Student Bios

Julia Krieman joins the graduate English program seeking a master’s degree and a certificate in great books. As an undergraduate, Julia enjoyed exploring literature by women, early 19th century British literature, and ancient world literature. She graduated from the University of South Florida in 2020 with a degree in Secondary English Education, and she is currently working as a 6th and 7th grade teacher at her alma mater, Saints Peter and Paul School in West Chester. She enjoys exploring literature with her students and has a particular interest in teaching grammar. Julia feels a deep tie to Chester County and is excited to have returned home and to become a part of the Villanova family. She is eager to continue exploring the unique towns of southeastern PA with friends and family and spending time enjoying the beautiful nature we have in this area. This past year, Julia rekindled her love of skiing and has been enjoying going to the mountains on weekends. In addition to reading, Ju...

Theo Campbell received a BA in Theatre Arts with a certificate in Gender and Sexuality studies and an honors certificate in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Pittsburgh. They also received an MFA in Costume Design at Rutgers University. Theo has spent the last several years as a costume designer and maker in New York City. Favorite credits include assisting Tony-award winning designer David Woolard on the world premiere of the opera Stonewall and working as a milliner at Lynne Mackey Studio, where they made hats for Frozen , Hamilton , Wicked , and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . Theo’s research interests concern how clothing and other aspects of material culture are represented and misrepresented in literature, particularly within nineteenth century travel narratives. They are also interested in studying Irish literature through the lenses of orientalism and post-colonial theory.

Jamie Wojtal is excited to start haunting the halls of a new campus this autumn. they graduated from Kenyon College in 2018 with a BA in English. While there, they studied Black-American literature and literatures of trauma. Ultimately, they wrote their honors thesis about several novels by author Samuel R. Delany. They also worked for the Kenyon Review as a Student Associate and a Residential Advisor in the Young Writers Program. After graduating from Kenyon, Jamie moved to Philadelphia and worked as a Teaching Associate at Greene Street Friends School. They hope to apply the lessons they learned teaching sixth graders to working in higher education. At Villanova, Jamie hopes to continue studying speculative fictions, literature about Blackness and race, queer literature, and literature about violence and trauma. They also hope to explore other interests, including 90’s anime and manga, visual aesthetics in contemporary horror cinema, and the cultures of internet sub-communities. When...

Annie Monsalve earned her undergraduate degree in English with a secondary education certification from Gwynedd Mercy University in 2015. Her thesis focused on feminist literary theory and examined readings of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet over the span of the last century in connection with corresponding feminist movements. She then accepted a full time job teaching English At Gwynedd Mercy Academy High School and has been teaching there for the past six years. She also serves as the moderator for their newspaper, literary magazine, and book club. While there, she pursued a Master’s Degree in Education with a concentration in curriculum, instruction, and assessment and graduated in 2019. Her thesis focused on the correlation between the extent of student understanding and instruction using graphic organizers and handwritten note taking in comparison to typed notes. At Villanova, Annie is excited to advance her knowledge in literary theory and further her research of diverse conte...

Caitlin Salomon graduated from Grove City College in December 2019 with a B.A. in English and minors in Professional, Technical, and Creative Writing. As an undergrad, she worked as a TA, writing center tutor, and radio station music director; currently, she’s a Marketing and Communications Coordinator for a national health care brand. Caitlin is interested in further researching the influence of postmodernism, existentialism, and religion on contemporary apocalyptic literature and film while at Villanova. She’s also looking forward to serving as the Graduate Assistant for the CLAS’ External Relations and Communications Department. In addition to literature, Caitlin is fond of espresso, Seinfeld, indie music, and the cheese selection at Trader Joe’s.   

Maggie McGill graduated from Saint Joseph’s University in 2020 with majors in Secondary Education and English, as well as minors in Special Education and Political Science. While studying at SJU, she worked as Historian on the executive board of Kappa Delta Pi, the education honors society, and served as a research assistant in the Education department. She also enjoyed her role on the Circle of Sisterhood Foundation’s board as Event Planning Committee Chair, where the organization worked to raise financial resources that would remove educational barriers for women and girls around the world. Maggie was heavily involved in SJU’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions as a marketing and communications intern where she enjoyed interacting with students and their families. At Villanova, she is particularly excited for classes that support her certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies and her English degree. Maggie is currently working at Episcopal Academy as a sixth grade English teacher, a...

Hannah (Fair) Kahn graduated summa cum laude with her B.A. in English and minors in Literature and Biblical Studies from Cedarville University. For her capstone thesis, Hannah analyzed Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale . Her thesis focused on embodiment and empowerment—specifically how physicality, language, religion, and dominant discourses inform and influence one's sense of self and subjectivity. These topics are Hannah’s primary interests that she wishes to further delve into at Villanova University. During her time at Cedarville, Hannah worked as a writer for the public relations department in which she wrote journalistic articles covering faculty, student, and alumni accomplishments as well as campus events. As a Resident Assistant, she enjoyed creating community in the dorm and “doing life” with fellow students. Furthermore, as a tutor in the writing center, she grew in her knowledge of multiple disciplines while helping her peers throughout the writing process. She al...

Jacqueline Ridberg graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2016 with a BFA in Drama (Honors). While at NYU and shortly thereafter, she acted as a literary resident for NYC’s Clubbed Thumb Theatre Company and served in freelance dramaturgical capacities for emerging playwrights and theatre companies. After graduating, she spent a great deal of her professional career in democratic electoral politics from local municipal races to several presidential campaigns. She hopes to bring this perspective to her academic career as her research interests include storytelling as a cultural influence and how dangerous political ideas germinate in art. As an undergraduate, Jacqueline did much of this exploration through the works of Shakespeare (both as an actor and an academic) but she’s eager to investigate 20th century conflicts and the authors who shape them in her work at Villanova. In her spare time, Jacqueline (unsurprisingly) likes to read, take long car trips with h...

Jonah Davis attended undergrad at Amherst College and studied English there, writing a critical thesis on the poetry of Frank O’Hara and how O’Hara’s speaker uses the concepts of space and time to draw the reader into a kind of personal relationship. He has worked at the Office of Senator Cory Booker as an intern, at Harper’s Magazine as the art intern (where he selected contemporary artwork that would be published in the next issue of the Magazine), and he currently works at Duff Painting, LLC . He's interested in studying Early Modern poetry at Villanova, with an emphasis on John Milton and his work, specifically Paradise Lost . His main interests outside academics are sports; He's an avid New Jersey Devils fan and also follows the Phillies and Eagles. Hockey is his main interest, but so is baseball. In his free time he likes reading in his favorite coffee shops around his home of Mount Laurel, NJ, and he also plays soccer.  

Deidra Cali recently graduated magna cum laude from Misericordia University (Dallas, PA) with a BA in English and a minor in psychology. Her favorite areas of study are 19th and 20th century American literature, which she hopes to continue to focus on while at Villanova. Other primary interests include explorations of gender, feminism, and queerness in literature. Her senior thesis—centered around the newfound genre of dark academia and how gender, feminism, and queerness entwined in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and M.L. Rio’s If We Were Villains —acted as a perfect combination of her many literature loves. In her time at Misericordia, she was a head tutor at the university’s Writing Center, where she was able to put her love for editing into practice, as she thoroughly enjoyed editing papers from various disciplines. As an avid and amateur poet, she was also involved with Misericordia’s annual journal, Instress , an arts journal that publishes poetry and other art mediums from M...

In the spring of 2021, Ethan Shea graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University with a B.A. in English and Film after completing a double major in both subjects. Ethan’s broad interest in storytelling led him to the interdisciplinary field of adaptation studies, where he conducted research on the process of adapting literature to the screen in the midst of ever-changing social and cultural contexts. His background in classical piano performance continues to inform his studies, as stories told through music showed Ethan at a young age how all forms of art have symbiotic relationships with each other. During his time at Fordham University, Ethan was a Resident Assistant (RA) for first-year residents. As an RA, he enjoyed hosting Super Smash Bros . tournaments and The Bachelor watch parties. In his free time, Ethan enjoys long-distance running, and he is currently training for the 2021 Philadelphia Marathon. Before moving to Villanova, Ethan was a key holder at New York Running Com...

The first of his family to attend college, Alex Matkowsky graduated summa cum laude with his BA in English from Rowan University in 2020. He was humbled to have been asked to serve as research assistant to the department’s senior English professor Dr. Cindy Vitto in his final semester. Working alongside her, he applied an analytical rendition of Caroline Levine’s New Formalism to Chaucer’s “Man of Law’s Tale” to evaluate hierarchical significances. An avid fan of British Medievalism, Alex’s research interests include the literary form/content of Old English texts and their influence on Early Medieval ideologies, Marie de France, and more. Alex is also passionate about educating others, serving a semester and the subsequent year as an intern at the nonprofit Hopeworks Camden. What began as a for-credit internship developed into enthusiastic volunteerism; he constructed and managed various academic games in the dorm referred to as “The CRIB” and tutored young adults struggling with wr...