Student Bios

Caitlin graduated summa cum laude from Drew University, double majoring in English and Environmental Studies & Sustainability. Her undergraduate work helped fuel her passion for 19th Century literature and themes of nature, the Gothic, and Romanticism. One of her favorite classes was an independent study she crafted to learn more about the Language of Flowers across time and culture. Her environmental capstone included a discussion of agriculture's influence on the honeybee population decline. The English major capstone resulted in her essay of authors' various uses of nature to express societal values and fears of the time. She worked at a number of places in her college town, including the local museum, as a research assistant, and in the municipal building, where she helped write the recycling grant for the town for three years, as well as directed the nearby nature camp. Her favorite activities include photography, baking, hiking, finding even more plants to fit on h...

Tom Higgins received his BA from Temple University in 2017. While at Temple, he studied as a double major in English and Classical Languages, and wrote for Hyphen, the university’s undergraduate literary magazine. Since then, he has worked as a writer and editor on print and marketing industry magazines at a Philadelphia-based media company. In his free time, he plays guitar, travels, and goes to as many concerts as are physically and fiscally possible. He is also a poet, and regularly submits work to print and online publications. Some of his academic interests include poetry, nature writing, travel literature, postcolonial literature, and Caribbean and Latin American literatures. He looks forward to continuing his studies at Villanova.

Sarah Beth Gilbert received her BA in English Literature with a Minor in Spanish from Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, GA only a couple of hours away from her hometown of Augusta, GA and her favorite city Atlanta, GA. After graduation she moved to Newark, NJ to spend a year of service (that turned into two) for AmeriCorps working at Great Oaks Legacy Charter High School. At Great Oaks she began as an English tutor and Teaching Assistant and eventually transitioned to Lead ELA Tutorial Curriculum Writer and Coordinator. She hopes to continue to help make reading and writing fun (or at least bearable) by aligning her students’ interests with the nuances of studying Literature. In undergrad Sarah Beth wrote a thesis on Gender and Sexuality in  Doctor Who  which focused on the role of the companion and how it has evolved since the 2005 reboot in both terms of representation and character depth. She also served as  The Peacock’s Feet  Co-Editor i...

Avni Sejpal received a BA in English from St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, India. Before coming to Villanova, she spent several years in New York working in scholarly and independent publishing as well as nonprofit media production. Most recently, she was an editor at  Boston Review , where she commissioned and edited critical essays on literature, race, and global feminisms. Her academic interests lie at the intersections of colonial and postcolonial literature, feminist and queer theory, and histories of South Asia. Beyond her academic pursuits, Avni is interested in food cultures, South Asian music, film, and popular genres of fiction. She is looking forward to calling Philly home for a while.

Daniella graduated  cum laude from Gettysburg College in 2018 with a Bachelors degree in English and Art History. During her time at Gettysburg, she served as the editor-in-chief of the award-winning student run newspaper, The Gettysburgian . Daniella also worked for the Women's & LGBTQA Resource Center, as well as the on-campus art gallery, Schmucker Art Gallery, where she assisted with curation, installation, and giving tours. Her love for both visual art and literature guided her academic pursuits throughout her undergraduate career.  Daniella's senior thesis focused on the poetry of Frank O'Hara and the ways in which his poetry works in conversation with the contemporary art movements of that moment: Abstract Expressionism, The New York School, and Pop Art. Working at the intersection between the two disciplines inspired her pursuit for graduate research, as she hopes to continue to study the ways literary and visual analysis work together....

Ashley graduated summa cum laude from Widener University in May 2017. In addition to receiving her BA in English, Ashley also recieved a Teacher's Certificate in English Secondary Education. Ashley completed Student Teaching in an eighth grade English classroom for her final semester; the experience was both the most challenging yet rewarding experience of her educational career thus far. While at Widener, Ashley worked as a textual scholarship research assistant in which she studied and worked in the area of British Romanticism. The most exciting part of the research (by far) was attending the annual Wordsworth Summer Conference in Grasmere England: Wordsworth's home and the location of where his original manuscripts are housed. Ashley completed a senior thesis on James Joyce's Ulysses examining how, through a cognitive lens, Leopold Bloom's exterior social interactions collide with his interior thoughts about his family. Aside from academics, Ashley spent much of he...

Brian graduated in 2014 from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. He took a major in English and a minor in Creative Writing. While a student at Muhlenberg, Brian served as prose editor and, later, editor-in-chief of MUSES art and literary magazine, and he served as a jockey on WMUH, as a helplessly devoted writing center tutor, and as other things. It was at Muhlenberg Brian became interested in studying the poetry of George Oppen and other “Objectivists” as well as in studying comic theory and Irish drama. He was surprised and happy to graduate salutatorian. Upon graduating, Brian began working as the Assistant Director of the Muhlenberg College Writing Center, and he held that post for the three years between his BA and attending Villanova. In that position, he was fortunate to work with writers of all academic backgrounds and pursuits, from first-year students perusing majors, to seniors policing their theses, to faculty parsing their syllabi. Now he is excited to meet people at...

Angela graduated cum laude from Saint Joseph's University in May, where she majored in English and Communications Studies, with a concentration in journalism, and a minor in gender studies. Over the course of her undergraduate career, Angela served as Managing Editor of The Hawk, SJU's Pacemaker Award-winning student newspaper, and was given a Summer Scholars grant to work on a collection of essays inspired by Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem . She wrote an honors thesis investigating the potential connections between the founders of Saint Joseph's University and the institution of slavery. Angela's research interests include 20th century women authors, and how the various social movements of the century impacted their writing. Outside of academic pursuits, Angela loves reading and writing (obviously), going to concerts, and drinking coffee.

Nick graduated from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, GA, where he played baseball and majored in English. He studied Russian Literature and Contemporary Fiction, but the curriculum was expansive and holistic, not suggesting a genuine ‘focus.’ After college he took up remote work, teaching English to South Koreans with an internet phone and used the opportunity to backpack through Asia, South America and Europe. At Villanova he will be a Graduate Assistant in the Center for Access Success and Achievement (CASA), but will spend most of his work-hours in the Academy at Palumbo, a public high school in South Philly. He is interested in the way the Contemporary American Novel might be read as an Identity Plot, and the ways that structure might differ or imitate previous conceptions of the novel, such as The Marriage Plot. He enjoys reading Marilynne Robinson’s non-fiction essays and watching Iranian Cinema, as well as, listening to the Mountain Goats and exploring Philly’s DIY music-scene...

Christian Leithart was born in Alabaster, Alabama, and was raised in the northern part of Idaho (wheat not potatoes), so not only does he know how to drive in the snow, he understands that if you go to a real BBQ expecting a hamburger, you're crazy. He graduated from New Saint Andrews College in 2012, where he received a BA in Liberal Arts, which included studying everything from logic trees to Latin swear words. As a junior, he began directing student theater productions and organized an improv group, though organized may be too strong a word. He also earned an MA in Theology from New Saint Andrews in 2014, for which he wrote a critical thesis on time in the work of TS Eliot and a creative thesis (a novella called "The Bright City").   Christian has worked as a waiter, a surveyor, a copywriter, a cleaner of carpets, and a video producer, and once even got paid to play a video game. His greatest claim to fame is that M. Night Shyamalan once told him he had ruined every...