Baylor’s English Graduate Student Association serves as an advocate for the English graduate student body by functioning as a recognized liaison between graduate students and both English department faculty and University administration. EGSA also works to advance the professional interests of both MA and PhD students and seeks to promote camaraderie among graduate students. Membership in EGSA is open to all Baylor University graduate students in English.
EGSA Officers for the 2024-2025 School Year
We love being your officers and are happy to help in any way we can. Check below to see who can best help you, then contact us via our emails, listed on the home page!
- President: Reilly Fitzpatrick. Our fearless leader. If there’s an issue that affects us all and you think it should go to Dr. Russell, talk to Reilly, our official liaison. If you have a question relating to your own unusual case and you’ve already run it by Yifan Zhang (Peer Advisor), take it to Dr. Russell.
- Vice President: Becky Presnall. Our fearless leader in training.
- Secretary: Savannah Chorn. Editor-in-Chief, Religion Editor, Fashion Editor, Drama Desk Editor, Chief Data Officer, Asst. History Editor, Society & Etiquette Editor, and Copy Editor of the EGSA Digest. Send her your entertainment for us all!
- Treasurer and Fundraising Chair: Ariadne Lewis. The keeper of the purse. Pay her your dues!
- Peer Advisor: Yifan Zhang. The wisest of us all. For questions about paperwork, inside tips, grad school survival, and proof that it can be done, contact Yifan.
- Professional Development Coordinator: Theresa Boyd. Provider of practical wisdom, she organizes information and meetings that help us get jobs!
- GSA Representative: Veronica Toth. Our official representative to the larger Graduate Student Association; let her know if EGSA is too small a pond for you!
- Public Relations and Media Chair: Grace Perry McCright. Keeper of Digital Keys and Virtual Grounds at EGSA and Assistant Editor of the Digest. Send her your announcements! For questions, suggestions, and complaints about this website, email me!
- Social Chairs: Michael Riggins and David Willey. Arrangers and facilitators of fun and festivities!
- Orientation Chair(s): Zsanna Bodor. Welcomers of all our newest members! They organize the prospective student weekend and help new students get settled in when they arrive in the fall.
The Graduate Student Association:
The GSA meetings are open to all graduate students on campus. Though we have official liaisons between EGSA and GSA, leadership in the GSA is open to all graduate students as well. Ask Grace or Kristyn if you’d like more information on getting involved!
EGSA Members
List of all current Baylor English MA and PhD students
Membership in EGSA is open to all graduate students in the Baylor English department and is presumed to include all English graduate students. Voting and holding office are restricted to dues-paying members; however, all English graduate students (and their significant others and families) are welcome to attend meetings and social functions.
| Name | Year of Entry | Focus/Concentration | About |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Alvis | 2024 | ||
| Lucy Fernandes | 2024 | Early Modern British Literature, Shakespeare | Lucy Fernandes is a Ph.D. student at Baylor University. Her special research interests include British Renaissance literature, the writings of William Shakespeare, the relation of both to sacramentality, phenomenology, and personalism. Lucy holds a B.A. in English from Hillsdale College, where she graduated with honors. In her spare time, Lucy enjoys laughing with her family, starting three more books at once, and spending as much time as possible in beautiful places. |
| Simon Zahaykevitz | 2024 | American Formalist Poetry, Dante's Comedia | Simon "Zach" Zahaykevitz is a Ph.D. student at Baylor. He studied for two years at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Nebraska, and completed his B.A. in the Liberal Arts from Wyoming Catholic College, writing his senior thesis on Dante's hamartiology. When not playing with his three children, Simon enjoys Gregorian chant and spoken Latin, rock climbing, philosophy, and homebrewed espresso. |
| Maisie Smith | 2024 | Modern and Contemporary American fiction, Southern Literature, American Gothic | Maisie Smith is a Ph.D. student at Baylor. She earned her BA in English and Psychology with a minor in classics at the University of Mississippi, and her MSc in Poetry at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Her primary academic interests include modern and contemporary American fiction, specifically Southern literature, with a focus on the gothic genre. In her free time, she enjoys baking, reading (of course), writing poetry, and hosting dinner parties. |
| Stephen Ramsek | 2024 | Literary theory, psychology of literary creativity, cognitive literary studies | Stephen Ramsek is an M.A. student at Baylor University. He's interested generally in contributing to the field of Christian literary theory, specifically in developing an operational model of Christian reading. At Baylor he hopes to work on a hypothesis about the development of literary creativity, drawing from research in the psychology of creativity and skill development. In his free time he watches movies and reads with his wife. He's recently been reading a lot of translated autofiction and working through Roberto Bolaño's entire corpus. He's originally from Kentucky, and now lives in Waco. |
| Annie Roufs | 2024 | Contemporary American literature; religion and literature | Annie Roufs is a PhD student at Baylor University. Before moving south, she earned her BA (English and Catholic Studies) and MA (Catholic Studies) at the University of Mary in North Dakota. Her primary academic interests include works in contemporary American fiction which explore the dynamism between religion and culture. Outside of academics, Annie enjoys taking walks, thrifting, and watching Survivor with her puppy Olive. |
| Noah Hyatt | 2024 | Modernist Poetry/Dante | Noah is an English Master's student whose primary academic loves are the poetry of both T. S. Eliot and Dante. He enjoys pipe smoking, good beer, and good discussion, and he spends a lot of his free time playing and recording music. Noah is also an engaged member of the Antiochian Orthodox Church. |
| Anthony Klein | 2024 | Medieval Literature: Dante and Chaucer | Anthony Klein is a Ph.D. student. He completed his B.A. at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, where he studied Medieval Literature, the Great Books, Languages, and any novel he could find. As an entering student this year, Anthony’s academic interests are still naively overambitious, including the role and preservation of myth in the middle ages, epic poetry, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the literature of the American South. His extracurricular interests include comic books, board games, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, improvisational comedy, and LEGOs. He hopes to one day be a millionaire. He's still workshopping strategy: all advice is more than welcome. |
| Zsanna Mária Bodor | 2023 | Nineteenth-century American literature (and its transatlantic critical reception) | Zsanna Bodor is a second-year M.A. student and Graduate Assistant Director of the University Writing Center. She completed her B.A. at Hillsdale College in Michigan, where she studied German Literature and Music. Zsanna’s research interests center on nineteenth-century American authors—especially Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott—and their Hungarian reception. Her other passions include singing, playing string quartets with her three brothers, traveling, and going on Socratic walks. Zsanna was born in Budapest, Hungary. |
| Harrison Glaze | 2023 | 20th Century Poetry & Poetics; Transatlantic Modernism | Harrison Glaze is a Ph.D. student in English at Baylor University. His research interests center on twentieth-century Anglophone poetry and poetics, transatlantic and transnational modernisms, and the history of literary criticism. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, he earned his B.A. in English at Rhodes College (roll, Lynx, roll!) in Memphis, Tennessee. |
| Ariadne Lewis | 2023 | Nineteenth-century British literature | Ariadne Lewis is a Ph.D. student at Baylor University. She completed her B.A. in English Education at Geneva College, near Pittsburgh, and spent three years teaching IBDP English in Indonesia before returning to the U.S. for graduate school. Her research interests include nineteenth-century British literature, narrative silence, Bakhtin, and religion. In her free time, she enjoys music, singing, baking, and talking on the phone with friends and family. |
| Lydia Martin | 2023 | Victorian Poetry/Medievalism | Lydia Martin is a second year Ph.D. student. She graduated from the University of Dallas, and is particularly interested in Gerard Manley Hopkins and theories of poetic diction and linguistic construction. |
| David Willey | 2023 | 19th Century Literature | David Willey is a Masters student at Baylor and a graduate consultant at the University Writing Center. David received his undergraduate degree from the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, where he studied literature and the liberal arts. His academic interests include 19th-century literature, particularly Oscar Wilde, as well as aesthetic and critical theory. David's non-academic interests include bad attempts at cooking, playing tennis, and watching mystery shows. |
| Matt Hawk | 2022 | Modern & Contemporary American Literature | Matt Hawk is a PhD student in English at Baylor University, specializing in modern and contemporary American Literature, with special emphasis on poetry & poetics. His scholarly work has appeared in The Southern Quarterly, Arkansas Review, and Mississippi Quarterly. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Memphis, and both a B.A. and M.Ed. from the University of Notre Dame. His own poetry has been published by Appalachian Review, Rio Grande Review, and Iron Horse Literary Review. His chapbook of original poems, entitled Poems from the Heart, was published by Desert Willow Press in 2018. Originally from Ohio, he now lives with his wife and baby daughter in Georgetown, Texas, just north of Austin. |
| Michael Riggins | 2022 | Literature and Theology; 16-17th Century British Poetry | Michael Riggins is a PhD student. He is a native of Indiana, but a naturalized citizen of Texas, having grown up both places. His interests lie primarily in the relationship between literature and theology in Early Modern England, particularly in the works of John Donne. His long term project focuses on both Donne’s devotional poems and sermons as spiritual exercises. Michael holds a BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis. |
| Laurel Samuelson | 2022 | Long 19th-Century British Literature | Laurel Samuelson is a PhD student studying Romantic, Victorian, and Edwardian British literature with a special interest in George MacDonald’s fantasy and fairy tales. She primarily works in the nineteenth century but has a secondary interest in global comics, animation, and children’s literature. If she had a Substack, it would detail the character arcs represented across the extensive franchise of animated Barbie films. |
| Veronia Toth | 2022 | Victorian Literature | Veronica Toth is a PhD student at Baylor University. She received her M.A. in Literature and Cultural Theory from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where her master’s thesis examined the role of polygamy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Veronica’s research interests include relational structures and gender theory, religion and literature, and contemporary writing of faith. Additionally, her creative nonfiction and poetry have been published in journals such as Windhover, Relief, and The Other Journal. |
| Theresa Boyd | 2021 | 20th Century American Fiction and Poetry | Theresa is a PhD student from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When not studying metafiction, sacramentality, and manners in American fiction, she and her fiancé enjoy walking their miniature schnoodle, hunting for good Italian food, and reviving dying houseplants. |
| Robert Brown | 2021 | 19th and 20th Century American Literature | Robert Brown is a fourth-year PhD student in Baylor’s English Department. His research focuses on moral, communal, and civic formation and the importance of place in American literature, particularly in the century between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. He is currently teaching an American Literature survey course and developing a dissertation on American short-story cycles set in small towns. Originally a missionary kid from Hungary, he moved to Waco from Southern California, where he attended Biola University and then Cal State Fullerton, wrote his MA thesis on a virtue-ethics approach to teaching academic writing, and taught as an adjunct at California Baptist University and San Bernardino Valley College. In addition to literature and pedagogy, Robert is passionate about film, theology, and moral philosophy and writes about them regularly online. On an alternate timeline, writing about Star Wars would be his day job. |
| Savannah Chorn | 2021 | Victorian Poetry | Savannah Chorn is a PhD student at Baylor, where she also earned her Master's degree. She is the graduate tutor at Brooks College and a graduate assistant for the Honors Residential College. Her research interests include nineteenth-century British literature, religion, Victorian medievalism, and postsecularism, with an emphasis on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In her free time, she enjoys watching movies, letter writing, and having tea with friends. |
| Reilly Fitzpatrick Vines | 2021 | 19th- and 20th-century British Women Writers; Feminist, Gender & Queer Theory | Reilly Fitzpatrick Vines (she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. candidate from southern California whose research interests include feminist, gender, and queer theories as well as education, social reform, and constructions of gender in the novels of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British women writers. She graduated with double BAs in English and Honors Humanities and a concurrent MA in English from Azusa Pacific University in 2020, and completed an MLitt in Romantic and Victorian Literature with a concentration in Women, Writing, and Gender from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2021. Reilly is a committee member of the 19C Research Seminar and a doctoral fellow at the Armstrong Browning Library here at Baylor. When not collecting book-related degrees, Reilly collects antique books, travels with her wife, spends too much of her stipend “working” (people-watching) at local coffeeshops, and keeps her cat, Brontë, away from her jungle of houseplants. |
| Becky Presnall | 2021 | Long Middle Ages, Arthurian Literature, Nordic Sagas, Classical Reception Studies, and Children's Literature | Becky Presnall is a PhD Student, Doctoral Administrative Fellow, and MRRS Committee Member, as well as the Graduate Writing Center Coordinator and Graduate Fellow for The Greats Story Lab at Baylor University. Before completing her MA at Baylor, she graduated from Regent University with a Bachelor of Arts in English, concentrating in Medieval Languages. Her research interests include Middle English Arthurian romances of the Northwest Midlands, Nordic Sagas, Classical reception studies, and children’s literature. When not devoting her time to her corgi, Bertilak de Hautdesert, she may be found planning her next camping trip, trying out new games, or watching Studio Ghibli movies. |
| Myles Roberts | 2021 | Religion & Literature; Shakespeare's *Measure for Measure* | Myles is a PhD student in English. He majored in English at Louisiana College where he was a terrible student. He has master's degrees in Liberal Arts (LSUS), Ethics and Social Justice (Howard Divinity), and Theology and the Arts (Duke Divinity). He likes to play music with his bandmates and throw a baseball with whomever is willing. He lives in Shreveport, Louisiana with his wife, Allie. |
| Jonathan Diaz | 2020 | American Literature | Jonathan Diaz is a Ph.D. student at Baylor University, where he studies race and religion in American literature, particularly Latina/o/e literature. He has taught rhetoric, composition, and great books courses at Biola University, the University of Southern California, and Baylor University. Diaz is also a poet, and was a finalist for the Ninth Letter 2023 Literary Award in Poetry. His poems appear in or are forthcoming from Shō Poetry Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, and EcoTheo Review. He lives in Texas with his wife Abigail. |
| Kristyn Drew Woytkewicz | 2020 | 19th Century British Women Writers; Reform Novels; Feminist & Ecofeminist Theory | Kristyn Drew Woytkewicz is a PhD candidate studying 19th century British women writers and social reform. She is particularly interested in Elizabeth Gaskell, sympathy, and ecofeminism in industrial novels. Originally from San Antonio, TX, Kristyn received her BA from Mississippi College where she studied English writing, literature, and history. She currently serves as a graduate student committee member for the Nineteenth-Century Research Seminar at Baylor and can frequently be found working in Dichotomy (the best coffee shop in Waco). In her free time, Kristyn enjoys spending time with her husband Connor and cat Kyoshi, listening to Taylor Swift, and playing the Legend of Zelda. |
| Justice Flint | 2020 | Theology and Literature; Victorian Novels | Justice is a PhD student who earned an MA in English at Baylor in 2022. Originally from Wichita, KS, she earned a BA in English from Bethel College in 2020. Her her main area of interest is 19th century Victorian prose, and her thematic foci include cross-gender friendship and singleness. Apart from literary study, she also writes and presents on these topics from an evangelical theological perspective. Among her many hobbies are sewing historical (or historically inspired) clothing, drawing portraits, doing DSLR photography, bookbinding, scrapbooking, violin, ballroom dancing, and ice skating. She is an obsessive journaler, and enjoys making wax-sealed letters for her friends. She contends for sewing space with her cat, Tupperware, who likes to pounce on fabric while she is cutting it. |
| Sarah Kaderbek | 2020 | Late Victorian, Early Modernist British Literature | Sarah Kaderbek is a Ph.D. student and graduated with a B.A. in British and American Literature from Franciscan University of Steubenville in December 2019. Sarah's research interests include late Victorian and early Modernist authors, such as Oscar Wilde or G.K. Chesterton, with a special focus on the works of J.M. Barrie; the Inklings, most especially J.R.R. Tolkien; and Aristotelian philosophy of rocket science and space exploration, of all things. Outside of class, she can be found watching "old" movies with friends, collecting vintage hats and plush sheep, and praying that her black thumb doesn't kill the houseplants. |
| Grace Perry McCright | 2020 | 20th Century American Literature, Women Writers, Southern Literature | Grace Perry McCright is a PhD student focusing on modern and contemporary American women writers. She completed her Master's degree at Baylor in May 2022 with a thesis titled: "'To Liberate Ourselves and Each Other': Reading the Female Community in the Fiction of Sylvia Plath, Mary McCarthy, and Toni Morrison." Her research centers American women writers and explores themes of community, race, and religion. Originally from the Dallas area, she came to Waco from Marshall, Texas, where she earned her BA in English with a minor in Religion from East Texas Baptist University. In addition to teaching for the English department, Grace also serves as the Assistant to the Director of First Year Writing. Outside of her work, Grace enjoys reading contemporary fiction and fantasy novels, drinking (and brewing) coffee, and spending time with the EGSA community, her husband, Niall, and their pet bunny, Bunbledore. |
| Yifan Zhang | 2020 | ||
| Olivia Taylor | 2019 | Shakespeare reception | Olivia Taylor is a PhD student originally from Fernandina Beach, Florida. Her research focuses on contemporary responses to Shakespeare. Her novel, Welcome to the Paradise Motel, is forthcoming from Apprentice House Press in 2025. She earned her MA in English from Baylor in 2021, and her BA from Palm Beach Atlantic University in 2019. In her spare time, she enjoys watercolor painting and crochet, hosting events, and exploring antique stores. |
| Anna E. Beaudry | 2018 | 19th Century New England Regionalism, Ecofeminism, New Materialism | Anna (she/her/hers) is Baylor's Assistant Director of Major Fellowships and Awards, as well as an English Ph.D. Candidate studying 19th-century American literature. Her dissertation compares four female writers from the New England regionalist movement, examining the treatment of geographic and psychological landscapes in their fiction. She intends to graduate in December 2024. Before returning to graduate school, Anna taught high school literature and rhetoric. When she is not on campus, you can find her in her vegetable garden warding off invading squirrels or watching murder mysteries with her husband Troy, her sweet greyhound Pippa, and her rambunctious mutt Caddie. |
| Ray Stockstad | 2018 | British Romantic and Gothic Prose | A Marine Corps and Navy veteran of the first and second Gulf Wars, I enjoy playing games, brewing beer (and sun tea), watching movies, and studying how we create our sense of Self, using the Other as a mirror. My wife, Kelly, and I love our Baylor community and the fast friends we have made. |
| Hannah Wells | 2018 | 19th Century American Literature | Hannah is a PhD candidate interested in American literature, political philosophy, and the history of science. Her dissertation approaches nineteenth-century American fiction by examining the influence of Francis Bacon's philosophical and scientific project on works by Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Twain, and the era's most dedicated (and most controversial) Baconian scholar, Delia Bacon. Hannah is an alumna of Central College in Pella, Iowa, her home state, and currently resides in South Carolina with her husband Matt, who teaches at Clemson University, and their two sons. |
| Jordan Sillars | 2016 | Jordan Sillars entered the Ph.D. program in the fall of 2016. His literary interests include 19th C. American literature, eco-criticism, and science fiction. Jordan's most recent degree came from the University of Toronto, where he earned his MA in English. He's a Canadian citizen, but grew up in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and now lives with his wife, Hannah, in Waco. They enjoy exploring Cameron Park with their dogs, visiting the farmer's market, and chasing down the Pokey-O's ice cream truck. | |
| Daniel Smith | 2016 | ||
| Ryan Pederson | 2014 |