Meet the Writing Studio Consultants
Fall 2024 Writing Consultants
Aimee Salakhov
Aimee is a recent graduate from Vanderbilt with a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine, Health, and Society on the pre-medicine track. Currently, she is taking a gap year before medical school and is enrolled in the 4+1 Master of Arts program, where she will receive a Master’s degree in Medicine, Health, and Society. Outside of the classroom, Aimee enjoys singing and music, exploring local coffee shops, Trader Joe’s, and making new friends!
Ana Cumberbatch
Ana is a sophomore from Atlanta, Georgia double-majoring in Law, History, and Society and English on the Pre-Law track. On campus, Ana is involved in Women in Government, serving as the Vice President of the Public Service Committee. In her free time, she loves to write, listen to music (mostly R&B), and bake!
Aysu Williams
Aysu Williams is a junior majoring in Economics and Human and Organizational Development. On campus, Aysu is involved in Rem and Company, Consulting Club, and Pre-Law Society. In her free time, Aysu enjoys running and reading.
BeJay Mugo
BeJay (She/Her/Hers) is a Junior from Austin, TX. She is majoring in MHS and History. In her free time she enjoys listening to music, dancing, watching movies, and going on long walks. After her time at Vanderbilt, she plans on going to law school. She is passionate about writing and excited to work with students from all academic and social backgrounds.
Ekta Anand
Ekta is a senior from Atlanta, GA pursuing majors in Neuroscience and CSET. She is interested in science communication and hopes to incorporate this into a career in medicine. On campus, she is involved in the Bhangradores, Hearts 4 Homeless, and End Overdose. In her free time you can find her listening to a good song or going for a run!
Grace Richards
Grace is a third-year doctoral candidate in the History department studying modern Germany. Her research interests include museums and agrarian social change, building on previous work at Kenyon College and the University of Chicago. In her free time, she enjoys knitting, hiking, playing piano, and sci-fi books. Language fluencies: German.
Hannah Thorpe
Hannah is originally from Severna Park, Maryland. She is a third-year doctoral student in the anthropology department, specializing in medical and cultural anthropology. She attended Elon University where she received a bachelors degree in Psychology and Religious Studies and holds a Masters in Theological Studies with a concentration in Modern Religious Thought and Experience from Emory University. Her current research sits focuses on Christian Nationalism, race, and reproductive health in the Southeastern United States.
Isabel Liu
Isabel (she/her/hers) is a junior from Beijing, China, majoring in Math and Economics. When she’s not buried in equations, she’s out on a never-ending quest for the best eats with friends, spreading the purrfect cat memes, or binge-watching Modern Family for the hundredth time. Isabel also loves hosting epic game nights, so don’t hesitate to join in the fun!
Jakub Kubina
Jakub is a Neuroscience and MHS major on the premedical track. On campus, he works as an EMT, is a research assistant in the Blind Lab, and volunteers in the Vanderbilt Emergency Department. Outside of school, he enjoys reading, running, and watching good movies.
James Bostick
James is a senior majoring in HOD and minoring in Child Development and Art History. He likes to play tennis, write, draw, and spend time with friends. If you have any good TV show recs, let him know.
J
asmine Keyes
Jasmine Keyes (she/her/hers) is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology. Her research focuses on the treatment of bodily differences in medical settings and the historical development of this practice from the colonial period to the present. In her free time, she enjoys practicing piano, drawing, playing with her dog Eli, and studying Japanese.
Josie Betts
Josie is a sophomore from Chicago, Illinois studying Secondary Education and English. On campus, you can find her DJing and writing for WRVU, doing improv with Tongue N Cheek, or playing alto saxophone with the University Concert Band. In her free time she loves to read, write, see live music, and eat baked goods. This is her first year as a Writing Consultant with the Vanderbilt Writing Studio, but she has worked as a tutor for years and is very excited to talk about writing with Vandy students!
Karen Chu
Karen (she/her) is a senior from Long Island, New York; she is double majoring in Secondary Education and English (Literary Studies), and pursuing a future job as a high school English teacher. On campus, you can find her at VUCA events, tutoring MNPS students through Tutor Nashville, or (still) getting lost in Wyatt on her D4D tours. In her free time, she loves rewatching New Girl and visiting new restaurants and coffee shops wherever she goes!
Katelyn Rowan
Katelyn is a sophomore from Brentwood, TN planning to double major in English and History. As one might expect, she enjoys reading and writing. She is a sports writer for The Hustler and has been a lifelong fan of Vanderbilt athletics. Katelyn is also an artist, and she tries her best to capture the beauty of nature with her oil pastels and colored pencils.
Kate Perry
Kate is a third-year doctoral student in the History department studying Central Europe. Her research focuses on the cultural significance of music, and she loves learning about new and wacky musical instruments. Before coming to Vanderbilt, Kate attended Grinnell College and then spent a year teaching English in Halle, Germany. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, playing violin in the Vanderbilt Commodore Orchestra, and postponing cleaning in order to pet her cat. Language fluencies: German, Spanish.
Katie Sullivan
Katie Sullivan is a senior majoring in English and Medicine, Health, & Society. Beyond writing, Katie has a knack for making zines, reading, and sitting in the sun. On campus, you can find her doing research with the Critical Design Lab or facilitating the Vanderbilt Critical Mental Health study group.
Kelsey Rall
Kelsey is a sixth-year PhD student in the English department. Her research focuses on spinsters and other queer characters in nineteenth-century literature. Kelsey grew up just outside of Philadelphia, and she majored in English at Bryn Mawr College. Before coming to Vanderbilt, she spent two years in Ireland studying Anglo-Irish literature and getting rained on. Outside of academics, Kelsey spends a remarkable amount of time watching television and buying plants.
Lena Kalandjian
Lena is a junior from South Florida majoring in Human & Organizational Development with minors in Business and Sociology. She is passionate about using writing as a tool for effective communication and is particularly experienced in crafting scholarship and fellowship applications. Outside of the Writing Studio, you’ll likely find Lena on the library lawn with a Suzie’s latte in hand. In her free time, she enjoys listening to a good audiobook, learning Mandarin, and playing the violin.
Lucia Edafioka
Lucia is a third-year doctoral candidate in the History department. Her research focuses on the slave trade and the material culture of 18th-century West Africa. Before moving to Vanderbilt, Lucia studied creative writing (fiction) at the University of Arizona MFA program where she also taught English composition and introduction to creative writing classes.
Lydia Rasetti
Lydia Rasetti is a senior from Charlotte, North Carolina, however, she went to high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is majoring in Cognitive Science and Psychology and minoring in Italian. She loves animals, and has 5 pets at home: 2 dogs and 3 cats. Her hobbies include swimming, hiking, trying new foods, traveling, and exploring new places with friends and family.
Matt Daleo
Matt is a senior studying Political Science and English, with a concentration in Literary Studies, and has a minor in History. After his time at Vanderbilt, Matt plans on going to law school.
Melody Suite
Melody is a second year Masters student pursuing a Master of Divinity and a Master of Education in Community Development and Action. Previously, she has worked in youth, family, and community engagement roles in public K-12 schools. In her free time, she enjoys long walks, pottery, and reading.
Neomi Chen
Neomi (she/her/hers) is a senior from Long Island, New York. She is majoring in English with a concentration in Literary Studies and minoring in CSET and Biology. After her time at Vanderbilt, she plans on going to dental school. Some of her hobbies include hiking or going to the beach with her three siblings, rewatching episodes of Gossip Girl, and finding the best burnt basque cheesecake.
Noah Thacker
Noah is a junior from Pikeville, Kentucky. He is a double major in LHS (Law, History, and Society) and English with a concentration in Literary Studies. On campus, Noah is a member of Vanderbilt Mock Trial and the Vanderbilt Quizbowl team. In his free time, you can find him looking for new restaurants to try in Nashville, spending countless hours in the world of Elden Ring, or cheering on his beloved Cincinnati Bengals.
Shahbano Raza
Shahbano Raza is a senior majoring in political science with a minor in communication studies. She is currently pursuing her interest in political communication as a press aide for the U.S. House of Representatives. On campus, she is involved with the Vanderbilt Hustler and Women in Government, and in her free time, she enjoys reading fiction and re-watching Veep.
Skyler Wilhoit
Skyler (she/her) is a sophomore from Quincy, Illinois, majoring in Sociology and minoring in Legal Studies. When not working at the writing studio, you can find her thrifting, watching trashy reality TV, reading Chuck Palahniuk novels, or aspiring to be Gordon Ramsay’s next head chef.
Sydney Mayes
Sydney Mayes is an MFA candidate in poetry from Denver, Colorado. Winner of the 2021 Iowa Chapbook Prize, her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Atlantic, Poets.org, Obsidian, Denver Quarterly, Booth, Gulf Coast Journal, Only Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal and Prairie Schooner. In 2024 Mayes was selected by Roger Reeves as a finalist for the 2024 Furious Flower Prize and honored as the inaugural Only Poems Poet of the Year. Mayes is the Executive Editor of Nashville Review.
Trisha Mazumdar
Trisha is a senior majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Neuroscience. On campus, she is the President of Spectrum A Cappella and a Research Assistant with the Wallace Lab. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, and playing video games. This is her third year consulting with the Writing Studio.
William Krause
William is a PhD candidate in the History department, focusing on modern American political and intellectual history. Before coming to Vanderbilt, he worked as an assistant for the Johns Hopkins University Press, where he helped with their Science and Technology Studies books. When not on campus, he is likely laboring on one of his unfinished knitting projects or watering his many plants.
Full-Time Staff
John Bradley, Director of the Writing Studio and Tutoring Services
John first came to Vanderbilt to join the Writing Studio team in 2012 and in 2018 stepped into the role of director for the Writing Studio. John earned his PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was introduced to writing center pedagogy. As a writing center professional, he is dedicated to the transformational role one-on-one interactions can play for students as they learn to write and has conducted research into the learning experience of undergraduate and graduate student writing consultants, as well. Prior to becoming director, John also taught in the English Department as a senior lecturer, and his teaching and research interests include twentieth-century and contemporary American poetries, with a particular interest in ecopoetry and ecopoetics alongside other movements that push the boundaries of what we expect from poetry.
Megan Minarich, Associate Director for the Writing Studio and Tutoring Services
Megan earned her Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University in 2014. During her doctoral studies, she was a graduate consultant and Arts and Science Graduate Fellow at the Writing Studio. She completed a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Tennessee State University before joining the administrative team at the Collaborative Learning Suite in 2017. Megan also serves as Affiliated Faculty in Cinema & Media Arts, where she teaches Introduction to CMA and History of the Musical Film, and as Faculty VUceptor for the Vanderbilt Visions program. Megan has been consulting and teaching collegiately for over ten years. She holds Mellon Certificates in Digital Humanities and Humanities Education, and she has taught multimedia courses in composition, literature, and cinema and media arts at Vanderbilt, Tennessee State University, and Watkins College. At the Writing Studio, she is invested in exploring inclusive and effective writing pedagogy as a means of both developing student skills and voice as well as supporting graduate and faculty writing and research. She is currently investigating best practices in helping students write effectively about visual texts, and she facilitates the Teaching Writing Workshop Series and offers writing pedagogy consultations. She also researches the use of drawing as a consultation tool. At Tutoring Services, she explores how narrative and visual texts can bolster effective learning practices in STEM disciplines, and she is collaborating on multi-institutional research projects regarding STEM identity-building and belonging, particularly for students from underrepresented backgrounds, as well as STEM tutors’ use of metacognitive strategies in tutoring sessions. Megan’s disciplinary research centers around feminism, narrative theory, American modernist literature, visual culture, and early through classical Hollywood cinema. Her in-progress book-length manuscript focuses on representations of women’s reproductive choice in Hollywood cinema between 1915 and 1968: she examines how film’s visual rhetoric shapes and is shaped by narrative theory as well as legal, scientific, and feminist discourses. Her research is published in Studies the Novel and Feminist Modernist Studies (as part of the Modernist #MeToo and the Working Woman cluster); most recently, her article on the censorship history of the 1945 film Leave Her to Heaven appears in the Embodiment II: Habitation special issue of Feminist Media Histories, guest edited by Shelleen Greene and Ellen C. Scott. Megan holds a B.A. in English and French from the University of Illinois at Chicago, an M.A. in English from Stanford University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University.
Miriam Erickson, Assistant Director for Tutoring Services
Miriam earned her PhD in History from Vanderbilt University in 2015 where she also worked as a graduate consultant in the Writing Studio. She spent three years as a CASPAR advisor for the Arts & Science College and joins our team to help facilitate Tutoring Services. Miriam’s research examines the Haitian Revolution and a particular group of black militiamen and their families as they navigate the political waters among France, Spain, and Central America. She loves the historiography of rebellion and revolution, and she would be happy to help think through your historical arguments. Miriam has been advising and consulting with students for over ten years, and she believes strongly that the best way to becoming a better writer is working with other writers. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from David Lipscomb University and the American University of Paris (2002) and a Masters in Classics from St. John’s College (2007).
Beth Estes, Assistant Director for Writing Studio
Beth earned her PhD in Political Science from Vanderbilt University in 2017. During the final year of her doctoral program, she served as the College of Arts and Science Graduate Fellow at the Writing Studio and developed a passion for writing pedagogy. She is particularly interested in helping science and social science writers craft compelling narratives and harnessing her social science background to contribute to research on writing assessment. Her other research interests include political psychology and intergroup relations.
Drew Shipley, Academic Support Coordinator
Drew (he/him/his) joined the Writing Studio and Tutoring Services staff in 2022 after earning his PhD in English from the University of California, Irvine. During his time in California, he worked as a tutor and faculty coordinator at Orange Coast College’s writing center and taught writing courses at UCI focusing on mass incarceration, internet subcultures, and political extremism. Drew’s research concerns allegory and metalepsis in Victorian fiction as well as the history and practice of literary criticism. He holds a BA in English from the University of Oklahoma and an MA in English from UCI.
Nauff Zakaria, Academic Support Coordinator
Nauff Zakaria joined the Writing Studio and Tutoring Services staff in 2024. She is a PhD candidate in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel in the Graduate Department of Religion; she will defend her dissertation early this fall. Her research focuses on the linguistic and grammatical structures of the Hebrew Bible within the context of ancient Near Eastern literature and its impact on the narratives involving women. Prior to matriculation at Vanderbilt, Nauff earned a MA in Hebrew Bible from the University of Chicago and worked as a high school English teacher in San Antonio, TX. While at Vanderbilt, she has worked at Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching and the English Language Center. In these spaces, Nauff has conducted consultations with undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty, developed workshops related to pedagogy as well as writing, and coached graduate student Teaching Assistants. Nauff has a deep passion for education, literacy, and working with underrepresented groups in academia.