The College of Arts and Humanities welcomes the faculty members joining our college this fall!
English
Rebecca Fox, Visiting Lecturer
Rebecca Fox earned her MFA in Creative Writing from UCF where she was also an MFA Provost Fellow. Before arriving in Orlando, she earned her bachelor’s in English from Wheaton College in the Chicago suburbs and later worked in Central Iowa. She writes and studies fiction with a particular interest in literary fiction and fabulism. Rebecca is passionate about encouraging the next generation of writers to develop their unique voices.
Corinne Jones, Visiting Lecturer
Jean-Paul Swiatkowski, Visiting Instructor
Jean-Paul Swiatkowski holds an M.A. in English: Literary, Cultural and Textual Studies from UCF. His research interests center on critical theory with recurring emphasis on Existential Marxism in Postwar France, as well as the works of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. His most recent work, “The Politics of Knowledge in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide,” appeared in The Text: An International Peer Reviewed Online Journal of Language, Literature and Critical Theory in July 2021. He is ardently inquisitive about literature in all genres and historical periods. His humanities and philosophy undergraduate work at UCF has included capstone studies in European Romanticism, the history of Western philosophy as well as Asian humanities and Greek and Roman history and philosophy. He is currently working on a study of John Donne’s Songs and Sonnets. He offers 25 years of college teaching experience including freshman and sophomore composition, literature survey courses and developmental writing. His overall instructional ability is further bolstered by his experience teaching and tutoring both in-person and online for 33 years.
Katherine Randall, Visiting Lecturer
Katherine Randall (she/her) has a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing from Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on health and medical rhetoric, particularly in public health; her recent projects include a history of disciplinary understanding of airborne infection, a history of tuberculosis sanatoria and public health guidelines in Virginia, and a study of health communication within community-sponsored refugee resettlement. She is excited to be teaching courses in technical communication at UCF.
Modern Languages and Literatures
Lauren Hertovicz, Visiting Assistant Professor
Lauren Hetrovicz holds a Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics with a Graduate Concentration in Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education, an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language, an M.A. in Spanish Linguistics and a B.A. in Spanish and Linguistics, all earned from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research investigates pedagogical practices in language teaching. She has recently published a co-authored study involving heritage and second language learners of Spanish in Hispania and has a forthcoming article on the use of technological tools that will appear in the journal Language Learning and Technology. Prior to UCF, she taught 26 different courses in Spanish and linguistics as a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as an adjunct lecturer at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and as a lecturer at Northwestern University in Chicago. Additionally, she is a certified rater for the Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) and is a certified tester of the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) from the American Council of Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). At the College of Charleston and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she won a number of teaching, service and academic awards highlighting her dedication as an educator, faculty member and scholar.
Midori Imhoof, Visiting Instructor
Midori Imhoof is a visiting instructor at UCF. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Journalism and Broadcasting and a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Previously, she worked as a high school teacher where she taught beginning to advanced levels of Japanese language and English Language Arts through ESOL courses for 14 years. While she taught in high school, she received highly effective teacher and inspirational teacher awards numerous times. She also taught Japanese language and culture courses at colleges in Hawaii and Florida.
Valerie Mann-Grosso, Visiting Lecturer
Valerie Mann-Grosso was raised overseas in multilingual, cross-cultural settings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. After spending 20 years in Latin America, she returned to the United States and earned a B.A. in International Relations from Florida International University, an M.A. in Human Resource Development from Barry University. At the University of Central Florida, she earned an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, an M.A. in Spanish Language and Literature, and a doctorate in Executive Leadership in Education. Her studies have centered upon Spanish language and literature, second language acquisition, proficiency-oriented in-target-language teaching, student-centered teaching methodologies, cross-cultural studies and curriculum design. Prior to working at the University of Central Florida, Dr. Mann-Grosso worked at Seminole State College, Valencia College and Daytona State College. Currently, Dr. Mann-Grosso is immersed in personal Francophone studies. In addition, her research encompasses how proficiency-oriented second language acquisition integrates with student diversity, the multiple intelligences, and the use of technology to enhance language learning.
Philosophy
Brian Reese, Assistant Professor
Brian Reese specializes in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. He completed his doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania, his master’s work at the University of Oxford, and his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan. His current research focuses on ancient conceptions of personal identity, especially as they relate to theories of the soul and the acquisition and exercise of virtue.
School of Performing Arts
Tramaine Berryhill, Visiting Lecturer
Tramaine Berryhill is a Miami native and UCF Alumnus (BFA-05’). He is excited to share what he has learned over the past 15 years of designing, constructing and facilitating the installation of theatrical scenery across multiple types of live event experiences. For the last five years, Berryhill’s work has been in the meetings and corporate events industry working with the global audiovisual service provider PSAV (Encore). Recent professional theatre design credits include A Raisin in the Sun and Godspell at the Garden Theatre, Camp Omigosh and A Teddy Bears Picnic with the Orlando Rep Theatre.
Richard Crawley, Visiting Assistant Professor
Internationally acclaimed vocalist Richard Crawley captivates audiences with his passionate singing and nuanced dramatic presence. Career highlights include the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Boston Lyric Opera, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Tokyo Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra and Carnegie Hall. Richard recently served on the faculty of the Department of Drama at Syracuse University, where he focused on developing his pedagogy to serve the needs of the modern musical theatre artist. Previous faculty appointments at the Setnor School of Music, Loyola College in Baltimore, Binghamton University and the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. As a music director, Richard is equally comfortable with opera, musical theatre and choral repertoire. Credits include Into the Woods, Godspell, Verdi’s Macbeth, Red Hot and Cole, Songs for a New World and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. He is a classically trained pianist and has taught music theory, sight-singing, score analysis and musical theater performance
Roberta Emerson, Visiting Lecturer
Roberta Emerson is a director, actor, producer and teacher, among many other hats she proudly wears. She is a graduate of both the University of Minnesota with a BFA in Acting and Theatre Management and New York University with an MFA in Acting. She has worked as an actor and director in many regional theaters around the country, has done extensive voice-over commercial and film work, and has been a teaching artist both stateside and in Europe. She currently serves part-time as the Associate Artistic Director at the Garden Theatre and the Artistic Producing Consultant for Central Florida Community Arts. In what very little spare time she has, she serves on the Board to The Arts Bridge Charity and the executive team for Central Florida Entertainment Advocacy. Roberta is repped by Lock Talent.
Hannah Sun Ripert, Visiting Assistant Professor
Concert pianist Hannah Sun is a performer, teacher and composer with a mission to connect with diverse audiences locally and around the world. A chamber musician at heart, Hannah has collaborated at the Fontainebleau American Conservatory (France), International Academy of Music (Russia) and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival (Maine). Most recently, Hannah has given solo, duo and trio concerts throughout Central Florida and is thrilled to collaborate with world-class colleagues here at UCF. Committed to raising the next generation of musicians, she has made teaching a central part of her mission, from higher education to youth, senior and incarcerated communities. Born in China, raised in Australia and New York City, Hannah has performed with orchestras in New York, Utah, and Australia, and earned top prizes at the New York Piano Competition, International Music Competition (Long Island), and Chopin Piano Competition (Kosciuszko Foundation). She is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she studied with Seymour Lipkin and Jerome Lowenthal.
Clarence Penn, Assistant Professor
Clarence Penn is one of the busiest jazz drummers in the world, a leader of multiple bands, a composer, a prolific producer and an educator. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where he was a protégé of Ellis Marsalis, Penn is active as an educator and drum clinician. From 2004 to 2012, he taught on the faculty of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. He’s also served on faculty at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the Saint Louis College of Music in Rome, Italy, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Intensive Jazz Institute. Penn currently leads several ensembles. His most recent “rhythmically intoxicating” recording is 2014’s “Monk The Lost Files” arrangements of the music of Thelonious Monk. Released on the Origin record label, an amazing quartet comprising saxophonist Chad Leftkowitz-Brown, Pianist Gerald Clayton/Donald Vega, and bassist Yasushi Nakamura performing the music of Thelonius Monk with today’s modern jazz sensibility. Near completion is a “world music” studio project of songs and instrumentals that melds background voices — including his own — with a world-class band.
School of Visual Arts and Design
Angela Hernandez-Carlson, Visiting Lecturer
Angela Hernandez is an animator and digital artist with a long history at UCF. She received her BFA in Emerging Media: Character Animation in 2016 and an MFA in Emerging Media: Animation and Special Effects in 2020 at UCF where she was also an MFA Provost Fellow. Her most recent film, 2030, has been screened at film festivals around the world, most notably as a finalist in the Media Done Responsibly film festival, a semi-finalist in the Ontario International Film Festival and Honorable Mention in the Orlando International Film Festival. Her research focuses on the power of media and how it can be used to bring a positive change to her surrounding community.
Writing and Rhetoric
Jeremy Carnes, Visiting Lecturer
Jeremy M. Carnes received his B.A. and M.A. in English at Ball State University and his Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He specializes in Indigenous literature and rhetoric as well as comics studies and visual rhetoric. Jeremy is the Reviews Editor for Studies in American Indian Literatures and an Associate Editor of the Science Fiction Research Association Review. His current book project examines the ways Indigenous creators use comics to develop a narrative and rhetorical relationship with the land and their individual communities through relationality, storytelling and protest.
Loren Cooper, Visiting Instructor
Loren has devoted over a decade of service to writing education with the foundational belief that writing is best learned in warm, inclusive and socially responsible environments, acknowledging the fluid, complex and networked natures of student literacies which operate across innumerable rhetorical ecologies, many digital. They most enjoy working among diverse populations with a practical focus on ELL, non-traditional and FYC pedagogies. Their identity as an educator was most directly influenced through the lively interplay of rhetorical collaborations in the FYC classroom, writing centers, supplemental instruction classrooms, WAC/WID, community writing programs and technical editing. Current research interests include anti-racist assessment, ethical digital rhetorics, rhetorical embodiment via narrative, advocating to amend the Oxford comma policy in UCF’s style guide and improving LMS utility for distance-learning engagement and social learning. The word students use most to describe Professor Cooper is “caring.”
Maria Garcia, Visiting Instructor
Maria Garcia graduated from UCF in 2020 with an M.A. in Writing and Rhetoric after three years as a Graduate Teaching Associate in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric. Prior to her studies at UCF, she attended Florida International University and graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in English. She also graduated from Broward College with an AA in 2014, and this is where she began her career in first-year writing as a tutor in the Academic Success Center. Her research interests include new literacy studies, digital rhetoric and translingual theory. Ultimately, she wishes to pursue a Ph.D. in Writing and Rhetoric and continue her work as a first-year writing instructor. Outside of academics, she is a devoted dog and cat mom and likes to spend time outdoors with her corgi, Ned. Also, she enjoys visiting beaches all over Florida and traveling with her husband, Albert. She loves pop culture and watches old drive-in theater movies in her spare time.
Natalie Madruga, Visiting Instructor
Natalie Madruga (she/her) is a 2021 graduate from the University of Central Florida with an M.A. in Rhetoric and Composition. While at UCF, she worked as a Graduate Writing Consultant at the University Writing Center, a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Composition Writing Program and a Graduate Research Assistant for the Composition Program. Her research interests include public memory and memorialization, critical race theory, cultural rhetorics and writing pedagogy, specifically for Hispanic Serving Institutions. In 2020, she was awarded the Conference on College, Composition and Communication’s Scholars for the Dream award to present her work on writing pedagogy for Hispanic Serving Institutions. As a former Latina student who was learning at a Hispanic Serving Institution, this work is especially important to her. She attended the University of Central Florida for her undergraduate degree, where she volunteered for the UCF Music Department. Before moving to Orlando to become a part of UCF’s community, she was living in Key West, Florida, where she was born and raised. When she is not teaching, Natalie likes to spend her time volunteering, specifically for mental health advocacy and LGBTQIA++ rights. She also likes exploring Orlando by trying new places and new experiences in the community.
Ileia Mooney, Visiting Instructor
Ileia Mooney is a visiting instructor with the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at UCF. She got her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature at UCF and is a proud alumnus. She is excited to be returning to her alma mater to teach in a more full-time capacity after previously serving as an adjunct for the department the previous year.