny and disavow embodied existence, but turn to embodied acts as contestations of exclusion. My research also asks after the political significance of American ethnic texts beyond their representative value. To this end, I attend to ethnic texts with modernist and postmodernist aesthetics in order to explore how the materiality of sights and sounds of a text can express political agency and resistance.

• rlally@iu.edu

I am a Literature M.A./Ph.D. student with a B.A. in English from Samford University. My research interests include genre conventions in twentieth century American poetry, with a particular focus on odes. Prior to enrolling at IU, I was a Writing Coach and developmental English lab instructor at Southern Union State Community College in Opelika, Alabama.  

Yi-Chen Andrea Lay

• yilay@iu.edu

Yi-Chen Andrea Lay is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature with a minor in Victorian Studies. As a Victorianist, she is primarily interested in material culture, the British Empire, formation of national and imperial identities, and gender. Her dissertation project, engaging with food studies and scholarship on the embodied British Empire, explores late-nineteenth-century imaginations of the imperial body through the lens of alimentary practices. Prior to studying at IU, she received a B.A. and an M.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures from National Taiwan University.  

• hble@indiana.edu

I focus primarily on 16th and 17th century British drama and poetry, with emphasis on texts that deal with intersecting issues of colonialism, race, gender/sexuality, subjecthood, power, and agency. I am also interested in pop culture Shakespeare and theories of adaptation, cultural commodities, performance, and visual culture.

• ejleake@iu.edu

Evan Leake is a PhD student specializing in nineteenth century American literature. He is specifically interested in how war narratives contribute to discourses of national identity, democratic unity, and historical progress, as well as how mass media and visual technologies influence literary representation. His broader interests include cultures of imperialism, postcolonialism, and archival research. Prior to attending IU, Evan graduated from West Point and served as an air and missile defense officer in the U.S. Army.

• jle30@iu.edu

Hoon Lee is a PhD student and Associate Instructor in English at Indiana University Bloomington. His focus is post-45 American poetry, popular music, sound studies, and critical theory. He is specifically interested in how poetry and music can enact world-building that goes out of sync with the world we are living in and its spatial and temporal confinements, essentially through the heard performances as well as written figures of sound. He holds a BA in English Education and an MA in English Literature, both from Seoul National University.

Rebekah Lippens

• rlippens@iu.edu

Rebekah Lippens is a medievalist interested in women's religious texts, hagiography, and medical writings. She also works on late medieval manuscript culture. Before coming to IU, she received an MPhil in medieval literature from the University of Cambridge and a BA in English and Religious Studies from the University of Chicago.

• sarloy@iu.edu

Sara Loy is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature with a minor in Rhetoric/Composition. A Victorianist, her dissertation is tentatively titled, “Practice Imperfect: Agential Repetition in the Golden Age of Children’s Literature” and examines the ways in which nineteenth-century childhood agency was figured as an ongoing, constitutive act. In her time at Indiana University, she has been Book Review Editor for Victorian Studies and an associate instructor of composition. Further interests include vampires and popular culture, writing pedagogy, and feminist theory.  

John Manley

• jomanley@iu.edu

I'm a doctoral candidate in English at IU-Bloomington. Though my studies primarily center on modern/contemporary poetry and poetics, I also read and write about the relationship between rhetoric and critical theory, the history of Anglo-American philosophy, and narratology.  Before arriving at IU, I took an MA in English Literature at Marquette University (2015). My hobbies include long walks in the snow, unnecessarily complex board games, and pick-up hockey.  

Carolyn Marino

• capmarin@iu.edu

Carolyn Marino is an English Literature M.A./Ph.D. student and the 2020-2021 Renaissance Studies fellow. Prior to attending IU Bloomington, she earned her B.A. in English Literary Studies with a minor in Religious Studies from Bucknell University. Her undergraduate honors thesis explored the conditions for martyrdom exacted through “self-homicide” in John Donne’s Biathanatos . Her primary research interests include metaphysical poetry, early modern drama, and religious tracts and publications.  

Jesse Matlock

• jedmatlo@iu.edu

Jesse Matlock is a Literature PhD student with a primary interest in metafiction. He earned his BA in English from Henderson State University and his MA in English from Arkansas State University. In addition to teaching First Year Composition at A-State, he served as editor for, and contributed to, the latest (3rd) edition of A-State's First Year Composition text, and worked as an embedded writing tutor for the College of Engineering. His MA thesis concentrates on metafiction as a rhetorical narrative technique, analyzing its use across the mediums of literature, comic books/graphic novels, drama, and film. His PhD studies continue in the area of metafiction, toward an ontology informed by metafiction's metaphysical implications. He is also told by his wife that he buys too many comic books. 

Chris Mendez

• cjmendez@iu.edu

I am a Literature M.A./ PhD student minoring in Gender Studies. I received my BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018. My research interests include Latinx literature, queer theory, and media studies. I study depictions of urban space, gentrification, and displacement in US Latinx literature, film, and television. I am interested in how Latinx authors manage displacement for Latinx subjects by using the formal elements of the text to create a groundedness of space and self.

Robert Metaxatos

• rmetaxa@iu.edu

Robert Metaxatos is an MA/PhD student whose scholarship works to develop connections between contemporary Anglophone literature and biopolitical theory. His interests in this area span the neoliberal politics of Empire; the socio-historical construction and maintenance of racial boundaries; medico-legal encounters of sex/gender transgressive people; and relations between technology, humans, and animals. Before coming to IU Robert completed a BA in English and Sociology at William & Mary, where he specialized in globalization and gendered work.  

• smier@indiana.edu

Sean Mier received his MA in English from University of Colorado-Boulder and is currently pursuing a PhD with emphases in Victorian literature and studies in the history of the book. His past work has considered the intersection of nineteenth-century print technologies and conventions with more embodied modes of communication, like handwriting. 

Grace Miller

• gvmiller@iu.edu

Grace Miller is a PhD student who studies contemporary English Literature, specifically through the theoretical lens of the posthuman. Before attending IU, she earned a BA in English and a BA in Economics with a focus on Behavioral Cognition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Grace’s scholarly interests can usually be found in the blurry intersection of narrative, culture, and digital media; her current research is grounded in the materiality of embodiment—especially as it intersects with narratives of belonging, both on- and off-line.  

Yuma Morooka

• ymorooka@iu.edu

Yuma Morooka is a PhD student focusing on twentieth-century African American literature. He is currently interested in the tension between James Baldwin's novel Another Country and sentimentality associated with Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and how this tension might also inform other African American authors' literary works in different ways. He holds a BA and MA in English and American Literature from Rikkyo University, Japan.

Lydia Nixon

• lydnixon@iu.edu

Lydia Nixon is a PhD student specializing in 20th-21st century American literature with a minor in Critical Race and Postcolonial Studies. Before coming to IU, she completed her BA at Morningside College, taught high school English in the US and English as a foreign language in Japan, and then earned her MA at Angelo State University. She studies ecologies and identity-making in the context of the Anthropocene, particularly looking at anti-colonial alternatives to mainstream American environmental literature and theory. Related interests include bioregionalism and place studies, Native American literature and Indigenous theory, speculative fiction, and environmental justice. 

Blake Overman

• blover@iu.edu

Blake is a PhD student in Literature specializing in Victorian literature. He obtained his BA in English Education (6-12) and MA in English from Wichita State University in Wichita, KS. He studies monster literature, typically texts that span the long nineteenth century. Through examining these works using intersecting theoretical lenses such as queer theory, affect theory, and narratology, he hopes to further interrogate what it means to be a monster; particularly how monsters might act as agents of empathy for the identities they represent. Adjacent interests include the grotesque and horror and giallo films of the 70s & 80s.  

Maddie Parker

• mp13@iu.edu

I am an M.A./PhD candidate and a fellow of Indiana University’s Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies.  While I focus primarily on the poetry and prose of the Romantic era, I am also interested in exploring how eighteenth-century events like the French Revolution shaped the ideologies of Europe’s literati.  This correlation between literature and political thought encourages my further interest in the expatriations of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European writers to the new milieu of early America.

Claire Patzner

• cpatzner@iu.edu

Claire Patzner is a literature MA/PhD from St. Paul, Minnesota. She received her BA in English from Cornell University. She is interested in comparative literature studies of 20th and 21st century ecopoetry. Her research interests also include investigating themes of "girl culture,” desire, and the climate crisis in transnational film and media.

Sarah Pedzinski

• spedzins@iu.edu

Sarah Pedzinski is a PhD candidate who studies dragons in early medieval literatures. Her dissertation focuses on dragons and natural histories in the Beowulf manuscript. Sarah is also a full-time Instructional Consultant at the IU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning where she helps faculty develop curricula that emphasize inclusive learning and student agency. 

Sarah Petras

• sgpetras@iu.edu

Sarah Petras is pursuing a dual master’s degree in English literature and Library Science with a focus on early modern women’s literature and manuscript culture. Her work primarily deals with representations of gender performativity, sexuality, and consent in the 16th and 17th centuries, and interrogates the intentional absence of marginalized voices in the archive. Using feminist, queer, and critical race theories in combination with the history of the book, she seeks to uncover the lives and stories told in the margins of preserved ephemera, and question what is or is not assigned value in the creation of special collections.  

Alp Eren Pirli

• alppirli@iu.edu

Alp Eren Pirli is an MA/PhD student specializing in nineteenth and early-twentieth century American prose fiction. He is interested in the boundaries of genre as defined by sociocultural, historical, and material contexts, as well as a range of authors from Horatio Alger Jr. to Edith Wharton. He holds a BA in English from Boğaziçi University, Turkey.  

Joshua Pontillo

• jpontill@iu.edu

Joshua Pontillo (he/him/his) is a fourth-year English PhD student studying the early medieval North Atlantic, particularly the languages and literatures of England, Ireland, and Iceland. He holds a BA in English and religious studies from UNC-Chapel Hill. His work engages with ecocriticism, especially regarding temporality and spatiality.  

Brian Pulverenti

• bpulvere@iu.edu

Brian Pulverenti is a M.A/Ph.D. student studying Victorian literature. He earned his MA in Classical Studies from the University of Notre Dame where he wrote his MA thesis entitled “Posthumanism in Odysseus’ Apologoi.” During his time there, he taught classes on both Latin and Ancient Greek. At Indiana University, his research considers Victorian reception of the classical world with a particular emphasis on the epic tradition more broadly. Currently, he is teaching “W170 - Talking Baseball,” a course he designed that teaches analytical reading and writing by examining representations of baseball in film, prose, and poetry.  

Joshua Rawleigh

• jrawleig@iu.edu

Joshua Rawleigh is a literature PhD student. He received his BA in History from Gordon College  and his MSt by Research from the University of Edinburgh. His research tends to focus on the intersection between religion and literature in the long nineteenth century. In particular, he has written and taught on the Scottish author George MacDonald, patristic theology, Tennyson’s poetics, and hermetic philosophy as ways to understand nineteenth-century British society’s complex relationship with the past. 

Mikaela Renshaw

• mrenshaw@iu.edu

Mikaela Renshaw is currently pursuing her PhD in English Language and Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is particularly interested in the qualities of kingship and heroism, particularly in the romance and epic genres. 

Nicole Rizzo

• nrizzo@iu.edu

Nicole Rizzo is a Ph.D. student focusing on 20th and 21st century American and British literature, modernism, and postmodern drama. Her research interests include trauma studies, disability studies, gender & sexuality studies, queer theory, critical race theory, and performance studies. While at IU, she earned an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. Minor in Gender Studies. She earned her B.A. in English with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Boston University and is an alumna of the Kilachand Honors College. Nicole is especially interested in the intersection of social activism and art as well as in how interdisciplinary collaboration can be generative for feminist discourse and action around social justice issues.  

Matthew Robinson

• mjr1@iu.edu

Matthew Robinson is a PhD student with interests in 20th-century American poetry. Particularly, he researches queer poets’ relationships to visual culture, transnational aesthetics, and the historical avant-garde.

Eric Rosenbaum

• esrosenb@indiana.edu

My research is in late 19th and early 20th century American literature. I am especially interested in the sociology of literature, or how literary genres target and help to cohere different kinds of social groups. Authors I focus on include Herman Melville, Maria Ruiz de Burton, William James, Frances E.W. Harper, Mark Twain, and Frank Norris.

Kate Rutherford

• kruther@iu.edu

Kate Rutherford is a PhD student primarily interested in 20th-century/contemporary science fiction and dystopian literature. Her other related interests include posthumanism and media studies. Kate holds a BA in English: Secondary Education with minors in History: Secondary Education, Theatre, and Global & International Studies from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI and a MA in English from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. During her undergraduate studies, Kate studied abroad at the University of Cambridge and Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. Outside of work and school, Kate enjoys travel, fashion, fitness, theatre, live music, and anything adventurous.  

Sushmita Samaddar

• ssamadd@iu.edu

Sushmita Samaddar is a PhD candidate in Literature specializing in Ecocriticism. Her research explores the production and manifestation of ecoanxiety and ecotrauma in postcolonial South Asian diaspora (human and nonhuman), and her inquiry approach is staunchly interdisciplinary. She holds an MA in Poetry and Poetics from the University of York, UK (2018) and a BSc (Hons) in Economics from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, India (2014). She is also a former Young India Fellow (2015). She currently serves as the Assistant Director of Composition.  

Sarah Schmitt

• sjschmit@iu.edu

Sarah J. Schmitt is a PhD student working on both seventeenth- and nineteenth-century literature. She is the current Assistant Book Review Editor at Victorian Studies. Before coming to IU, Sarah received her MA from Michigan State.  

Devan Schnecker

• dlschnec@iu.edu

Devan Schnecker is pursuing a PhD in English Literature here at Indiana University with a minor in Gender Studies. Her main area of focus is the British Romantic novel, but broadly she is interested in 18th and 19th century British Literature by and/or about women and women’s experience. She is particularly interested in the portrayal and exploration of gender and sexuality in such novels, along with related questions surrounding space, place, and embodiment within an 18th and 19th century framework of colonialism and imperialism. Before coming to IU, Devan received her BA in English Literature and Anthropology from the Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, and her MA in English Literature with a concentration in British and Irish Literary Cultural Studies from Florida State University.  

Ishita Sehgal

• isehgal@iu.edu

Ishita comes from Kanpur, India.She did her BA in English from Ashoka University,India and her MPhil in Gender Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. Her research interests lie in Graphic Novels, Visual Literature and Ekphrasis. She is particularly inquisitive about the gutters, blank spaces and how we form our identity and memory from these spaces. Her questions of displacement and belonging are deeply influenced by colors and narratives of the graphic literature. In her fun time, she likes to read, travel and is a trained Indian Classical Dancer.

Evan Sennett

• evjasenn@iu.edu

Evan Sennett specializes in nineteenth-century literature in the United States, with a special interest in the theme of place-making literature. He often uses twentieth-century nature writings as a way to envision dialogues across time. He is also a filmmaker, usually turning to Kentucky as a setting.

• kshy@iu.edu

I am an M.A./Ph.D. candidate focusing on 20th century British literature. Before coming to Bloomington, I completed a B.A. in English and Classics at Yale. Over the next few years, I am excited to spend time with modernist novels and realist novels, particularly exploring the depiction of domestic life, family relations, and women writers. 

Ellen Stenstrom

• ekstenst@iu.edu

Ellen Stenstrom is a Ph.D candidate focusing on Post-1945 literature. She earned her BA from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with double majors in Literature and Creative Writing and minors in Rhetoric and Education before coming to IU. Her general research interests include experimental fiction, medical humanities, classroom pedagogy, and narrative theory, extending more specifically into illness narratives, trauma theory, autofiction, and metafiction. She is also involved in the Experimental Humanities Lab and is serving as an Assistant Director of Composition. Ellen has published in OJELA and JMMLA with work forthcoming in the Journal of Narrative Theory .  

Kortney Stern

• ksstern@iu.edu

Kortney Stern ([email protected]) is a proud first-generation college student, pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature at Indiana University. Her academic career began at Diablo Valley Community College and has taken her to San Francisco State University (B.A. in English Literature) and Mills College (M.A. in English Literature). Currently, Kortney is working on a dissertation on sound and silence in which she argues that many characters found across late medieval texts have been deemed "silent" or "marginal" too quickly. By reading texts with our literary eyes and ears, Kortney argues that we can learn to hear the ways in which queer and female characters do, in fact, vocalize through "sonic expressions" of their own design, proving that even those on the supposed margins can make sonic utterances that carry and combat traditional and often exclusionary modes of linguistic meaning making and communication.

Jordan Strauch

• jdstrauc@iu.edu

Prior to coming to IU, Jordan received his BA in English from Sonoma State University. He is an MA/PhD student specializing in post-1945 American literature, particularly New Wave science fiction, through the theoretical lens of nonhuman alterity. He is interested in theories which investigate the construction of and relationships between the human, the nonhuman, and everything in between, such as posthumanism, thing theory, ecocriticism, and animal and monster studies. By reading science fictional novels, films, and performances through these lenses, his work aims to understand how the borders of the human and the other-than-human become contested ontological zones in precarious times and places. Jordan is also interested in emerging aesthetic categories which parody, disrupt, or otherwise problematize domestic senses of place such as analog horror, solarpunk, speculative ecologies, and liminal spaces.  

Emma Swidler

• eswidler@iu.edu

Emma Swidler is a Ph.D. candidate focusing on British literature of the long eighteenth century and its modern-day reception. She is particularly interested in Jane Austen and in considering Austen’s reception history as well as Austen's own historicist techniques. Emma is fascinated by the intersection of literature, narratives of British identity, and how women writers of the long C18 challenged ideas of Britishness. Before coming to IU, Emma received her B.A. in English at Lawrence University. 

Adrienne Thomas

• admiharr@iu.edu

Adrienne Thomas is an English Literature Ph.D. student. Before coming to this program, she received her BA in English, with minors in history and medieval/Renaissance studies, from Hanover College and her MA in English from Indiana University - Indianapolis. She is most interested in studying early modern English drama through New Historicist and Feminist/Gender Studies lenses.

Gregory Tolliver

• gretolli@iu.edu

Gregory Tolliver is a doctoral candidate in English Literature. His dissertation explores relationships between nature, "kynde," and sexuality in Late Middle English poetry. Gregory's research interests include courtly and devotional poetry, ecocriticism, literary space/time, and queer theory.

Colby Townsend

• colbtown@iu.edu

Colby is a dual PhD student in English and religious studies specializing in transatlantic literature and religion of the long eighteenth century. He received two honors BA degrees in comparative literature and religious studies from the University of Utah, an MA degree in history at Utah State University, and an MA in English at IU Bloomington. His work explores the development of biblical studies from the Early Modern Period to the present and the ways that the Bible, religion, politics, and society influence the production of new literature. He is deeply interested in the ways that readers engage with their texts as material objects. This has led him to analyze the texts of early American religious groups, like Mormonism, in the context of the development of the critical study of the Bible, the development of the novel, and the print culture of the long eighteenth century in both Great Britain and North America.  

Laura Tscherry

• tscherry@iu.edu

Laura Tscherry is a PhD Candidate in English literature with a minor in Cultural Studies/Art History. Their research examines representations of communal spaces in modernist and mid-century novels. Specifically, they are interested in what happens to the intimacy and privacy of the home space when it becomes the site of not-quite-intentional collectivity, as well as in the strategies that people build to endure the difficulty, even horror, of human interrelation in communal spaces.  In addition to their undergraduate teaching, they also serve as Assistant Director of Composition.

Megan Vinson

• mevinson@iu.edu

I am a PhD candidate in early modern literature. My dissertation project looks at representations of women in major writers of the period and explores how they are embedded in concepts of female choice. My project is also interested in the intersection between temporal and material entanglement, and how the two are enmeshed with early modern representations of female desire.  I have a book review of Melissa Sanchez's Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition in the Sixteenth Century Journal. I also have an article on William Harvey & queer birds under review with the Ben Jonson Journal.  Additionally, I teach a first-year writing course and tutor a mix of undergraduates and graduates at IU's writing center.  When not teaching or writing, I love hiking with my dogs, reading Stephen King books and playing a lot of video games.

Erin Walden

• erwalden@iu.edu

Erin Walden is an MA/MLS student interested in Victorian poetry, queer theory, excess, and the temporal changes that accompanied industrialization. She also looks at how the works (especially letters and zines) of marginalized writers have been (self-)published, distributed, and preserved. Previously, Erin studied Biochemistry and English at Brown University.  

Denny Weisz

• daweisz@iu.edu

Denny specializes in mid-late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century American fiction. Their interests include elocution and voice culture, particularly as these relate to racialized and gendered embodiment; discourses of orthography, typography, and dialect; and textual depictions of speech and language disorders and disfunction. They are currently Assistant Managing Editor for the journal Victorian Studies.

Caylin Wigger

• cmwigger@iu.edu

Caylin is in the English Literature and Library Science Dual Master's Program. They are originally from Evansville, IN, but spent the last three years in Roanoke, VA completing their undergraduate degree in English. Caylin intends to complete a specialization in Archives and Records Management as part of their MLS, and wants to complete further study on multicultural female writers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Benjamin Yusen

• byusen@iu.edu

Ben is a PhD. student studying early medieval Northern European Literature. His work focuses on pre-Christian culture, folklore, and myths of England, Ireland, and Scandinavia. He is also interested in the movement of culture through media, particularly that of medievalism in contemporary Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres. He received BA.s in English and Creative Writing, and Religious Studies from University of Iowa in 2021, and an MA. in English Literature from Western Michigan University in 2023.

Rhetoric Graduate Students

Montgomery Quaid Adams

• mqadams@iu.edu

Quaid Adams is a PhD student of Rhetoric and Composition and is also pursuing an MA in Folklore and Ethnomusicology here at IUB. He received his BA in Secondary English Education and Folklore/Mythology from the University of Kentucky, and an MA in English from the University of Louisville. His research interests lie at the intersection of Rhetoric and Folklore concentrating on “otherness,” ethnography, and the role legend plays in our construction of time/space and our relationship to the world around us. Along these same lines, Quaid is also interested in Composition Studies and how ethnography and folklore can be used as an incredibly impactful resource within the writing classroom, particularly in first year writing courses.  

• anlcarl@iu.edu

AC Carlson is a Ph.D. student in Rhetoric. Before coming to IU, they earned a BA in English, a BA in Theatre, and an MA in English Literature from Northern Arizona University. AC's scholarly interests can be found at the complex intersection of rhetoric, media, and culture. Pedagogically, AC is interested in multi-modal composition and gamification in the classroom. Their current work focuses on discourses around outer space and how imaginings of the future shape practices. AC has previously examined questions of circulation in media ecologies, and they have a creative as well as academic interest in podcasting and audio fiction. When they are not working, AC enjoys video games, looking at trees, and playing with their cat, Geoff.  

Sarah Fischer

• samafisc@iu.edu

Sarah is interested in the study of writing as a general field of research, with fundamental interests in better understanding how writing works, how writing is taught, and how both are systemized in academia (from writing programs to writing centers to institutional writing expectations/standards). But at the root of her interest is a focus on the materiality of people—our physical bodies, our constructed identities, our lived experiences, and our ever-changing environments. She believes the study of embodied writing processes necessitates an ethics of inclusivity, which accounts for as many ways of knowing, sensing, and being as possible. When she is not working, she enjoys eating dessert, watching reality TV, and making art.

Kaylie Fougerousse

• kefouger@iu.edu

Kaylie Fougerousse (foo-jeh-roo) is an English PhD student and associate instructor studying the psychology of language and communication in rhetoric and composition studies. Her current scholarship focuses on the intersectionality of abstractions, class studies, intellectual history, compromise aesthetics, and decolonial rhetoric in the United States. In her teaching and research, she explores the potential of rhetorical sovereignty, the evolution of culturally-responsive pedagogy, the colonial politics of recognition, and the transformative power inherent in all the “scapes” (landscapes, mindscapes, dreamscapes, songscapes, namescapes, etc.).  

Millie Hizer

• amhizer@iu.edu

Millie Hizer is a PhD Candidate in English specializing in rhetoric and composition. Her research and teaching are situated at the intersection of disability studies, rhetorical theory, writing studies pedagogy, and community literacy. Hizer’s dissertation examines how disabled students and faculty in higher education navigate academic ableism through embodied, rhetorical tactics of resistance. She has published her writing in The Community Literacy Journal , enculturation: a journal of rhetoric, writing, and culture , The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics , and Spark: A4C4 Equality Journal . She is also the winner of the 2021 Virginia La Follette Gunderson Rhetoric Award, the Fall 2023 Culbertson Dissertation Fellowship, and has been designated as a 2023-2024 endowed scholar by the International Chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood. Her work has also been featured on disciplinary podcasts such as Tell me More! and Pedagogue . As a scholar, teacher, and writer center tutor committed to principles of Disability Justice, Millie centers disability storytelling in both her research and pedagogy.

Eryn Johnson

• erynjohn@iu.edu

Eryn is a PhD student studying rhetoric and composition. She came to IU with a background in literary studies and communication studies. Eryn’s current research interests include the intersection of rhetoric and ethics as it comes to bear upon the narrative paradigm (and vice versa) and the role that ethics plays in rhetoric as a teaching tradition. ​ 

• ctkuehn@iu.edu

Chad comes to Indiana University from St. Cloud State University in central Minnesota where he earned M.A. degrees in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), and in Writing Studies and Rhetoric, and where he taught as an adjunct in the English for Academic Purposes program. Chad is currently an English PhD student with a concentration in Rhetoric. He is interested in discourses of privilege and how they shape agency in hegemonic relationships. He aspires to effect change in how all parties more generously engage in conversations of privilege, and its dismantling.  

Sarah Lawler

• salawler@iu.edu

Sarah Lawler is a PhD student of English in rhetoric and an associate instructor for speech and composition. She graduated with a BA in English Education from the University of North Dakota in 2014; in 2021, she received an MA in English with a Literacy and Rhetorical Studies minor from the University of Minnesota Duluth. In the years between these degrees, she taught English language arts in middle and secondary school settings. As a scholar and researcher, she is interested in environmental rhetoric, especially as it pertains to land equity and land-use ethics. In “Field Mice,” one of her recent publications by ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature and Environment , she explores the perniciousness of modern agribusiness as extensions of colonialism and capitalism. Currently, her work considers rhetorical ecologies of climate justice for human and more-than-human communities displaced by the climate crisis.

Benjamin Luczak

• bluczak@iu.edu

Benjamin Luczak is a Rhetoric PhD student whose scholarly interests include the rhetoric of space and public memory as well as theories of the public sphere. He received an MA in English with a composition emphasis from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis.

Peyton Lunzer

• pllunzer@iu.edu

Peyton is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric interested in life writing, ecocomposition, and blended scholarship. Her dissertation, “Stories We Call Home,” uses ecological thinking and life writing practices to build pedagogy grounded in personal stories. She teaches classes about place, wilderness, climate writing, identity, and global stories. Peyton currently lives in Laramie, Wyoming.  

Chaim McNamee

• mcnameek@iu.edu

Chaim (he/him and they/them) is a PhD student in rhetoric with a minor in religious studies. His broad areas of interest include critical animal studies, new materialism(s), and Jewish rhetorics. Any time not occupied with working, teaching, and cooking is spent tattooing out of his home studio.

Jason Michálek

• jasomich@iu.edu

Jason Michálek entered IU’s doctoral program in rhetoric in the fall of 2018. His research interests have been historically broad with a BA in English language & literature and linguistics from Grand Valley State University, and an MA in American Studies from The George Washington University. His dissertation project takes up a local controversy concerning transient residents without residence as a foundation for troubling rhetorics of belonging and alienation.

S. Fain Riopelle

• sriopell@iu.edu

Fain Riopelle is a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric path, coming from an English M.A. program at the University of Virginia, and before that from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. His research focuses on cognitive theories of composition and the implications of such theories for the ways we teach writing, especially at the first-year college level. He is particularly interested in the dispositions and habits of mind that students bring to the writing process, and in bringing the research of cognitive science to bear on the matter of how students think about what writing is and how it works. Also, his last name is pronounced "Ree-oh-pell." 

Laura Rosche

• lrosche@iu.edu

Laura Rosche is a PhD candidate in English, with a concentration in Rhetoric. Her dissertation examines the rhetorical strategies women use when narrativizing their experiences as survivors of sexual violation. By prioritizing diverse female voices, Rosche's research focuses broadly on the enactment of feminist ethos, the development of rhetorical listening skills, and the theorization of empathetic communicative practices. Other interests include composition pedagogies, digital rhetorics, and autobiographical rhetorics.

Kelsey Taylor

• krt3@iu.edu

Kelsey Taylor is a PhD student in Rhetoric. She received her M.A. in English Literature from the University of Georgia. Her research interests lie within rhetorical economies, particularly how class and labor work within a neoliberal, late capitalist society. She is also interested in how contemporary literature portrays and is constructed by such paradigms.  

Joseph Vuletich

• jvuleti@iu.edu

Joseph Vuletich is a PhD student in English, focusing on the rhetoric of science and technology. His research examines how positionality shapes our perceptions of what counts as knowledge and who counts as knowers. At least that’s what he’s telling himself for the moment. He’s also interested in humor, affect, and first-person narrative (even when he writes in the third person;) as technê in the rhetorical sense – techniques for crafting relationships. When he’s not busy playing with words and encouraging students to do likewise, he enjoys walking, hiking, and playing at the park with his wife and son.

M.F.A. Graduate Students

• jacjandr@iu.edu

JC Andrews is a poet from Springfield, Arkansas with an interest in poems that work as an un-ing, poems that hold questions as a form of caretaking. She was awarded the Florence Kahn Memorial Award in 2020 by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, which resulted in the publication of her chapbook Sweetwork, and her work can be found in Gulf Coast, New Ohio Review, Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere.

• nboals@iu.edu

Nina Boals is a first-year M.F.A. candidate in poetry from Sun Prairie, WI. She received her B.A. in English and social welfare with a certificate in environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was poetry editor of The Madison Review . She was a finalist for the 2022 Palette Emerging Poet Prize. In her writing, she is searching for a language of compassion to explore mental health and complex family dynamics.

Carolena Fernandez Brazfield

• cibrazfi@iu.edu

Carolena Fernandez Brazfield is a queer Latina poet who calls many places home, though she admittedly feels most homesick for Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2023, she received her BA in Professional and Creative Writing from Goucher College, where she was a Kratz Fellowship Recipient, studied as a Visiting Student at the University of Oxford, and served as Poetry Editor for Preface Literary Magazine . She writes mostly about women: friendship, romance, humor, legacy, violence, resistance, power, fetishization, spiders killing their mates, and the universal language of joyful and protective gossip.

Carlos Contreras

• cafacont@iu.edu

Carlos Contreras is non-binary, Guatemalan, and an MFA candidate in fiction from Texas. They are the lead fiction editor of Alien Magazine and read prose for Chestnut Review . Their writing explores ideas of identity, helplessness, and how people and places transform over time. Their work lives at the intersection between the ordinary human condition and surreal, imaginative circumstances, heightening reality to show how absurd our lives already are. Their work can be found in The Lumiere Review, Complete Sentence, Passages North , and elsewhere. When not writing, Carlos is almost certainly in a movie theater. 

Genevieve De Gange

• gdegange@iu.edu

Genevieve De Gange is an MFA fiction writer from Temecula, California. She earned her BA degree in Creative Writing and French Literature from The University of Chicago and won UChicago's 2021 Les Rivers Fellowship. Her work currently explores fragmentation, placelessness, and unfeminine, pre-feminine, and reimagined female realities.  

• ezraxfox@iu.edu

Ezra Fox is an M.F.A. candidate in poetry. In their writing, Ezra is curious about “impermanence,” and “non-duality,” specifically, how it pertains to their subjects of lineage, queerness, and spirituality. Ezra’s poems are in or forthcoming in Poiesis , Glassworks Magazine , Sagebrush Review , Slipstream Press , and elsewhere. Apart from writing, Ezra is in the daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: doing cartwheels, jumping rope, and sharing tea with the beloveds they have been lucky enough to come to know.

Kourtney Jones

• joneskou@iu.edu

Kourtney Jones is a poet and artist from Fort Wayne, Indiana. They graduated from Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne in 2015 with a B.A. in Linguistics, a minor in Women’s Studies, and a Teaching English as a Second Language certificate. Kourtney has taught English both in and outside of the States. She can be found typing in public spaces from a typewriter with her performance poetry project known as The Poem Market. Kourtney is the author of the poetry chapbook The Mug Drops . Her current work explores the intersections of languages and dreams, the transmission between the dead and the living, and poetry as a practice for collective liberation.

• yaekwon@iu.edu

Yaerim Gen Kwon is a prose writer from Seoul, South Korea. She currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana, where she teaches and studies fiction at Indiana University and serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Indiana Review 2023-24. Her short story won first prize for Literature in 2022 and her novel chapter received the Hegarty Award in 2023 from the National Society of Arts & Letters Competition. She received scholarships and fellowships from AWP, Carleton College, Indiana University, and New York State Summer Writers Institute. Visit yaerimgenkwon.com for more information.

William D. Landau

• rebeland@iu.edu

William D. Landau is an MFA student in poetry from Berkeley, California. They received their BA in Gender Studies from Columbia University. Their work has appeared in Diabolical Plots , Sinister Wisdom ,   and Hanging Loose Press. Their work touches on topics including gender, magic, the Anthropocene, Judaism, and bacon. In their free time they enjoy baking, swimming, reading, and attending to their cats' every whim. 

• wl48@iu.edu

Wenxi Li is an MFA candidate in Fiction from Sichuan, China. She received her B.A. in English from Fudan University in Shanghai, China. In her writing she likes to experiment with genres and languages, to see how form and content might crash into each other in unexpected ways within the space of one coherent piece of writing. In her free time she enjoys walking, biking, and swimming in lakes.

• limang@iu.edu

Angela Lim is an MFA candidate in poetry. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2019 with degrees in English and Neuroscience & Behavior. Originally from Columbia, Missouri, she worked in publishing in the Twin Cities area as an editor and writer for juvenile nonfiction books. Her recent poems have played with the flow of time or focused on the transitional space between voice and being. 

• jesumill@iu.edu

Jess Masi is a Two-Spirit storyteller, farmer, and futurist from Indianapolis, IN. They are a second year MFA candidate in Fiction, but often find their work transcending the taxonomies of genre and form. Their stories are interested in metamorphosis and the creation of ambiguous utopias, indigenous futurisms, and systems of transformative and restorative justice. Their work is rooted to and in relation to the soil and plants and mycelial canals that connect us all. They are a wandering hobbyist with a current focus on amateur foraging, and are still on the hunt for the elusive pawpaw fruit. They serve as the fiction editor for Indiana Review . They are an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

• dp44@iu.edu

David Park is an MFA candidate in poetry. He received his bachelor's in English at the University of Puget Sound with an emphasis in creative writing. Born in Korea and raised in Hawaii, his work is invested in the legacy of the Korean war, diaspora studies, postmemory, and trauma theory. A film he enjoys is Monty Python and the Holy Grail . 

Tyler Patton

• typatt@iu.edu

Tyler Patton is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 2012 and then lived in San Francisco for ten years. His work explores the insufficiencies of identity and identity politics. You'll probably see him biking around town.

Natalya Pomeroy

• natpomer@iu.edu

Natalya Pomeroy is an MFA candidate in fiction. Originally from Texas, she earned her BA in English - Creative Writing at the University of Houston. She is interested in fantastical elements and speculative work, worldbuilding through mannerisms and aesthetics, and bicultural characters. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Space City Underground , Houston History Magazine , and Study Breaks Online . When she isn't writing, she is probably gardening or taking care of her two black cats with her partner. 

Pete Prokesch

• pprokes@iu.edu

Pete Prokesch is a writer from the Boston area. His fiction has appeared in Four Way Review, Evergreen Review, Soundings East , and  TINGE Magazine , among others. He has received support from Mass Cultural Council, reads for Epiphany and Indiana Review , and holds a MS in Ecological Teaching and Learning and a BA in English. Before arriving in Bloomington, he worked in construction as a carpenter and taught green-building training courses. 

Danielle Richardson

• dansrich@iu.edu

Danielle Richardson is an MFA candidate in Fiction at IU Bloomington. She was born and raised in the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin and earned her BA in English (Creative Writing) with a minor in Film Studies from Florida State University. Her writing typically uses magical realism to explore matriarchy and Black girlhood.

Teja Sudhakar

• tsudhak@iu.edu

Teja Sudhakar is a first year MFA candidate in Poetry. She was born in Chennai, India, but lived in Lexington, Kentucky for the majority of her life. Teja earned their B.A. degrees in Psychology and Gender & Women’s Studies from the University of Kentucky. In her creative work, Teja explores diaspora, belonging, intergenerational womanhood, homemaking, and faith. She is the author of the chapbook Looking for Smoke , a collection of docupoetry entailing the experiences of first-generation immigrant women living in Kentucky. When they are not writing, Teja enjoys making Spotify playlists, calling her friends back home, and attempting to invent recipes.

Dereka Thomas

• djt4@iu.edu

Dereka Thomas is a queer Black writer from Fairburn, Georgia. She is currently earning both her MFA in Creative Fiction Writing and her MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University at Bloomington. Prior to this, she completed her Bachelor of Arts in English: Creative Writing at Colorado College. In her writing, Dereka enjoys exploring the nuances of the Black experience as it relates to gender, sexuality, religion, and romance. Dereka has previously been published in Nectar Poetry, You Might Need To Hear This, Silver Rose Magazine, and Midwest Review. Dereka is the winner of the 2021 JuxtaProse Fiction contest and a finalist in the 2022 Hemingway Shorts Contest. Dereka is also a Hurston/Wright Fellow and an Anaphora Fellow.

Santiago Valencia

• svalenc@iu.edu

Santiago Valencia is a Mexican poet, editor, and spiritual worker. They received a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Reed College, where their poetry was recognized by the Academy of American Poets. Their work develops a poetics of ritual and gnosis to explore queer embodiment, fractured ancestries, faith and mysticism, soul loss and retrieval, dreams, and death. They believe language is an alchemical tool for connecting with the sacred all around and within us, and for recovering lost enchantment. A Tin House Workshop and SAFTA alum, Santi is an Editor-at-Large for Nightboat Books.  

Bernardo Wade

• wadeb@iu.edu

Bernardo Wade is a writer/artist from New Orleans. He holds BAs in English and Philosophy from the University of New Orleans. He currently serves as Associate Editor of Indiana Review , is a Watering Hole Fellow, and moonlights as an equity and justice advocate. He has words in or forthcoming in Crazyhorse , Black Warrior Review , Hayden’s Ferry Review , New Orleans Review , Southern Humanities Review , Salt Hill Journal , Yemassee , the minnesota review , and others. 

Eszi Waters

• sarwater@ius.edu

Eszi Waters is a writer and artist from southern Indiana. They are currently a second-year candidate in the MFA Poetry program. Their poetry and nonfiction projects are concerned with the inevitable collisions and echoes between the natural world and our interior lives, fragmentation, loss, lineage, and memory. They are also interested in satire, irony, and the supernatural in their work. Eszi's small-run chapbook, They Offer You a Name Then Take It From You , was published by a small local press. Their chapbook-length poem, woman's voice absent , was published by alla testa press, in Louisville, KY. Eszi's work can be found at Cathexis Northwest Press, Limestone Post, and elsewhere. Eszi is a parent of a fourth grader, and they live in a little yellow house.

• yuci@iu.edu

Cindy Yu is an M.F.A. candidate in fiction. She was born and raised in Texas but has spent most of her adult life on the west coast. She studied computer science, earth systems, and creative writing at Stanford University. In her stories, she is drawn to topics related to family, class, and alternative ways of knowing. In her free time, she enjoys visiting urban green spaces and spending time with her dog Maya.

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All international students must demonstrate English proficiency for admission into Indiana University Indianapolis (IUI) graduate and professional programs.  Non-native English speaking domestic applicants may also be required to complete standardized testing dependent on their English proficiency.

There are many different ways to demonstrate your English proficiency to meet our graduate or professional admission requirements. Please make careful note of the minimum requirements for IU graduate programs shown below. Additionally, some graduate programs only accept the TOEFL, and some may require a score higher than the minimum campus standard. Verify this information with your program before selecting an alternative to the TOEFL. 

Minimum Requirements for Admission for IU Programs

*All English proficiency exams must be submitted before admissions. Once a student is admitted, English proficiency exams or updated scores will not be accepted.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

Students who are admitted with TOEFL iBT of 79-99 or IELTS of 6.5-7.0 will be required to take the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) placement test.

*Please note, students admitted with an online English Proficiency exam, Duolingo (DET) , IELTS Indicator ,  TOEFL iBT Home Edition , or  TOEFL Essentials will also be required to take the EAP placement test in all cases. Depending on your EAP test results, you may need to take EAP courses at the same time as your academic major courses for one or two semesters. Your letter of admission will indicate if you are required to take this test.

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IUPUI’s graduate English program has been designed to prepare students for careers in the analysis and production of “texts.” To this end, the program covers issues and skills in reading and writing, in the richest sense of these words, to prepare students to address these issues and to teach these skills. Graduates of the program should be prepared for such careers as teaching writing and literature; teaching English as a second language; and writing for business, government, and other professions.

In contrast to traditional Master of Arts programs, which place heavy emphasis on literary history, the IUPUI Master of Arts in English focuses on the application of English studies to contemporary situations and problems.  Because of IUPUI’s urban, nonresidential setting, its English graduate program will strive, in its curriculum and scheduling, to meet the special needs of part-time, nonresidential students.

Student Learning Outcomes

In contrast to traditional M.A. programs, which place heavy emphasis on literary history, the IUPUI program focuses on the application of English studies to contemporary situations and problems. Students completing the English M.A. curriculum will be able to:

• Identify and define   fundamental concepts, terms, and theories in two areas of graduate-level English studies (writing, creative writing, literature, linguistics).
• Critically read ,   write   about, and   evaluate   issues in English Studies.
• Demonstrate   advanced skills in reading, writing, and evaluating issues in the discipline of English Studies.
• Apply   various critical perspectives to a wide range of texts, including historical, theoretical, and literary material.
• Demonstrate   a working knowledge of the cultural diversity of language and literatures.
• Plan and present   coherent, persuasive, and original oral and written arguments.
• Design and conduct   independent research.
• Produce   through a reflective writing process manuscripts suitable for publication.

Special Departmental Requirements

(See also general University Graduate School requirements.)

Master of Arts in English

Admission Requirements

• Applicants should have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, with a minimum grade point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 grading scale in the student’s undergraduate major, documented by an official transcript. Applicants are normally expected to have been English majors, but admission will be considered also for those who otherwise demonstrate the competency necessary for successful graduate work in English.
• Applicants must have taken the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test; preference is given to those who have earned a score of 160 on the Verbal exam. Applicants seeking financial support are encouraged to take the examination by December of the year prior to admission.
• Applicants must submit three letters of recommendation.
•  Applicants must submit a 500-750 word personal statement. 

Foreign Language Requirements

None, but M.A. students continuing on for the Ph.D. are encouraged to validate their reading proficiency in a foreign language according to University Graduate School standards.

M.A. students must maintain a 3.0 (B) grade point average.

Course Requirements

Students may select one of the two options outlined below after consulting with the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) in English and/or other faculty advisors in English. Students will then submit a brief written statement to the DGS that presents a rationale for their choice. As can be seen in the following outline of the two alternative courses of study, students who choose not to write a thesis will be required to take eight additional credit hours of course work, for a total of 40 credit hours.

Core Courses:

At the beginning of your graduate career, you will take two core courses that provide an introduction to major areas in the discipline of English:

• Language: G500: Introduction to the English Language, 4 credits
• Literature: L506: Introductory Methods of Criticism/Research, 4 credits
• Writing: W509: Introduction to Writing and Literacy Studies, 4 credits

Thesis Option:

• Required Courses: Students must take two of the program’s three core courses for a total of 8 credit hours.
• Electives: Students choose six courses in consultation with a faculty advisor for a total of 24 credit hours.  These 24 hours may include a third core course and up to 8 credit hours of Internship.
• Required: MA thesis. 4 credit hours. 
• Total: 36 credit hours

Non-thesis Option:

• Required Courses: Students must take two of the program’s three core courses for a total of 8 credit hours
• Electives: Students choose eight courses in consultation with a faculty advisor for a total of 32 credit hours. These 32 credit hours may include a third core course and up to 8 credit hours of Internship.
• Total: 40 credit hours

The three core courses, which carry 4 credit hours each, provide an introduction to three major areas in the discipline of English: language (ENG-G 500: Introduction to the English Language), writing (ENG-W 509: Introduction to Writing and Literacy Studies), and literature (ENG-L 506: Introduction to Methods of Criticism and Research).  All students are required to take two of the three core courses, preferably at the beginning of the graduate program.

• ENG-G 500 Introduction to the English Language (4 cr.)  An introduction to the English language:  its nature, structure, and development.
• ENG-G 513 Academic Writing Graduate Students (3 cr.)  Designed to meet the academic writing needs of ESL graduate students from multiple disciplines, this course focuses on a variety of academic writing styles and disciplinary approaches to producing research papers and professional documents. Students practice paraphrasing, summarizing, critiquing discipline-related articles, as well as writing research proposals and a comprehensive research paper.
• ENG-G 520 Communication Skills for Graduate Students and Internationals (3 cr.) Designed for graduate students who are non-native speakers of English, this course provides instruction on oral communication skills, academic presentation skills and basic teaching strategies for the U.S. classroom. The primary focus is on oral language skills necessary to present academic materials in English to an American audience. Language skills, teaching skills, and knowledge about the U.S. classroom culture will be developed through discussions and classroom observations/simulations. Presentations, teaching practice and regular conferences will focus on individual needs.
• ENG-G 541 Materials Preparation for ESL (4 cr.)
• ENG-G 625 Discourse Analysis and Introduction to Research (4 cr.)  This course introduces students to current approaches to text and discourse coherence, including recent theories of cognitive and interactional text modeling.
• ENG-G 652 English Language Sociolinguistics (4 cr.)  This course investigates sociocultural aspects of language use and explores the relationships between language and society. The course provides background in various theoretical and methodological approaches to sociolinguistics. Other topics to be covered include gender and language, ethnicity and language, social factors in language acquisition, and bilingualism. Familiarity with basic issues and concepts in linguistics would be useful.
• ENG-L 501 Professional Scholarship in Literature (4 cr.)  Instruction in the materials, tools, and methods of research. The course is especially designed to familiarize beginning graduate students with the research expectations associated with graduate study in literature.
• ENG-L 503 Teaching of Lit in College (2-4 cr.)  Classroom teaching of literature in the light of current approaches.
• ENG-L 506 Introduction to Methods of Criticism and Research (4 cr.)  The conditions and assumptions of studying English, with emphasis on criticism and research on a culturally and historically diverse range of texts.
• ENG-L 508 Practicum on Teaching Literature in College (2-4 cr.) Topics include syllabus construction, lecture and discussion techniques, use and evaluation of written work. Offered in two formats: as a practicum in course and syllabus design for a future undergraduate course; or as a practicum for AIs running concurrently with the related undergraduate course. 
• ENG-L 553 Studies in Literature (4 cr.)  Emphasis on thematic, analytic, and generic study. With consent of instructor, may be repeated once for credit.
• ENG-L 590 Internship in English (1-4 cr.)  A supervised internship in the uses of language in the workplace. (For prospective teachers, the workplace may be a class.) Each intern will be assigned a problem or new task and will develop the methods for solving the problem or completing the task. Interns will complete a portfolio of workplace writing and self-evaluation; they will also be visited by a faculty coordinator and evaluated in writing by their on-site supervisors.
• ENG-L 606 Topics in African American Literature (4 cr.)  Focuses on a particular genre, time period, or theme of African American literature. Examples: twentieth-century African American women's novels, black male identity in literature, kinship in African American literature, and African American autobiography. May be repeated twice for credit with different focuses.
• ENG-L 625 Readings in Shakespeare (4 cr.)  Critical analysis of selected tragedies, comedies, history plays, and poetry.
• ENG-L 635 Readings in American Ethnic Literature and Culture (4 cr.)  In-depth or comparative study of African-American, Asian American, Latino/a, Chicano/a, Native American, and/or other American ethnic literature and culture.
• ENG-L 641 English Literature 1790-1900 (4 cr.)  The course will explore the nexus between English literature, history, and print culture from the late sixteenth- to the early seventeenth century, using as our starting point England's unexpected (yet, perhaps, divinely inspired!) victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 - the event that established England as a naval, military, and commercial power on par with continental Europe. From this triumphant moment, we will follow the nation through several succession crises, religious controversies, economic turmoil, struggles over theatrical and print censorship, and violently contested debates about the nature of Kingship itself, all of which led to a Civil War, the closing of the public theaters, the beheading of Charles I, and the eventual Restoration of the monarchy after an uncomfortable period of Parliamentarian and Protectorate rule.
• ENG-L 643 Readings in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures (4 cr.)  Study of literature within the historical, cultural and political context of European colonialism and anti- or post-colonial resistance. Topics might include the role of literature in the formation of nations and national consciousness, literatures of particular nations, or postcolonial theory.
• ENG-L 650 Studies in American Literature to 1900 (4 cr.)  Intensive study of one writer, a group of writers, or a theme or form significant in the period.
• ENG-L 657 Readings in Literature and Critical Thinking (4 cr.)  Study of major movements, figures, or topics in literary and/or critical theory.
• ENG-L 666 Survey of Children's Literature (3-4 cr.)  A survey of literature written for children and adolescents from the medieval period to the present.
• ENG-L 673 Studies in Women and Literature (4 cr.)  Women's literary accomplishments and representations of women in English from the sixteenth century to the present.
• ENG-L 680 Special Topics in Literary Study and Theory (4 cr.)  Reading in sociological, political, psychological, and other approaches to literature.
• ENG-L 695 Individual Readings in English (1-4 cr.)  Enables students to work on a reading project that they initiate, plan, and complete under the direction of an English department faculty member. Credit hours depend on scope of project.
• ENG-L 699 M.A. Thesis (4 cr.)  A. Thesis.
• ENG-L 701 DESC BIBLIOGRAPHY/TEXTUAL PROB (4 cr.)
• ENG-W 500 Teaching Writing: Issues and Approaches (4 cr.)  Consideration of fundamental issues in the teaching of writing and the major approaches to composition instruction. Specific topics include teaching invention and revision, diagnosing errors, teaching style and organization, making assignments, and evaluating student writing.
• ENG-W 501 Practicum on Teaching of Composition (1-4 cr.)  Practical teaching of composition; current theories and policies.
• ENG-W 508 Creative Writing for Teachers (4 cr.)  Offers current and future teachers insights into the creative writing process, teaches them to think as writers do, suggest strategies for critiquing creative work, and provide guidance in developing creative-writing curriculum. Emphasis on hands-on writing activities in three genres, adaptable for use with students at entry level.
• ENG-W 509 Introduction to Writing and Literacy Studies (4 cr.)  This is the core course in the writing and literacy track of the English master's program. Students will read, analyze, discuss, and write about key issues in writing and literacy, laying a foundation for further study. Special emphasis will be placed on research methods in this field.
• ENG-W 510 Computers and Composition (4 cr.) Based in current theories about the process of writing, this course surveys the use of computer programs (such as word processing) as writing tools, computer-assisted instruction as teaching aids and computer programs as research aids to study writing.
• ENG-W 511 Writing Fiction (4 cr.)  A graduate-level fiction writing workshop. Seminar study of advanced techniques in the writing of fiction, both short stories and the novel. Workshop discussion of advanced student work in progress.
• ENG-W 513 Writing Poetry (4 cr.)  Poetry writing workshop on the study of prosody and form (including formal elements of free verse) in the context of writing by class members.
• ENG-W 533 Science Writing (1 cr.)  C: COMM-C 533; COMM-C 534. With an emphasis on shorter forms of writing, students discover voices, messages, and forms appropriate for bringing scientific expertise to non-science readers. They practice processes of response, revision, and editing to shape presentations for various readers, contexts, and paths of publication.
• ENG-W 535 Advanced Science Writing (1 cr.)  Each student identifies a complex project that includes long-forms and/or multi-genres of writing to deliver scientific expertise to non-science readers in a specific community or context. Collaborating through peer-critique and role-playing relevant readerships, students adjust their messages and modes of delivery.
• ENG-W 590 Teaching Writing: Theories and Applications (4 cr.)  Drawing on current scholarship and relevant statements from the rhetorical tradition, this course examines theoretical assumptions in the design of classroom practices.
• ENG-W 597 Writing Center: Theory and Practice (4 cr.)  Writing Center Theory & Practice is designed to examine the techniques of consulting with writers, as well as the various theories that guide and inform consulting. The course will focus on the practical components of writing center work and how writing center and composition theories can be applied to a variety of settings, including but not limited to college, middle school, high school, professional, and other community settings. In particular, this course will train students to consult with writers in the IUPUI University Writing Center. Specific topics will include writing process, collaborative learning, approaches to consulting, consultant roles, consulting strategies for multiple populations of students (including but not limited to multilingual writers, first-generation students, returning students), cultural divides in writing centers, the use of technology and multimodal composing in writing centers, online consulting, assessment and research in writing centers, and composition and learning theories that influence writing center work and resource development.
• ENG-W 600 Topics in Rhetoric and Composition (4 cr.)  Covers selected issues in current composition and rhetorical theory
• ENG-W 605 Writing Project Summer Institute (3-6 cr.)  By application and invitation only.  For teachers from K-university, who together consider major issues involved in the teaching of writing and explore the pedagogical approaches inherent in these issues.  The institute explores current theories of writing and their application in the classroom.  Preference given to active classroom teachers.
• ENG-W 609 Directed Writing Projects (1-4 cr.)  Individual creative or critical writing projects negotiated with the professor who agrees to offer tutorial assistance. Credit hours will vary according to the scope of the project.
• ENG-W 615 Graduate Creative Nonfiction Writing (4 cr.)  Writing workshop in such modes as personal essay, autobiography, and documentary.
• ENG-W 697 Independent Study in Writing 1 (3 cr.)
• ENG-Z 520 Second-Language Development (3 cr.)  Introduction to linguistic, psychological, cognitive, social, and sociocultural approaches to second language development. Explores relationship between second language development and such topics as age, gender, motivation, cognition, and cross-linguistic and sociological influences.
• ENG-Z 523 TESOL Methods (3 cr.)  This course is designed to help teachers understand, recognize and address the language acquisition challenges of non-native English speakers, both in the U.S. and abroad. The course stresses the development and use of practical techniques and materials to teach ESL based on second-language acquisition principles.
• ENG-Z 536 Pedagogical Grammar (3 cr.)  The focus of this course is on understanding the functions that grammar fulfills in oral and written communication, analyzing those aspects of grammar most problematic for English language learners, and exploring approaches to helping learners understand and use those structures in meaningful communicative contexts. The course combines theoretical discussion about various aspects of grammar with consideration of how to prepare effective lessons for teaching grammar to learners of different ages, proficiency levels and needs.
• ENG-Z 545 TESOL Practicum (3 cr.)  P: ENG-Z 520 and ENG-Z 523. Students will be placed with a supervising teacher in a class for adult learners of English as a second language. Students will observe and assist the teacher, and then have the opportunity to create, teach and assess lessons. 
• ENG-Z 541 English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Materials Development (3 cr.) P: ENG-Z 523 or instructor's permission. English for Specific Purposes (ESP) focuses on the analysis and teaching of English, including the development of appropriate materials, that meet specific language needs of non-native speakers in specific contexts for specific purposes. This course explores and applies the theoretical principles for identifying the needs, developing curricula and preparing teaching materials for ESP contexts.
• ENG-Z 570 Second Language Writing (3 cr.)  This course explores theories and practices in the teaching and evaluation of second language writing (SLW) as well as connections between first and second language writing, literacy, and culture. Students learn how to identify writing needs, design tasks, and assess writing, and form a philosophy of teaching SLW.
• ENG-Z 575 Second Language Learning and Technology (3 cr.)  Explores the theory, use, and issues of using technology in second language instruction, focusing specifically on the acquisition of intercultural competence, culture, and pragmatics.
• ENG-Z 598 TESOL Internship (3 cr.)  P: Completion of ENG-Z 520 and ENG-Z 523, or instructor's approval, and placement by TESOL Program into an approved internship site. The TESOL Internship is designed to provide students with a supervised internship experience in a professional ESL or EFL context. Interns will gain practical, hands-on experience in TESOL, including teaching, research, and/or program administration.
• ENG-Z 600 Seminar in TESOL (3 cr.)  Topics in this course will vary, but will focus on current issues in TESOL and applied linguistics. May be taken more than once with different topics. Up to 9 credit hours.
• ENG-Z 690 Advanced Readings in TESOL (1-4 cr.)  P: Approval of Instructor. Directed reading on a focused topic in TESOL and applied linguistics that students initiate, plan, and complete under the direction of an English department faculty member. Credit hours depend on scope of project. May be repeated for up to 6 credit hours.
• ENG-Z 699 MA Thesis - TESOL (3 cr.)  P: Approval of instructor. MA thesis on an issue in TESOL/applied linguistics.
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School of Education

High rankings reflect strong graduate programs at the iu school of education.

By Catherine Winkler

Tuesday, April 09, 2024

The IU School of Education has been recognized again as one of the best graduate schools in education across the country by U.S. News and World Report’s 2024-2025 “Best Graduate Schools .”

Overall, the IU School of Education is ranked #34, two spots higher than last year, with eight graduate specialty programs ranked in the top 20. All specialty programs rose in rankings compared to last year.

“Our graduate programs contribute groundbreaking research and work that advances education around the world, and these rankings are evidence of both that hard work and our dedication to these programs,” said IU School of Education Dean Anastasia Morrone .

“Graduate programs across the School of Education are held in very high regard, which is a reflection of the stellar research, education, and outreach done by our faculty and alumni around the globe,” said Thomas Nelson Laird , Associate Dean for Graduate Studies.

• Student Counseling and Personal Service - #3
• Elementary Education - #5
• Higher Education Administration #9
• Secondary Education - #8
• Curriculum and Instruction - #14
• Educational Psychology - #18
• Educational Administration and Supervision - #14
• Education Policy - #18

Graduate programs at the School of Education prepare students for careers that make a difference through education fields or other professions. From working in schools and public institutions to jobs in government, corporate environments and technology companies, our graduates affect change and make the world a better place through their work. Many of these programs are also offered online, making them a flexible option for professionals looking to further their education.

Start your life-changing journey

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U.S. News ranks 16 graduate programs, specialties at IU among nation’s top 10, 32 among top 20

Excellence abounds through Indiana University. And once again, this excellence has deservedly been recognized nationally.

Today, IU graduate programs have been ranked among the best in the country in the 2024-25 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools rankings . Demonstrating IU’s academic and research impact and leadership, IU leads the state in the total number of top 10 and top 20 graduate programs or specialties ranked by U.S. News.  

Only seven public universities nationally, and only two schools in the Big Ten, have more top 20 programs and specialty areas than IU.

Preparing the next generation of global public affairs leaders

IU’s acclaimed  O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs  leads all U.S. public affairs graduate schools with the most No. 1-ranked specialty areas. 

The O’Neill School has the top-ranked programs in environmental policy and management, public finance and budgeting, public management and leadership, and nonprofit management. It also boasts the top two rankings in the nonprofit management category, with the school’s program on the IU Bloomington campus ranking No. 1 and its program on the IU Indianapolis campus ranking No. 2.   

Thirteen specialty areas at the O’Neill School ranked in the top 20, with nine Bloomington specialties placing in the top 10 and four Indianapolis specialties ranking in the top 20.

The O’Neill School’s master’s program in public affairs ranks No. 1 among public institutions and No. 2 among all universities.

National excellence recognized across IU 

In total, 16 IU graduate programs and specialties rank among the nation’s top 10, with 32 programs and specialties ranking among the top 20. Both figures represent increases from last year and make IU the state’s leader for the total number of top 10 and top 20 program and specialties ranked.  

The  Kelley School of Business  ranked fifth among public institutions and 20th among all colleges and universities, the school’s highest ranking since 2012. The school had two specialties ranked among the top 10, entrepreneurship and accounting, and seven specialties in the top 20. 

The  School of Education  ranks in the top 20 in seven of eight ranked specialties, including four in the top 10: student counseling and personnel services, elementary teacher education, secondary teacher education, and higher education administration. 

Finally, the  College of Arts and Sciences, McKinney School of Law , and  Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering  each have top 20-ranked specialty programs. 

These rankings provide much deserved national recognition of IU’s world-class faculty and staff, who lead our progress and transformation, empowering our students to reach their fullest potential, serve the public good, and advance our society.

Pamela Whitten

President Indiana University

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Establishing English proficiency for nonnative speakers

Most undergraduate and many graduate students entering Indiana University who are nonnative speakers of English must demonstrate highly skilled, academic-level English language proficiency before beginning studies at IU.

Graduate students

Your academic department will determine whether you need to take the test or not.

However, if you are an Associate Instructor (AI) and are not a native English speaker, you are required to take the Test of English Proficiency for International Associate Instructor Candidates (TEPAIC) .

Freshman and transfer students

Freshman and transfer students may demonstrate sufficient proficiency by meeting any one of the four criteria listed below.

1. Credit for English composition and communication

This can be from equivalent transfer course(s) and/or credit from AP, IB, or A-Level.

2. Score high enough on one of these tests

• TOEFL iBT: 100
• TOEFL PBT: 600
• TOEFL ITP+China: 627
• IELTS Indicator: 7.5
• Cambridge English: 191
• Duolingo English Test: 130
• Pearson PTE: 68
• Michigan English Test (MET): 63
• SAT EBRW: 710
• ACT English: 32

3. Have 45 credits that are transferrable to IU

4. Complete at least three full years of secondary school in one of these english-speaking countries

List of English-speaking countries

• British Virgin Islands
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Grand Cayman Islands
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Republic of Ireland
• St. Kitts & Nevis
• St. Vincent & the Grenadines
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turks & Caicos Islands
• United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales)
• United States

What happens if you do not meet the qualifications

If you are a freshman or transfer student and you do not meet any one of the above qualifications, IU will use your test sub-scores to determine appropriate class placement(s) with the scales below.

SLST-T131 (Academic Writing for Multilingual Students: Research and Inquiry)

• TOEFL iBT Writing: 23 or lower
• IELTS Writing: 6.5 or lower
• Duolingo English Test Literacy: 125 or lower
• Pearson Test of English (PTE) Writing: 70 or lower

SLST-T154 (Active Academic Listening)

• TOEFL iBT Listening: 21 or lower
• IELTS Listening: 6.5 or lower
• Duolingo English Test Comprehension: 125 or lower
• Pearson Test of English (PTE) Listening: 60 or lower

SLST-T155 (Academic Speaking)

• TOEFL iBT Speaking: 21 or lower
• IELTS Speaking: 6.5 or lower
• Duolingo English Test Production: 125 or lower
• Pearson Test of English (PTE) Speaking: 60 or lower

Another option for demonstrating proficiency

If you are an undergraduate student and are required to enroll in one of the courses above, you will receive more details during your academic advising appointment. If, after discussing your options with your advisor, you would like another opportunity to demonstrate English language proficiency sufficient to exempt yourself from these classes, you may take the Indiana English Assessment Test (IAET) to do so.

• Opt in to the IAET
• See what the IAET is like

Why do I have to further establish English proficiency?

IU is committed to helping all of our students succeed academically. We know that English language proficiency is a critical component of that success. By reviewing your sub-scores or administering this test to incoming students, we can identify specific areas in which you will benefit from additional English language study to best prepare you for academic success.

We take into account the specific coursework demands at IU. IU instructors familiar with these demands are responsible for assessing the test. Because the test takes place immediately before you begin your studies at IU, it assesses your current skills and academic-level English language readiness.

Office of International Services resources and social media channels

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IU Graduate students on strike; Seeking over $5,000 raise

BLOOMINGTON — Graduate students at Indiana University are blocking the entry way to classrooms in their second strike since 2021.

“We have a three day strike,” explained student David Garner. “It's a combination of a long series of events because grad workers want union recognition and a living wage.”

Back in 2022, graduate workers at Indiana University protested for weeks to receive higher wages. Students define that strike a success as their wages went from $15,000 to $22,000 a year.

Today, students are protesting that the continued rise of inflation has them demanding yet another raise.

“The cost of living for workers is around $41,000 a year, I'd have to double check the number, but most of us make well below that,” shared Garner.

Garner, alongside other graduate students, are asking their yearly wage for half-time/20-hour-a-week appointments be increased to $27,973 a year.

“It’s hard for many students to decide whether they're going to pay rent, buy groceries or pay for medicine. We're severely underpaid for the amount of labor that we do here on on campus,” explained Garner.

Only Indiana University’s Board of Trustees can recognize unions on campus. In 2022, the Board announced that it will not recognize any graduate unions.

In a statement provided to WRTV on Wednesday, an Indiana University spokesperson explained what the school has done for graduate students.

The minimum stipend for SAAs in 2024-2025 will be $23,000 for a half-time/20-hour-a-week appointment plus health insurance and fee remission. Additionally, through the SAA Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, stipend rates will be benchmarked regularly to ensure minimum stipends remain in the top half of Big Ten peers. Even with these efforts, we continue to look for opportunities to best support graduate and undergraduate students on campus.

Garner is worried that a lack of support from the University could have ripple effects that could hurt the University long-term.

“I think the board and administration are doing a great injustice to their students, their workers, and their faculty," said Garner. "People should be really upset that the Board of Trustees and administration continually refuses to listen to what we're asking for.”

The University’s full statement is below:

The Board of Trustees made it very clear that efforts to enhance graduate education at IU are best accomplished through existing channels of shared governance and collaboration. To that end and since 2021, the Bloomington campus has made a priority of addressing concerns put forward by our student academic appointees (SAA). With multiple raises announced in the last two years, IUB has increased minimum stipends for SAAs by more than 50%, in addition to eliminating mandatory graduate student and course-specific fees. The minimum stipend for SAAs in 2024-2025 will be $23,000 for a half-time/20-hour-a-week appointment plus health insurance and fee remission. Additionally, through the SAA Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, stipend rates will be benchmarked regularly to ensure minimum stipends remain in the top half of Big Ten peers. Even with these efforts, we continue to look for opportunities to best support graduate and undergraduate students on campus. All student appointees are expected to fulfill the terms of the agreements they signed for this academic year, and our highest priority will be to continue instruction and research with as limited disruption as possible.

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UPDATED: Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition to strike starting Wednesday

The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition approved a motion for a three-day strike in a vote concluding Monday. Following a general meeting Sunday, union members voted on the motion. 92.4% of members voted in favor of authorizing the strike and 7.6% opposed.  

The call to strike follows the proceedings in January where the IGWC delivered 1,300 signed union cards and a letter to IU President Pamela Whitten, urging a union election and negotiation, as well as a living wage minimum based on the MIT Living Wage Calculator, which amounts to a minimum of $27,973 for 10-month graduate workers and $33,568 for 12-month graduate workers. The IGWC said in a press release despite multiple follow-up attempts, there was no response.  

The organization held a town hall meeting March 22 to discuss a strike proposal. Zara Anwarzai, organizing coordinator for the IGWC, said at the meeting the proposal entails a three-day shutdown of campus activities from April 17-19.  

She said the days of action leading up to the strike would involve various activities such as picketing in front of administrative offices and aiming to gather support from members, faculty and students. She said the IGWC expect some professors to cancel classes on the strike days and estimate 400 members to participate in picket lines during the days of the protest. 

Anwarzai said the university's refusal to recognize the union has led to a relationship defined by the threat of a strike and until the union is recognized, their plan is to continue striking for better wages.  

IGWC draws inspiration from successful strikes like the California Faculty Association's five-day strike in January, Anwarzai said, which settled after just the first day of striking.  

She said the group is confident that a short, focused strike will demonstrate their influence over campus and push university administrators to respond and hold them accountable while also preparing for future strikes. 

Mark Bode, IU Executive Director of Media Relations, referred to IUB Graduate Dean David Daleke’s Jan. 12, 2024 message this year regarding enhanced financial support for Student Academic Appointees when asked for comment.  

“The campus has taken steps in recent years to improve funding for student academic appointees through raising minimum stipends and eliminating fees, while prioritizing efforts that reduce time to degree,” the message reads. “As announced in the fall of 2022, the Provost has charged me with regularly benchmarking stipends against our peers to ensure that minimum stipends for student academic appointees remain in the top half of public Big Ten institutions. Based on preliminary data, I have recommended, and the Provost has approved, a new minimum stipend of $23,000 for a half-time (20 hours/week) 10-month appointment, effective July 1, 2024. We will continue with additional benchmarking this spring in collaboration with the Bloomington Faculty Council SAA Affairs Committee and IU Institutional Analytics. Results will be presented in fall 2024 to the Provost and the Bloomington Faculty Council.” 

This article was updated to include comment from IU.

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UPDATE: Graduate workers coalition votes to strike, asks for living wage, path for union

Editor's note: This story has been updated.

On Monday, April 15, members of the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition voted to authorize the strike. A total of 646 members voted in favor of the strike (92%) while 53 voted against. IGWC members will now strike from April 17-19 and abstain from instructional and administrative duties.

_______________________________________________________

Members of the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition have endorsed a call for a three-day strike against Indiana University from April 17-19. If union members vote to proceed with the strike, it will be the IGWC’s first strike against IU since the 2022 spring semester . 

The IGWC endorsed the three-day strike during a general membership meeting on April 14, with about 100 members in attendance. The vote on whether to strike will now be voted on by the 1,300-member organization at large, who will cast their votes electronically before 6 p.m. on April 15.

David Garner, communication chair for the IGWC, said the proposed strike continues the IGWC’s efforts this semester to once again push for union recognition and raise graduate worker salaries to a “living wage,” as defined by the MIT Living Wage Calculator .

In January, IGWC members delivered over 1,000 unionization cards and a letter to IU President Pamela Whitten , asking IU once again to recognize the union and to give graduate workers a “living wage.”

“And they never responded to that,” Garner said. “So since they don’t seem to respond to anything but a strike, we decided to have a striking conversation.”

Faculty plan to vote on 'no-confidence' motion

If authorized, the strike would come just one day after members of the Bloomington faculty plan to vote on a no-confidence motion against President Whitten , Provost Rahul Shrivastav and Carrie Docherty, vice provost for faculty and academic affairs. The motion, which was introduced by Bloomington Faculty Council President Colin Johnson, accused Whitten’s administration of violating principles of shared governance and cited IU’s ongoing refusal to recognize the union as an example.

Ben Robinson, an associate professor of Germanic studies at IU, said the vote of no confidence and proposed strike show a general discontent with the Whitten administration and their handling of shared governance within IU.

“I think the union is closely tied to what the faculty is discontent about,” Robinson said. “We’re not being fully appreciated as central stakeholders. Somehow, this administration is more concerned with actors outside of the university.”

The proposed strike would also begin on “IU Day,” Indiana University’s annual fundraising marathon. On April 17, IU hopes to raise $1 million in support of scholarships and general funds .

Garner notes that April 17 is also a “National Day of Action for Higher Education,” when unions and organizations across the country will participate in demonstrations in support of higher education labor unions.

Strike in 2022 lasted four weeks

In 2022, IGWC members went on strike for four weeks during the spring semester, abstaining from instructional and administrative work like proctoring exams, grading and advising. The strike led to major victories for graduate workers, including the elimination of mandatory fees and stipend increases that made IU more competitive with other Big Ten universities .

Yet IU stopped short of recognizing the union and credited the changes to a Provost-convened graduate student task force, rather than addressing the IGWC by name.

Garner says the 2022 wage increases have not kept pace with the rising rate of inflation, noting that graduate workers’ 10-month stipends are now $10,000 below the “living wage” prescribed by the MIT Living Wage Calculator for the cost of living in Bloomington .

IU argues that the MIT Living Wage calculation is inaccurate, since graduate workers are part-time and IU offers health insurance and other benefits to its workers . But Garner argues that graduate workers do work full-time, between working hours, classes and research.

“We are asked to be full-time researchers, students and teachers, and there’s no extra time for us to have another part-time job with all of that,” Garner said. “To designate us as part-time workers is frankly out of touch.”In 2021, the IGWC presented 1,584 union cards (out of approximately 2,500 graduate workers) to the IU Board of Trustees and asked for an election. In the private sector, once 30% of employees sign a petition or union cards in favor of a union election, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will step in to conduct an election and ensure fair bargaining . 

But because IU is in the public sector, no such external enforcement mechanism exists.

Robinson said many mistakenly believe that since IU is a public university, unions can’t be formed. He notes that many unions exist on campus, including the local Communications Workers of America chapter ( CWA Local 4730 ) and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees chapter ( IASTE Local 618 ).

“There’s no logistical barrier to it at all,” Robinson said. “It’s a matter of their will, and if they change their will to reflect the clearly stated interest of the graduate workers, they could begin an immediate process towards unionization." 

Reach Brian Rosenzweig at [email protected].

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Indiana University Indianapolis

Department of communication studies.

Ph.D. in Health Communication

Preparing you for teaching and research in health and interpersonal relationships.

Choosing to pursue a doctorate in the Health Communications program will prepare you for teaching and research in the areas of health and interpersonal relationships, intercultural health, and mediated communication in healthcare contexts. You will be prepared to tackle the development of healthcare campaigns as well as the ethical questions surrounding the communication of healthcare messaging. Your coursework will prepare you to engage with clinical problems affected by communication and develop your ability to translate research into practice, putting you in a prime position for advanced work in academic and healthcare professions.

Course Requirements

IU requires a minimum of 90 credit hours of approved graduate coursework beyond the bachelor’s degree.

A maximum of 30 credit hours of approved graduate work completed with a grade of B or better may be transferred with the approval of the advisory committee and the Dean of the University Graduate School.

All coursework taken for the Ph.D. must be completed within seven years prior to the passing of qualifying exams, including any transfer courses. Coursework that does not meet this criterion may be revalidated.

Overall, the requirements include core courses (15 credit hours), seminars in content areas focused on (but not limited to) interpersonal relationship communication, intercultural communication, mediated/campaign communication (at least 15 credit hours), minor (9-12 credit hours), field work/research (6-9 credit hours), and dissertation credits (12 credit hours).

Students may select from the courses offered within Communication Studies.  In addition, other cross-listed seminars from affiliated faculty in departments or programs such as the International Center for Intercultural Communication (ICIC).  Medical Humanities, Medical Sociology, and other health-related areas may count toward the student’s degree with approval from the student’s advisor.

Minor Area of Emphasis (9-12 credit hours):

All students must complete a minor in an area related to their primary health communication focus. The minor area of emphasis must be approved by the student’s advisor and advisory committee and contain a minimum of three graduate level courses (9 credit hours) in accordance with the department or unit in which the minor is housed. Some departments require a 12-credit hour minor.

Comprehensive Examinations:

All students must take written examinations that cover both broad knowledge of the health communication field as well as specialized knowledge of a chosen area of health communication. Comprehensive exams are taken after the student has completed a minimum of 39 credit hours (beyond the Master’s) including the required core, seminars, and minor coursework.

Fieldwork /Research (up to 9 credit hours):

All students are required to initiate or participate in original research with the approval of advisor. This field/research work is geared to focus the student’s research interest to serve as a springboard for the dissertation work.

Ph.D. Dissertation (up to 12 credit hours):

Dissertation credits are structured so that the student is unencumbered with completing coursework and can focus completely on conducting research and writing the dissertation for completion of the degree.

Core Courses

COMM-C 500 Advanced Communication Theory (3) COMM-C 504 Pro-Seminar in Communication Graduate Studies (3) COMM-C 592 Advanced Health Communication (3) COMM-C 680 Doctoral Qualitative Research Methods (3) COMM-C 690 Doctoral Quantitative Methods (3) COMM-C 695 Seminar in Communication and Healthcare (3) Seminars in Content Areas (at least 15 credit hours)

Admission Requirements:

Required coursework:.

Students entering the program must have at least a Master’s degree (minimum of 30 credit hours) in Communication or a related social science or health discipline.

Preference will be given to those students with degrees from communication studies programs.

Students should have a GPA of 3.5 or higher in their Master’s coursework.

Students are expected to have taken some foundational coursework in Communication. For students entering the program with no background in Communication, additional preparatory coursework in the discipline may be required as a condition of admission.

Required Testing

Beginning in 2021, interested applicants are no longer required to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Revised General Test (Quantitative, Verbal, and Analytical Writing).  Applicants may still want to submit their GRE scores to be considered in their application, and they may do so.

Successful candidates typically have scores between 150-170 in Verbal Reasoning and in Quantitative Reasoning and a score between 4.0-6.0 in Analytical Writing.

In addition, non-native English speakers who did not complete a degree at a college or university in the U.S. must take an English competency test. The student may complete either of the following:

• Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The expectation for admission is a minimum score of 88 on the TOEFL iBT (internet based test). Please note that this score represents the minimum that will be considered. In practice, we look for scores above 100.
• International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The minimum acceptable IELTS score is 6.5; in practice, we look for an IELTS of 7 or more. It is required that applicants take the academic reading and writing modules, not the general training reading and writing modules. Please note that this score represents the minimum that will be considered. In practice, we look for scores above 7.

Additional Required Materials

• A written statement of purpose for entering this Ph.D. program
• Three letters of recommendation from individuals in professional positions able to judge success
• Curriculum vitae
• Graduate and undergraduate transcripts
• A writing sample demonstrating academic writing ability

Undergraduate Record

Graduate School requirements include a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, a minimum 3.0 grade point average on a scale of 4, and a minimum 3.0 average in the major field.

Applications will be viewed in their entirety. A candidate’s outstanding qualifications in one area can be balanced against more marginal qualifications in another dimension. Keep in mind that admission is competitive and financial support even more competitive. Most of the students admitted and supported will exceed the minimal requirements

Contact Kim White-Mills , Director of PhD Program and PhD Minors.

Related Links

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• PhD Minor in Health Communication
• Meet Our Doctoral Students
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