Please welcome 41 new faculty members to the College of Arts and Humanities!
English
Nicholas DeArmas, Visiting Instructor, Technical Communication
Nicholas DeArmas has worked since fall of 2014 as a GTA in the English Department, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Texts and Technology program. His research interests include examining the intersections between rhetoric and digital writing, technical communication, social media and discourse. He is a 2016-18 HASTAC Scholar and has published in Visual Ethnography. He also has a chapter, “Understanding Participatory Culture through Hashtag Activism after the Orlando Pulse Tragedy,” in the edited collection Discourses of (De)legitimization: Participatory Culture in Digital Context (Routledge) due out this fall.
Dr. Bill Fogarty, Assistant Professor, 20th and 21st Century American Poetry
Dr. Bill Fogarty specializes in modern and contemporary poetry and poetics, mainly in the United States. His current book project, Local Tongues: The Politics of Speech in Poetry, argues that local speech constitutes an unexamined, transnational poetic resource for bridging aesthetic and sociopolitical realms. Before coming to UCF, he was the 2017-18 NEH Postdoctoral Fellow in Poetics at Emory University’s Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry and Instructor of English at the University of Oregon, where he completed his doctorate in 2015.
Dr. Micah Dean Hicks, Lecturer, Creative Writing
Dr. Micah Dean Hicks is a Calvino Prize-winning author of fabulist fiction. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Kenyon Review, EPOCH and Witness, among others. His story collection Electricity and Other Dreams is available from New American Press and his novel Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones is forthcoming from John Joseph Adams Books. He received his doctorate in Creative Writing from Florida State University.
Dr. Louise Kane, Assistant Professor, Global Modernisms
Dr. Louise Kane received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Oxford and earned her doctorate through the AHRC-sponsored “Modernist Magazines Project” at De Montfort University, UK. Her research and teaching interests include literary modernism, transnational literatures, periodical studies, and digital humanities.
Omer Kazmi, Lecturer, Literature
Omer Kazmi earned his doctorate at the University of Tulsa in May 2016. His dissertation, “The Double Agent: the Spy Novel and Modernism,” explores the spy novel in relation to modernism, focusing on the double agent as a figure that ties both the two styles of literature together. He received his master’s degree at Rutgers – Newark in 2008, where he earned the Highest Distinction in Literary Studies Award. He received his bachelor’s degree in English at the University of California at Irvine in 2004. His research interests are in 20th century British and Anglophone literature, especially James Joyce, Stevie Smith, Elizabeth Bowen, and Anthony Burgess and other modernist authors.
Chrissy Kolaya, Assistant Professor, Creating Writing (Fiction)
Chrissy Kolaya is a poet and fiction writer, author of Charmed Particles: a novel and Any Anxious Body: poems. Her work has been included in the anthologies New Sudden Fiction (Norton), Fiction on a Stick (Milkweed Editions) and Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems, as well as in a number of literary journals. As one of the co-founders of the Prairie Gate Literary Festival, she worked to develop the literary arts community in rural western Minnesota. She has received a Norman Mailer Writers Colony summer scholarship, an Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies fellowship, a Loft Mentor Series Award in Poetry and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Lake Region Arts Council, and the University of Minnesota. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Indiana University.
Mike Leavitt, Lecturer, Creative Writing
Mike Leavitt earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from UCF, with a specialization in Fiction, and has taught Creative Writing for more than a year. Before that, he worked as a web developer, a Chinese food delivery driver and a U.S. Marine. In addition to reading and writing, he also enjoys studying computer programming, game design, playing and making video games and spending time with his family.
Dr. Sara Raffel, Assistant Professor, Technical Communication
Dr. Sara Raffel’s research examines how cognitive psychology—particularly narrative transportation theory—contributes to understanding virtual reality stories and their impact on players’ feelings toward social issues. She has recently published in journals such as Visual Ethnography and Florida Studies, and has presented her work at several national and international conferences, including Foundations of Digital Games, IEEE ProComm and the Popular/American Culture Association. Sara holds a doctorate in Texts and Technology from the University of Central Florida, a Master of Philosophy in Film Theory and History from Trinity College of the University of Dublin, Ireland and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies from Hunter College of the City University of New York. She also serves as director of oral histories on the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida’s board of directors.
Dr. Jake Wolff, Assistant Professor, Creative Writing (Fiction)
Dr. Jake Wolff is the author of The History of Living Forever, a novel forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctorate in Creative Writing from Florida State University. His stories and essays have appeared in journals such as Tin House, One Story, and American Short Fiction. He currently lives with his wife and his epileptic cat in upstate New York, where he is at work on a novel about potatoes, prejudice, and prisoners of war.
Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy
Amanda Beaver, Motion Capture Specialist
Amanda graduated from FIEA in 2012 as a part of FIEA’s 8th class. While producing animations for the capstone game “Penned,” Amanda discovered her true passion in the Motion Capture Studio. She soon became certified to run her own sessions for classmates and clients such as EA Tiburon and Capture Lab. After graduation, Amanda continued to use her skills in the MOCAP studio for another two years, working on titles such as “Madden NFL Football” and “NBA Live”.
Nicholas Zuccarello, Research Associate
Nick Zuccarello has more than ten years of video game industry experience working as a creature/character artist. He started his art career as a high-resolution 3D artist in St. Louis, MO, and later moved to California to work for Sony Online Entertainment on their Massively Multiplayer Online Game, “Star Wars Galaxies”. After Sony, Nick worked for High Moon Studios (formerly SegaSammy) as a character artist on the title “Dark Watch”. Zuccarello moved to Maitland, FL, to work at Electronic Arts Tiburon, where he spent over seven years as a character artist, a lead outsourcing artist, and the studio graphics trainer for EA University. There he worked on titles such as “John Madden Football”, “Tiger Woods Golf”, “MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)”, “NFL Blitz” and “SSX”.
History
Eric Rutkow, Assistant Professor, American History
Eric Rutkow is a lawyer and historian whose research and teaching focus on international relations, the environment and tourism. His first book, American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation (Scribner, 2012), received the Association of American Publisher’s PROSE award for U.S. history and was named one of the top books of the year by Smithsonian magazine. His second book, The Longest Line on the Map: The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas, will be published by Scribner in December 2018. Before earning his doctorate, Rutkow practiced as an environmental human rights lawyer in Cambodia and as a junior associate with Latham & Watkins LLC in New York. He received his Bachelor of Arts and doctorate from Yale and his Juris Doctor from Harvard.
Modern Languages and Literatures
Dr. Tyler Fisher, Associate Professor, Spanish
Tyler Fisher received his Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Bachelor of Arts in Spanish at UCF, and in 2002 became the first UCF student to attain a Rhodes Scholarship. The scholarship enabled him to pursue graduate studies at the University of Oxford, where his master’s and doctoral research concerned metaliterary devices and theology in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spanish poetry. He was subsequently Queen Sofía Research Fellow and Lecturer in Spanish at Exeter College, Oxford (2008-2011), and has since held permanent posts at the University of London. Fisher has taught advanced courses in Spanish and comparative literature, including The Literature of the Spanish Inquisition, Poetry of the Afterlife and Reading and Writing Spanish Microfiction. He has presented research papers by invitation at several universities, such as Cambridge, Coimbra and Glasgow. Fisher’s book-length translations of poetry include José Martí’s Ismaelillo (Wings Press 2007) and Federico García Lorca’s The Dialogue of Two Snails (Penguin 2018).
Carolina Salazar, Visiting Instructor, Spanish
Born and raised in Colombia, Carolina Salazar moved to Orlando in 2006. Salazar received her Masters of Arts in Spanish from the University of Central Florida last Spring. During 2017 she was a GTA for UCF’s Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Before pursuing a career in teaching, Salazar worked for more than ten years as a journalist. Her area of specialization was in print journalism in Spanish. She covered the Hispanic community for El Sentinel, the Spanish-language publication of the Orlando Sentinel, and CENTRO Tampa, the Spanish-language publication of the Tampa Bay Times. In 2005 she received a B.A. in Communications with a concentration in Journalism from Universidad Católica de Pereira.
Milagro Truyol Quiroz, Visiting Instructor, Spanish
Milagro Truyol Quiroz was born and raised in Barranquilla, Colombia and moved to the United States at the age of 17. In 2014 she received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from UCF and then her Master of Arts in Spanish in 2016. Quiroz previously worked as a GTA for UCF’s Spanish department and has received a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) certificate. She is passionate about languages and teaching. Her goal is to pursue a Master of Arts in TESOL to connect her sociolinguistic interests with both the English and Spanish languages.
Nicholson School of Communication and Media
Madeline Davis, Instructor, Games and Interactive Media
Madeline Davis received her Master of Arts in Digital Media from the University of Central Florida and her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, with a focus in photography, graphic design and silk screen printmaking from Florida Atlantic University. Her recent work focuses on embodied interaction and experiences. Davis originally started her Bachelor of Arts with the goals of becoming a photographer, but after being introduced to a multitude of different mediums she had decided to no longer limit herself to one of them. Thus, her recent works combine photography, microprocessors and audio to create interactive installations.
Kenton “Taylor” Howard, Instructor, Games and Interactive Media
Taylor Howard received his Master of Arts in English with a focus in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature at Florida Atlantic University in 2012, and his Bachelor of Arts in English from Flagler College in 2009. He is currently working on his doctorate in Texts and Technology and will be entering candidacy in fall 2018. Much of his academic work deals with video games; he has presented gaming-related work at a number of academic conferences in the United States and will be presenting at the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) in Italy in July 2018. He is also interested in non-digital games and published an article about Magic: The Gathering alongside Eric Murnane in Well Played’s February 2018 issue. Taylor has resided in Florida for most of his life, and prior to joining SVAD, he taught English and Literature courses at a variety of colleges throughout the state.
Dr. Emily K. Johnson, Visiting Assistant Professor, Games and Interactive Media
Dr. Emily K. Johnson conducts research focusing on educational technology, simulations and learning, gameful learning, self-regulated learning, learner motivation and self-efficacy and in-situ assessments. Prior to this position, she served as Postdoctoral Research Associate and Coordinator of the Games Research Lab at UCF where she collaborated with faculty, staff and students from a variety of disciplines to plan, fund, conduct and publish a wide range of games-related research. Emily earned her doctorate in Texts and Technology from the University of Central Florida after teaching middle school Language Arts for eight years. She earned her Master of Arts in Reading Education from the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL, and her Bachelor of Arts in English from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.
Eddie Lohmeyer, Assistant Professor, Games and Interactive Media
Eddie Lohmeyer received his doctorate from North Carolina State University in Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media. His research explores aesthetic and technical developments within histories of digital media, with an emphasis on video games and their relationship to traditions of the avant-garde. Additionally, his art considers embodied experience through processes of play and defamiliarization. Using deconstructive approaches such as glitch, physical modifications to hardware and assemblage, his installations stage bizarre encounters with nostalgic media as a means to unveil our normal attitudes and perceptions toward technologies.
Eric Murnane, Assistant Professor, Games and Interactive Media
Eric Murnane received his doctorate in Texts and Technology from the University of Central Florida and both his Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts from McNeese State University. His research interests focus primarily on narrative and the player in digital games. Murnane has presented his research at national and international conferences such as Foundations of Digital Games, HASTAC, Popular Culture Association, Computers and Writing and Society for Cinema and Media Studies. His creative works include traditional fiction and poetry, hypertext/interactive storytelling and 2D Unity projects. Originally from Lake Charles, Louisiana, Murnane has experience in writing centers, startups and independent films.
John Thomas Murray, Assistant Professor, Games and Interactive Media
John Thomas Murray received his Bachelor of Science in Digital Narratives and Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is receiving his doctorate and Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His interactive narrative collaborations have been featured in multiple international gallery exhibitions, including in Portugal and Norway, and explore how to incorporate new sensing and display technologies to tell stories. Murray wrote curriculum and taught for the Academy of Art in San Francisco, and was co-author of the MIT Press Platform Studies Series book, Flash: Building the Interactive Web, and co-founded an augmented reality startup, Seebright. He has taught courses and led workshops that incorporated augmented reality and game design.
Gary D. Rhodes, Associate Professor and Assistant Director, Film and Mass Media
Dr. Gary D. Rhodes is a filmmaker who has written and directed a number of commercially-released documentaries. He is also the author and/or editor of 20 books on film history and theory, the most recent being The Birth of the American Horror Film (Edinburgh University Press, 2018). Rhodes has served as Head of Film and Postgraduate Director for Film at the Queen’s University of Belfast, whose faculty he joined in 2005. In 2016, The Guardian ranked their department as being number one for filmmaking in the entirety of the United Kingdom.
Tim Ritter, Lecturer, Film and Mass Media
Tim Ritter received his Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida and his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Auburn University. He has written and directed two feature films, Testament and Moment of Truth, which have played in festivals around the world. His films, which frequently examine how ancient concepts of morality emerge in and clash with a cynical modern world, are built on tight budgets that stress smart maximization of available resources. Ritter has also worked in video production as a producer of instructional videos for rising tech company Treehouse, served as the Programming Director for the Fort Myers Film Festival, taught and designed courses for The Los Angeles Film School, and spent 10 years as an award-winning journalist at newspapers across the Southeast and as a regular contributor for The Associated Press. He has experience teaching classes dealing with both film criticism and film production.
Philosophy
Peter J. Giannopoulos, Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Peter J. Giannopoulos was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Philosophy at Penn State University, where he received his doctorate in 2017. He specializes in the Critical Philosophy of Race, German Idealism and the 19th century, 20th century Continental Philosophy and Bioethics.
Dr. Stephanie Theodorou, Lecturer, Philosophy
Dr. Stephanie Theodorou holds a doctorate in philosophy of religion from Temple University. She has published work in comparative East-West philosophy of mind, philosophical hermeneutics and animal minds. She and her husband recently relocated to Florida from Pennsylvania.
Cyrus Ali Zargar, Al-Ghazali Endowed Distinguished Professor, Islamic Studies
Cyrus Ali Zargar completed his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, in Near Eastern Studies in 2008. His first book, Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in Ibn ʿArabi and ʿIraqi, was published in 2011 by the University of South Carolina Press. His most recent book, The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism, was published in 2017 by Oneworld Press. Zargar’s research interests focus on the literature of medieval Sufism in Arabic and Persian. This includes poetic expression of mystical experiences, especially in the form of love poetry, as well as Sufi ethical treatises, the writings of Ibn al-ʿArabī and early adherents to his worldview, Safavid Shiʿi mysticism, contemporary Iranian cinema and satire in medieval and modern literature. He is the author of articles in The Muslim World, Iranian Studies, The Journal of Arabic Literature and Encyclopædia Iranica.
School of Performing Arts
William Ayers, Assistant Professor, Music Theory
William Ayers is a music theorist and composer whose research focuses on twentieth-century American music, transformational theory, alternative tunings, microtonal music and music in interactive media. Will has presented research at regional, national and international conferences. Will’s recent compositions include A Sense of Something Commonplace, a work for violin and piano that was recently recorded by Brianna Matzke and Hajnal Pivnick on the album On Behalf, and his Three Aphorisms, a set of songs using texts by artist Jenny Holzer. Will started teaching at UCF in 2017, having previously taught at Xavier University and the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music.
David Bjella, Professor, Cello
David Bjella is a native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with an extensive, multi-faceted career as a teacher, chamber musician, orchestral player and soloist. He has been Co-Principal of the IRIS Orchestra in Memphis Tennessee for the last 18 years and was a member of the Inman Piano Trio for 13 years. Bjella is one of the featured IRIS chamber musicians for the Naxos-released CD, “Music of Stephen Hartke,” which was chosen by the New York Times as a Top Ten Classical Recording. He has also served as Professor of Cello at Stetson University, Visiting Associate Professor of Cello at Florida State University, Adjunct Professor of Cello at UCF and has taught in the Valade Master Teacher program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Many of Bjella’s students have gone on to receive admission to selective graduate programs and win high-profile orchestral competitions. A sought-after performer and teacher, Bjella was asked in 2018 to join the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy and the Madeline Island Chamber Music Festival in Wisconsin. In 2015, Bjella was featured soloist at the Beaumaris Festival in the UK.
Tim Brown, Assistant Professor, Scenic and Projection Design
Tim Brown is a professor and freelance scenic and projection designer. He recently designed the set for J. Cole’s KOD world tour, which is currently performing in arenas across North America, as well as the set for Tyler the Creator’s recent tour which included performances at Coachella. His scenic design for J.Cole’s 4 your Eyez Only and 2014 Forest Hills Drive tours was seen across North America, Europe and Australia and on HBO. Brown has also been an Assistant Projection Designer for Driving Miss Daisy and Macbeth on Broadway and productions at The Public Theatre, Signature Theatre, 2nd Stage, and New York Theatre Workshop. His work has been featured in American Theatre Magazine and Opera America Magazine. He is a graduate of Yale School of Drama and most recently was the head of the Scenic Design program at the University of Connecticut.
Alex Burtzos, Assistant Professor, Composition
Alex Burtzos is an American composer and conductor who has collaborated with some of the world’s foremost contemporary musicians and ensembles, including JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire and ETHEL. He is the founder and artistic director of ICEBERG New Music, a New York-based composers’ collective, and the conductor of the hip-hop/classical chamber orchestra ShoutHouse. Burtzos’ work often incorporates elements of the 20th century avant-garde, jazz, rock, metal and hip-hop alongside or against classical/pre-classical structures and sounds. His unique approach has earned him accolades and awards from organizations around the world. As a conductor, Alex exclusively performs contemporary repertoire, and has conducted over 40 world and regional premieres by emerging and established composers. Alex holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from Manhattan School of Music.
Natalie McCabe, Assistant Professor, Theatre Studies
Adam Raine, Visiting Professor, Lighting
Adam Raine joins UCF from St. Paul, MN. For the past three years he has been working with VStar Entertainment as the Electric Shop Lead Technician and Video Specialist. Raine has also been designing in and around the Twin Cities area for the past 4 years. He completed his MFA in Lighting and Projection Design from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2015. Adam has been working professionally in the industry since 2007 in a variety of different roles and is very excited to begin his education career at UCF.
Peter Weishar, Professor, Themed Entertainment Design
Peter Weishar was previously a Full Professor in the Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship, Director of the Themed Experience Institute at Florida State University and Chair of the Themed Entertainment Association Academic Network. He also served as the Dean of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s School of Entertainment Arts for approximately ten years. Before his time at SCAD, Weishar was a professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Department of Film and Television while serving as Acting Director of the Animation Program. He is the author of three books: Digital Space: Designing Virtual Environments (McGraw-Hill), Blue Sky: The Art of Computer Animation (Abrams Books) and CGI: The Art of the Computer-Generated Image (Abrams Books). Along with his academic background, Weishar has extensive private sector experience in design and animation development management and has worked with a number of video and new media technology companies, as well as creative firms and advertising agencies.
School of Visual Arts and Design
Michael C. Cabrera, Lecturer, Emerging Media
Michael C. Cabrera received his Master of Fine Arts in Visual Effects from the Savannah College of Art and Design and his Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology from Oregon State University. He has participated as a visual effects artist and supervisor in a number of student films. His work relies on the process of invisible visual effects, where the viewer cannot discern between what is real-life and what is CGI within a piece. Prior to joining UCF, Michael resided in Effingham, Georgia, where he taught at SCAD and also taught film in a local high school. Currently, he resides in Winter Springs, FL where he previously taught Modeling and Simulation in the Seminole County School system. He has experience teaching Visual Effects, Compositing and 3D Modeling courses.
Herbert “Tommy” James, Assistant Professor, Architecture
Tommy James studied at the University of Florida School of Architecture, where he received a Bachelor of Design with a minor in Urban Planning, a Master of Architecture and a Certificate of Sustainable Design. He has 15 years of successful and diverse working experience in the profession and a LEED AP accreditation. He has taught for the last ten years as an adjunct or graduate student at the University of Florida, University of Central Florida and Valencia College. He shares with SVAD the goal to create well-rounded young professionals and stresses the importance of community conscious architects.
Amer Kobaslija, Assistant Professor, Studio Art
Amer Kobaslija fled his war-ravaged homeland of Bosnia in 1993 to a refugee camp in Germany. In 1997 he was offered asylum by the United States and immigrated to Florida, where he completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Ringling College of Art and Design. In 2003 he went on to pursue a Master of Fine Arts at the Montclair State University. Prior to joining UCF, he taught painting and drawing at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He is a recipient of the Joan Mitchel Foundation Grant and Pollock-Krasner Award. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow for painting, Kobaslija has been featured in more than 20 solo exhibitions, including seven at George Adams Gallery in New York. His paintings have been reviewed and reproduced in numerous publications including The New York Times, Art in America, and ARTNews.
Writing and Rhetoric
Tyler Gillespie, Instructor, Writing and Rhetoric
Tyler Gillespie is the author of Florida Man: Poems (Red Flag Poetry, 2018) and co-editor of The Awkward Phase: The Uplifting Tales of Those Weird Kids You Went to School With (Skyhorse Publishing, 2016). He’s an award-winning journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, GQ, The Guardian, VICE, The Nation, Salon and NPR-affiliates, among other places. A reformed comedian, his humor writing has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and the anthology LGBTQ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny. He’s a fourth-generation Floridian and completed his undergraduate at UCF. He holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from the University of New Orleans as well as an MA in Journalism & Media Studies from the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg.
Dr. Esther Milu, Assistant Professor, Writing and Rhetoric
Dr. Esther Milu was born and raised in Kenya. She earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Literature from the University of Nairobi. In 2008, she moved to the United States and joined Michigan State University for her second M.A in Critical Studies in Literacy and Pedagogy, and for her doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition. For the last two years, she has been working at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Esther’s research interests revolve around multilingual literacies, identities and pedagogies, with a focus in understanding how people construct and perform their linguistic identities in multilingual contexts. She is currently working on a project that examines how African immigrant students perform their linguistic literacies and identities in American writing classrooms. Her other project explores how Kenyan Hip-hop artists perform their multilingual identities in local and global contexts. In her spare time, she likes teaching Swahili in the community and watching reality TV.
Caitlin Pierson, Visiting Instructor, Writing and Rhetoric
Emily Proulx, Visiting Instructor, Writing and Rhetoric
Joel Schneier, Instructor, Writing and Rhetoric
Joel Schneier is from Fairfax, Virginia and most recently moved to Orlando from Raleigh, North Carolina. He attended James Madison University for his Bachelor of Arts, and is currently a doctoral candidate at North Carolina State University in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program. Joel’s research examines various communication practices with mobile technologies, including composition processes, sociolinguistic performances of style and mobile gaming. His research has been published in the journals Mobile Media & Communication and New Media & Society and the collected edition Language Variation in the New South. He spends his free time bicycling, drinking coffee, collecting records, taking pictures of his cat, making pizza and enjoying the company of his wife.