Graduate Students

Elyn Achtymichuk-Hardy (PhD Program)

Elyn is interested in culture and gender in both literature and film. Her current research is on the legacy of Cold War anxiety on the James Bond franchise, with respect to the way the "Bond formula" has evolved—or not—in terms of fear, sexuality, and racial representations. Her theoretical apparatus makes use of affect in relation to a kind of catharsis of anxiety which is achieved through the expression and production of societal fears. She has also delivered papers on the economics of Lord of the Rings and gender in Harry Potter. If she had spare time, she might coach high school debaters, collect vinyl records, or perhaps watch Lethal Weapon repeatedly (read: obsessively).

Contact Elyn 

Madison Brown  (PhD Program)

Madison Brown (she/her) holds an M.A. in English from the University of Maine and a B.S. in Math and Physics from Baker University (Baldwin City, KS). She is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA where she is a tribal citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Her ancestors trace back to Mvskoke, Cherokee, and western European communities. As a PhD student specializing in Indigenous Literatures, Madison’s interests are at the intersection of land-based research and digitally mapped narratives. Her dissertation is a work of research-creation delving into the allotment process with Indigenous literary theory and critical cartography frameworks. In collaboration with Dr. Jenna Hunnef, they are exploring Indigenous land dispossession via privatization in early twentieth century Turtle Island (North America). Madison is grateful to be living and studying on Treaty 6 territory and the Homeland of the Métis.

Amanda Burrows (PhD Program)

Amanda is interested in medieval literature with a focus on Middle English romances. She received her B.A. from the University of Toronto and her M.A. from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Mabiana Camargo (PhD Program)

Mabiana Camargo is interested in Canadian Speculative Fiction, Women’s literature, and Feminism. Her research, under the supervision of Professor Wendy Roy, focuses on ideas of space and gender in Margaret Atwood’s speculative writing. Mabiana comes from Brazil.

Alyson Cook (PhD Program)

Alyson is a PhD student who holds both an MA and a BA (Hons.) in English from the University of Saskatchewan. Her research interests include 20th-century British and Commonwealth Literature written by women in the interwar period. Supervised under Dr. Ann Martin, Alyson’s current research analyzes the significance of the modernist epiphany in the short fiction of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and Mary Butts through a critical framework based in new materialism. Alyson’s research explores the importance of trivial, ordinary objects that are depicted in specifically domestic, everyday spaces associated with women that lead to epiphanic moments and demonstrate that their importance is not for their usefulness, but rather for their ability to undermine utilitarianism and patriarchal value systems and point to a different way of engaging with the world—including the non-human elements of the world. 

Contact Alyson 

Mark Doerksen (PhD Program)

Mark is an instructor and Ph.D. candidate in the department, having received his M.A. in Medieval Studies from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. His area of study includes Anglo-Saxon eschatological texts and the theological implications of philology in Anglo-Saxon religious poetry. He is currently working on his dissertation under Saint Thomas More College's Dr. Michael Cichon on the philological relationship between Anglo-Saxon eschatological poetry and the Germanic mythic tradition.

Contact Mark 

Devon Dozlaw (MFA in Writing Program) 

Devon Dozlaw (he/him) is an MFA in Writing student who specializes in speculative fiction with an absurdist edge. He obtained a B.A. and B.Ed from the University of Regina, and lived in England, France, Germany, and Newfoundland before returning to the prairies to continue his studies. Devon’s work explores the intersection of horror and science fiction. He is interested in ghosts, goblins and aliens, and putting them in the same place. 

Souren Farimani (MFA in Writing Program) 

Souren Farimani is an MFA in Writing student who completed his BSc in Honours Neuroscience from McGill University. He is interested in literary fiction and his creative work centers on portraits of young characters living in urban Canadian and Iranian environments. He is the second prize-winner of the 2024 Voices of Color Fellowship from Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and was selected as one of 8 outstanding writers nominated by Danny Ramadan during his 2021-2022 tenure as writer-in-residence at Saskatoon Public Libraries. 

Challen Gladman (MA Program)

Challen (they/them) is an MA thesis student, an avid artist of many mediums, and an enthusiastic petter of cats. Having originally graduated with their BA (Honours English, French minor) from Vancouver Island University, BC, they now find themselves transplanted from Douglas to Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis to live and learn at USask -- and, as a settler scholar, they are grateful every day for the opportunity! They have particular interests in fiction, myth, story-telling, various literatures from the margins (notably those that speak to their own experiences as queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent), ethics, accessibility, and the overall pursuit of human happiness. Their present thesis work explores themes of landedness and place-thought as imbued into the alternative American settler-colonial narrative of Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009), beyond which they hope to expand into Ph.D. studies next year and, eventually, become an English professor. They're curious to see what life brings next... but as long as it comes with tea and a good book, they have no doubt it will all be worth it in the end!

Luke Goossen (MA Program) 

Luke Goossen is an MA thesis student who received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature with a minor in History from Ambrose University in Calgary, AB. He is interested in the overlapping narrative structure of medieval hagiographic texts and early Arthurian romances. Under the supervision of STM’s Dr. Michael Cichon, he hopes to write his thesis on the influence of the liturgical structure of allegorical hagiography such as the Navigatio Sancti Brendani on later medieval grail texts. 

Stephen Hardy (PhD Program)

Stephen studies relationships between literature and music, and focuses on modern fiction. In 2017 he presented a talk on American author Richard Powers at the International Word and Music Studies conference in Stockholm, Sweden. He has taught ENG 114.3 Reading Culture: Literature and Music. His supervisors are Drs. Lindsey Banco and Ray Stephanson.

Susan Hayton (MFA in Writing)

Susan is an MFA in Writing student who has worked as a physician for most of her career. She is married with three grown children and two dogs.

Kamryn Heavin (MFA in Writing Program) 

Kamry Heavin(she/her) is an MFA in Writing student. She received a BA in English from the University of Saskatchewan, with a minor in Psychology. She is interested in prairie realism and the exploration of modern challenges in family farming. 

Lucy Chinyeaka Iwuala (MA Program)

Lucy Iwuala holds a BA in English and Literary Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Her research focuses on African and Transnational/Diasporic literatures, with a specific interest in the conceptions of “home” and belonging within and beyond the African continent. Her work is deeply informed by her personal experience and active engagement with digital language activism and community management. Lucy is passionate about linguistic diversity and digitisation, having managed translation projects for Global Voices Lingua (Igbo) and coordinated cultural preservation initiatives with the Igbo Wikimedians Organisation. She has presented and moderated panels at international conferences, including Wikimania and WikiIndaba, on topics of digital language preservation and community resourcing. Under the supervision of Dr. Jay Rajiva, she will continue to develop her research on “home.” Contact: lucy.iwuala@usask.ca 

Nicole Jacobson (PhD Program)

Nicole is a PhD student. She completed her BA in English and German (double major) at the University of Regina and her MA in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies at Carleton University. She is interested in middlebrow modernism, especially detective and suspense fiction, and the linguistic and rhetorical construction of genre fiction more broadly. Her dissertation, which examines the intersection of genre and gender throughout Mary Stewart’s canon, is supervised by Dr. Ann Martin.

Nicole is also a research facilitator with the Department of Academic Family Medicine. She supports the development, revision, and administration of its research curriculum, assists residents in developing their clinical research skills, and contributes to the Department's qualitative and patient-oriented research efforts.

Morgen Jahnke (MFA in Writing)

Morgen Jahnke (she/her) is an MFA in Writing student, primarily focused on poetry. Before recently moving back to her hometown of Saskatoon, she lived in Winnipeg, San Francisco, Vancouver, Paris, and San Diego. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and her work has appeared in Grain, Rhubarb, and The Magazine, and is forthcoming in Prairie Fire.

Vijay Kachru (PhD Program)

Vijay is in doctoral studies in English literature at the University of Saskatchewan. Her research area is comparative postcolonial literature from the Commonwealth countries, emphasizing women's writings.

Sarah Kilian (MFA in Writing Program)

Sarah Kilian is an MFA student, focusing primarily on fiction. She studied geography and art history at the University of Victoria and worked for many years in an independent bookstore. Her research interests include interrogating the supposed nature/civilization dichotomy and how our relationship to mortality might reinforce and/or challenge our sense of separateness as humans. Creatively, she's interested in blending traditional and innovative approaches to the short story form and testing the boundary between realism and surrealism, specifically by incorporating elements of the uncanny. 

Andrej Kiš (PhD Program)

Andrej studied for his undergraduate degree in English at Andrews University where he also obtained MA degrees in Education and English. 

After teaching abroad and working in educational administration, Andrej started his PhD at the University of Saskatchewan in 2018.  His doctoral thesis analyzes selected works by Flora Thompson and James Herriot to determine how their portrayals of the pastoral landscapes they inhabit reveal their sense of rootedness in the land.  He is supervised by Dr. Ella Ophir. 

Contact Andrej 

Andreas Lohstraeter (MFA in Writing)

Andreas earned a BSc in Biology and Environmental Studies (Double Major) at the University of Victoria. Through poetry, his work seeks to understand how our connection to landscape is influenced by history, personal experience, and the limits of language, as well as how we might begin to decolonize our relationship to place.

Mikayla Marin (MA Program)

Mikayla Marin is an MA student with a BA in American Literature and Creative Writing from Sonoma State University in her home place of California. She moved with her family to Saskatoon to pursue an MFA in writing in which she crafted a collection of solarpunk eco-fiction short stories, completed in early 2026. She’s interested in continuing research in the contemporary, speculative eco-fictions she both reads and writes through an ecocritical lens, focusing on socio-cultural contexts, evolving literary conversations with climate change, and growing recognition about the importance to consider the more-than-human life that exists around and beyond us

Jenna Miller  (PhD Program)

Jenna Miller’s (she/her) research focuses on contemporary life writing by women authors. She is interested in experimental narratives characterized by fragmentation, non-linearity, and genre-blurring. Under the supervision of Dr. Ella Ophir, Jenna examines the alternative structures and spaces women use to voice their stories.

Renelle Morelli (MFA in Writing)

Renelle (she/her) is an MFA in Writing student who obtained her BA in English at the University of Saskatchewan with a minor in Studio Art. She is interested in historical and speculative fiction. Currently her research is on the lives of women in classical history and how their experiences were navigated and learned.

Ian Moy (PhD Program)

Ian is a Ph.D. candidate whose research focuses on families and cultural conflict in Canadian literature. He is supervised by Dr. Wendy Roy

Rachel L. Neubuhr Torres (PhD Program)

Rachel L. Neubuhr Torres (She/Her) is a PhD student who has research interests in Circumpolar Cli-Fi, Arctic literature/art/film, horror, and metamodernism. Under the supervision of Dr. Lindsey Banco, Rachel’s doctoral research examines how the Arctic’s rapidly changing climate is reshaping speculative fiction narratives and artistic representations from both outsider (“explorer”) and Indigenous/autochthonous perspectives. Her developing dissertation is grounded in hauntology and seeks to understand how Cli-Fi narratives are shaped by a longing to return to something in the past while also mourning a future that is perceived to be lost and no longer attainable. Rachel lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, from 2023-2025, and during those two years she completed graduate work in cultural anthropology. Rachel also worked as the curatorial assistant in the fine arts collection of the University of Alaska Museum of the North and worked closely with settler/outsider and Indigenous artworks. This experience greatly shaped and informed the formation of her research interests. 

Nico Neufeld (MFA in Writing Program)

Nico Neufeld (they/them) is an MFA student in creative writing with a taste for the macabre. They previously completed an accelerated BA/MA in Creative Writing with honors at The New School in NYC. Nico’s main area of interest is how gendered trauma is transcribed, which led them to found and facilitate Nearly Dead Poets Society, a workshop series for writers with (C)PTSD. Their work explores loss, lust, and all things otherworldly. 

Jasmine Redford (PhD Program)

Jasmine is a Ph.D. student and teacher's assistant at the University of Saskatchewan whose research interests include Canadian literature, comics and visual culture scholarship, and the intersection of the two: Canadian comics scholarship.  Under the supervision of Dr. Wendy Roy, she defended her thesis entitled "Chasing Captain Canada: National Identity Challenged Through Superheroes in Canadian Comic Books."  She has obtained her B.F.A. with a major in visual art from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and her B.A. (English Honours) and M.A. from USask.  In addition, Jasmine, who signs her work as Minjaz, is an illustrator and has recently finished over one hundred and twenty-nine pages of hand-painted artwork for the graphic novel Siegfried: Dragon Slayer (2022)--a four-year project that was undertaken alongside her academic work at USask.

Contact Jasmine 

Olly Risling (MA Program)

Olly Risling is an MA student who received their B.A. Honours in English with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies from the University of Saskatchewan. Their research focuses on constructions of gender in literature and media, with a focus on gender nonconformity. They are supervised by Dr. Lindsey Banco. 

Gwen Rose (PhD Program)

Gwen Rose (she/they) is a PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. Gwen's research interests include modernism and the lived experience of marginalized peoples. Her dissertation combines these interests, examining the representation of transgender characters within literary modernism. Gwen is supervised by Dr. Ella Ophir. 

Cara Schwartz (PhD Program)

Cara Schwartz (she/her) is a settler doctoral student whose research is situated at the intersection of Black and Indigenous literary studies. She examines Black-Indigenous relations through their contemporary literatures to explore how they can co-exist and co-resist in the shared space of Turtle Island (North America). Under the co-supervision of Dr. Kristina Bidwell (NunatuKavut) and Dr. Jenna Hunnef (settler), Cara seeks to reveal the decolonial and relational potential of chaos across these two diverse fields.

Alex Stad (PhD Program)

Alex Stad (he/him) is a mixed-race settler PhD student interested in contemporary Indigenous literary nationalisms and autobiographical life-writing. He holds a BA in English and History with a minor in Indigenous Studies and an MA in English from Simon Fraser University on the stolen and traditional territories stewarded by the səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. Alex is supervised by Dr. Kristina Bidwell, and his research examines intersections of Indigenous literary theories and mixed-race methodologies in the life-writing of contemporary mixed-race Indigenous writers who specifically self-position as and navigate being Indigenous, in nation-specific contexts, and mixed-race. 

Parastoo Tahmasbi (PhD Program)

Parastoo (she/her) completed her B.A. in English Language and Literature in Iran, graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with an MA in 2025, and is now a PhD student in the Department of English. She has worked as a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant in the department and worked as a writing and digital tutor at the university library. She is interested in digital humanities and 18th-century literature. Under the supervision of Dr. Muri, her MA project explored The Beggar’s Opera (1728), an 18th-century play, through spatial literary studies. Her PhD research focuses on eighteenth-century lewd literature and memoirs of sex workers through the frameworks of gender and spatial literary studies. She is also interested in speculative fiction, popular culture, and textual scholarship. Parastoo enjoys getting involved in the community and spends her free time volunteering with different organizations.

Alexander Torvi (MA Program)

Alexander Torvi is an MA Thesis student who had previously completed a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in English and a minor in Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan. His area of interest lies in a synthesis of New Media, the Digital Humanities, and Media Studies. Currently, he is writing his thesis on the potential online role-playing games have for creating connections during the COVID-19 pandemic through the synthesis of gameplay and digital storytelling.

Gideon Umezurike (PhD Program)

Gideon Umezurike is a PhD candidate supervised by Dr Cynthia Wallace and a recipient of the Teacher-Scholar Doctoral Fellowship. He earned a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Nigeria, where his thesis examined transculturality and spatial politics in Anglophone diasporic narratives. His research focuses on the intersections of literature, bodily difference, and global culture, and cuts across postcolonial studies, transcultural/transnational studies, disability studies, and existential phenomenology. Gideon’s doctoral dissertation, titled Infertiliterature, the Sterile Body and Genre: Reproductive Disability in Twenty-First-Century Nigerian Fiction, analyses how contemporary fiction by Igbo and Yoruba authors employs a unique narrative form—which he terms the “infertiliterary form”—to critique disabling reproductive norms embedded in Nigerian cultures. Gideon’s papers are forthcoming in The Journal of Transcultural Studies, Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, and Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies.

Hamid Yari (PhD Program)

Hamid Yari is a PhD candidate who focuses on diasporic cinema and literature. His research interests include nationalism, urbanization, memory studies, and diaspora studies in cinema and literature. His current research, along with his PhD project on post-Revolution Iranian cinema and literature, focuses on two manuscripts: “The City and State of Exception in Orson Welles’s The Trial” (for Culture Unbound journal) and “Urban Alienation and Spatial Metaphors in Dariush Mehrjui’s Cinema” (a book chapter for ReFocus series, Edinburgh University Press). Hamid has taught a few courses at USask including RNG 114.3: Reading Culture and War Literature: Trauma and Identity (to Saskatoon Seniors). He is supervised by Dr. Jerry White.

Emily Zepick (MA Program)

Emily (she/her) is an M.A. Thesis student. She is interested in contemporary readings of British modernist literature and also in the ways that literature intersects with pedagogical implications. Under the supervision of Dr. Ann Martin, Emily will examine pedagogical links to the literary writing of Virginia Woolf. Before beginning her M.A. courses, Emily completed a B.Ed. degree through the University of Saskatchewan and taught in K-12 classrooms.