About our Graduate Students

Olivia (Liv) Abram (PhD Program)

Olivia (Liv) Abram (she/her) is a settler doctoral candidate whose research focuses on practices and pedagogies of ethical reading, viewing, and listening in relation to engagement with Indigenous literatures. Through her work, she explores the potential of slow, humble, and self-reflective settler engagement with Indigenous literature, including written and oral narratives, but also multimodal and experiential story, such as those in graphic narrative, song, and place-based teachings. Her dissertation, “Read, View, Listen: Ethical Settler Engagements with Indigenous Literary Expression in Academic, Educational, and Public Contexts,” is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, The Literary Encyclopedia, and The Digital Research Alliance of Canada.

• “‘beyond the front, specificity is abandoned’: The Illustration of/on Backgrounds in Alison Bechdel’s   Fun Home ” , in Biography .
• “Positionality is Not (just) a Metaphor: Distance-focused Reading in Indigenous Comics,” forthcoming in Canadian Literature.
• “Seeing and Staring: Reading ‘Red Clouds’ Through the Eyes of Another,” forthcoming in Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society .

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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).

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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.

Rachael Carline (MFA in Writing Program)

Rachael (she/her) is an MFA in writing student. She obtained a BA in Sociology with a double minor in English and Political Studies from the University of Saskatchewan. She is interested in writing her thesis in poetry, with a focus on the effects of technology in the home and the post-modern family unit.

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. 

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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.

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Rahul Gautham Veliyil Edwin (MFA in Writing Program) 

Rahul is an MFA-in-Writing student. He obtained his BA (Hons.) in English from the University of Saskatchewan. He has experience working as a transcriptionist, survey research assistant, minute-taker, sales associate, and editor of college magazines. Although he was introduced to literature through poetry, which he occasionally dabbles in, his current project focuses on prose; specifically, it is a novel set in a re-imagined 16th-century India. The novel can be crudely described as Robinhood meets Game of Thrones meets the Arthurian Legends.

Veronica Fabian (MFA in Writing Program) 

Veronica Jeanette Fabian is an MFA writing student who obtained their BA from the University of British Columbia. Veronica is interested in exploring the fantasy and sci-fi genre to demonstrate not only the various forms of magic in the world, but the deep connections we have with other people. Their minor in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies offers a critical lens when writing about such well-established genres. Veronica’s current thesis project utilizes the fantasy genre as a backdrop to recognizing unhealthy familial relationships and discovering the language to name and navigate such toxic relationships.

Laura Fraser (MA Program)

Laura is a Master's student whose research interests lie in Disability Studies and the overall body of a person. Laura completed an undergraduate degree in Liberal studies with a concentration in English and Political Studies at St. Mary’s University, Calgary. Laura’s main literary focus is  The Little Mermaid and the retellings of the tale, and hopes to combine such with Disability Studies to explore the body as a medium for humanization in society. 

Dara Gerbrandt (MA Program)

Dara focuses on drama and literature from the early modern period. She tends to keep to a historical approach having had a double minor in CMRS and History. She received her BA here at the U of S.

Carolyn Gibbins (MFA in Writing Program)

Carolyn is an MFA in Writing student who is working on a fantasy novel. She received her BA in English from the University of Alberta and is currently researching myths, cultural anthropology, portal fantasy, and extinct species. Interests that may appear in her writing include Sherlock Holmes, Victorian sanitation practices, weird biology, and 80s fantasy movies of questionable quality.

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!

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.

Tia Hendricks (MFA in Writing Program) 

Tia (she/her) is an MFA in writing student who has completed her B.A. Honours in English at the University of Saskatchewan. She is interested mainly in fantasy novels and creating magic for young readers. Her research focuses on mythology and the hero’s journey in Arthurian tales. The novel she is currently working on is a portal fantasy displaying a unique family bond with a female main character.

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.

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.

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. 

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Ethan Klein (MFA in Writing Program)

Ethan Klein (he/they) is a settler MFA candidate focusing on nonrealistic fiction and creative nonfiction. He is interested in unnamed narrators, nameless characters, and unspecified locales as a means of enhancing the otherworldly qualities of stories and interrogating concepts of identity and place. For his MFA summer mentorship at the University of Saskatchewan, Ethan worked with award-winning writer Yuri Herrera. 

Ethan grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His work has appeared in MAYDAY, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. He lives in Saskatoon with his wife, dog, and two cats.

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Jolena Klymyshyn (MFA in Writing)

Jolena is an MFA student primarily writing fiction. She obtained her BA with a combined honours in Psychology and Creative Writing at the University of Kings College in Halifax. After five years living on the east coast, she is excited to be back in Saskatoon where she was born and raised. Jolena finds a lot of inspiration in history, the prairie landscape, and music. Her undergraduate research in psychology has left her intrigued by the mysteries of memory and the way in which memory is represented in literature. She is currently working on a novel for her thesis which delves into the nuances of familial relationships and memory.

Aaron Kurmey (MFA in Writing) 

Aaron is an MFA in Writing student from Edmonton, Alberta. His master’s thesis is a speculative novel written in the style of a war memoir that reflects on the relationship between a soldier, her war, and the comrades she served with. Aaron grew up in a military family and lived all over Canada before settling in Alberta where he received a BFA in New Media from the University of Lethbridge. He spent more than a decade working as a filmmaker and photographer before making the transition to academia and writing prose. Aaron is fiercely passionate about teaching creative writing and hopes to pursue this further after completing his MFA. To attend his classes at the University of Saskatchewan, Aaron commutes weekly from Edmonton where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

Douglas MacDonald (MFA in Writing) 

Douglas MacDonald (he/him) is a settler MFA student in Creative Writing. He earned his BA at the University of Alberta majoring in English with a minor in Creative Writing. His interest is interacting gothic short fiction with historical nonfiction. 

Mikayla Marin (MFA in Writing)

Mikayla is an MFA in writing student who earned her BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Sonoma State University in California. For the past ten years, she’s built a career as a freelance food writer but has returned to pursue her love of fiction writing. Mikayla’s preferred genre is fantasy eco-fiction, and her work focuses on the complex interactions of civilization and society with the natural world. Current and historical real-world effects of climate change are often her inspiration. Mikayla currently lives in Saskatoon with her husband and two young children.

Ava McLean (MA Program)

Ava is an M.A. thesis student who joined the program after completing her B.A. (Honours) in English at the U of S in 2023. She is particularly interested in 20th-century British literature, and her thesis focuses on the seaside, memory, and narration in Kazuo Ishiguro’s  The Remains of the Day and Graham Swift’s  Last Orders. She received a Canada Graduate Scholarship through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2023.

Aside from the historical and cultural studies approaches that she hopes to explore in her thesis, Ava is also interested in mid-century drama, group dynamics in literature, and literary adaptations. As an undergraduate student, she undertook a project interviewing professor emeritus and actor-director Henry Woolf about the life and work of his close friend Harold Pinter. She hopes to use this experience to gain interview skills to explore collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches in the future.

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.

Tricia Monsour (PhD Program)

Tricia’s research focuses on British Gothic literature by women writers from the nineteenth century. Supervised by Dr. Lisa Vargo, she is currently creating a scholarly edition of Jane Harvey’s Gothic historical novel The Castle of Tynemouth.  She completed her M.A. at the University of Saskatchewan and her B.A. Honours at King's University College at the University of Western Ontario. 

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

Wren Mynhardt (MFA in Writing Program)

Wren Mynhardt (they/them) is an MFA thesis student in the Creative Writing program. Their research interest is on positive media representation of diverse gender, sexuality, race, and ability without tokenism in speculative fiction. Their thesis has a particular focus on transgender representation in high fantasy. The goal of their thesis is to create a safe space for transgender people to find themselves represented in a popular genre, as well as create a transgender character to whom a wider audience can relate in an effort to facilitate understanding and acceptance in cisgender readers. They previously completed a B.A Honours with High Honours double majoring in English and History at the University of Saskatchewan. When not working, studying, or writing, they can be found re-reading Kristin Cashore’s  Graceling series, or swing dancing with their partner.

Banjo Olaleye (PhD Program)

Banjo's area of study is Ignatius Sancho and 18th-century literature. He is supervised by Dr. Allison Muri. 

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Erin Paulhus (MA Program)  

Erin is an M.A. student in the Project stream. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in English and a certificate in French-English translation at the University of Saskatchewan. She is interested in the influence of the works of Shakespeare in contemporary Canadian literature. 

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.

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Matthew Rempel (MA Program) 

Matthew is an MA Project student who holds a B.A. (Honours) in English from the University of Saskatchewan. His interest lies in speculative fiction, and he is currently a teaching assistant for Professor 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. 

Joel Salt (PhD Program)

Joel is ABD, specializing in 17th-century Literature. He is supervised by Dr. Brent Nelson. His dissertation will examine liminality in the prose and poetry of John Donne.

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Bailey Schaan (MA Program)

Bailey (she/her) is a settler M.A. student and research assistant who is completing a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded project on the role of care ethics in Canadian women’s writing. More broadly, Bailey is interested in theories of canon and cultural remembrance as well as depictions of writer figures and Canadian feminisms in short stories from the 1960s onwards. Before beginning her M.A. project, Bailey completed her B.A. (Honours) in English, with a minor in history, at the University of Saskatchewan. As a lifelong reader, Bailey is not only invested in the field of literary studies, but in the material ramifications literature has on individuals’ lives.

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.

Megan Solberg (PhD Program)

Megan is a Ph.D. student who holds a B.A. (Honours) in English from the University of Saskatchewan and an M.A. in Literature from the University of Westminster (U.K.). Supervised by Dr. Ann Martin, her research examines the intersection of creative practice, marginalization, and suffering in the works of Katherine Mansfield, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Jean Rhys. 

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Parastoo Tahmasbi (MA Program)

Parastoo (she/her) is an M.A. student who joined the program in 2023 after completing her B.A. in English Language and Literature in Iran. She worked as a Teaching Assistant in her first year and currently works as a Research Assistant in the Department of English. She is interested in digital humanities and under the supervision of Dr. Muri, her thesis explores  The Beggar’s Opera (1728), an 18th-century play, through spatial literary studies. She is also interested in speculative fiction 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 Uzoma Umezurike is an English PhD student and Dean’s scholar at the University of Saskatchewan. He has a BA in English and Literary Studies (2015) and an MA in Comparative Studies in Literature (2019), both from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. His research straddles postcolonial literature, black Atlantic and diaspora studies, transcultural studies, critical disability studies, existential-phenomenological criticism, the phenomenology of the environment, and the works of Martin Heidegger.

Adam A. Vazquez (PhD Program)

Before Adam's Canadian adventure, he received his undergraduate and M.A. degrees at the UNAM in Mexico. He is interested in medieval literature and Digital Humanities.

H aonan Yang (MA Program)

Haonan Yang joined the Department of English as a PhD student. He got a previous master's degree in English Literature from the University of Nottingham, UK. His PhD research focus was the Hannibal Lecter franchise (Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter tetralogy and their film and TV adaptations). Haonan was a teaching assistant in the Department of English during his first year of PhD study. In September 2024, he decided to switch from PhD program to MA-project program. He is currently working on his MA-project paper about the instrumentalization or weaponization of drugs and chemicals in the Hannibal Lecter novels. 

Hamid Yari (PhD Program)

Hamid is a Ph.D. student from Iran. Currently, he focuses on Iranian Film Studies in the 21st century, as well as Iranian Diasporic Literature, and he is supervised by Prof. Jerry White. He is a graduate teaching assistant at the U of S. Hamid had his B.A. and M.A. from Iran, where he was a part-time lecturer at the University of Kurdistan. Before joining the Dept. of English, he taught "General English" (Reading and Composition) to undergraduate students for two years. He has published an article, translated a book (unpublished), and submitted two manuscripts to peer-review journals. 

Contact Hamid