Introducing the Newest Members of the English Department  

As the Autumn 2025 semester progresses, the Department of English would like to introduce our newest hires.  

Tenure Track Faculty 

Faye Halpern is an associate professor that teaches and researches in the areas of nineteenth-century American literature, narrative theory, and pedagogy. Her research in nineteenth-century American literature has focused on sentimentality and the ethical and disciplinary questions it raises. She also writes on and teaches narrative theory, with a particular interest in unreliable narrators and the ethical issues around literary sympathy. 

Elena Kalodner-Martin is an assistant professor in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy program. Her primary teaching and research areas are technical and professional communication, the rhetoric of health and medicine, social media studies, and feminist rhetoric. Her current book project, Medical Justice in the Digital Age, investigates how patient-generated evidence and expertise influence healthcare outcomes for both individuals and communities. She has received awards from the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Coalition for Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, Computers & Writing, and more. 

Associated Faculty 

Marwan Almuhaysh is an associate professor and researcher in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy program. He is passionate about second language writing and helping students become confident, effective communicators. He teaches multimedia and technical communication courses that connect classroom learning to real-world contexts. His research explores how writing skills develop and transfer beyond the classroom, as well as trends in second language writing scholarship. Marwan’s work blends teaching and research to support learners in achieving lasting success in their academic and professional writing. 

Amber Blaeser-Wardzala is a visiting assistant professor of fiction and an Anishinaabe writer. She received her MFA from Arizona State University and was the 2024-25 George Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy. Her writing is published in the bestselling Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, The Iowa Review, Joyland, Passages North, CRAFT, and others. Blaeser-Wardzala is a 2022 Tin House Fellow and a 2021 Fellow for the inaugural Women’s National Book Association Authentic Voices Program. Her novel (Another Name for Red) and her short story collection (Deer Women) are forthcoming from Pantheon Books. 

Abigail Greff is a senior lecturer whose academic interests include late Middle English literature and gender and sexuality studies. Her research focuses on the intersections of genre, asexuality, and conceptions of consent in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English romance and hagiography. Recent publications include “Consent and Mystical Marriage in the Late Middle English Prose Life of St. Katherine and John Capgrave’s The Life of St. Katherine,” published in The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures. An enthusiastic teacher of both writing and literature, she has taught and served as a GTA for courses in first- and second-year writing, business writing, science fiction, Shakespeare, and early British literature. 

Thomas Pickering is a senior lecturer who teaches courses in technical and professional writing. Prior to joining Ohio State he taught disciplinary writing in computer science and mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Pickering’s research background applies political economic theory to contemporary digital writing economies. He earned his PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2022.  

Allison Pitinii Davis is a visiting assistant professor of poetry and is the author of Line Study of a Motel Clerk (Baobab Press, 2017), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Ohioana Book Award, and Poppy Seeds (Kent State University Press, 2013) winner of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Prize. Business, a novella, is forthcoming from Baobab Press as part of Agency 3: Novellas in 2025. Her creative writing and scholarship have appeared in Best American Poetry, POETS.org, The Oxford American, The New Republic, Studies in American Jewish Literature, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Stanford University’s Wallace Stenger program, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute.  

Nathan Richards is a senior lecturer with a focus in discourse analysis, medical humanities and narrative theory. 

Katelyn Roth is a senior lecturer and a poet from Kansas. Her work has received support from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and has previously appeared at Silver Birch Press, Apeiron Review, Lines + Stars, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 2025 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize from Passages North and the 2025 Fugue and Crab Creek Review Poetry Contests. 

Staff 

Sofia Racevskis graduated from The Ohio State University in May 2024 with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in English and minoring in history. She worked as an administrative assistant in Ohio State's University Exploration advising department before returning to the Department of English, where she supports the chair and the fiscal team. 

Front Desk  

Mya Garcia is a third year English major with a minor in child abuse and neglect who intends on graduating in the spring of 2026. Mya also works on campus as a group fitness instructor and room monitor for Ohio State Recreational Sports.  

Alex Garvey is a third year English and political science double major, specializing in writing, rhetoric and literacy (WRL) and american politics, respectively. After graduation, she hopes to attend law school and eventually pursue a career in sports and entertainment or criminal law. She enjoys watching sports (football, soccer and rugby), reading, walking around campus and hanging out with friends! Alex is also heavily involved with 4 Paws for Ability, Inc. through OSU 4 Paws, where she serves as Director of Membership and Recruitment and fosters a service dog in training. 

Digital Media Project 

Ive Gehringer is a third-year English major set to graduate in 2027. He is a transfer student beginning his first semester at Ohio State! They work as a student assistant in the Digital Media Project. Outside of academics, they participate in dance, color guard, art and sewing. 

Alana Douglas is a second-year construction systems management major on track to graduate in the spring of 2028. She will be assisting the DMP staff with loaning electronic devices and technical issues in rooms on the third floor of Denney Hall. In high school she was the editor and director on for the school’s YouTube channel and helped run the school’s social media class. Alana chose to apply to this position to reconnect with passion for digital media and become more informed on the technology being used through hands-on experience.