Administrative Staff
Vicki Russell, Director, has been at Duke for twelve years and has directed the Writing Studio since its inception in 2000. Her past administrative positions include being assistant director of both the Duke First-Year Writing and Writing Across the Curriculum programs. She teaches Writing 20 courses and “Literacy, Writing, and Tutoring,” a course for students interested in becoming Undergraduate Writing Tutors. She also serves as a pre-major adviser. Previously, at the University of California at Irvine, Vicki was a course director in the University Writing Program and edited The Student Guide to Writing at UCI. She received her B.A. in English from Tufts University and her M.A. in English from the University of Georgia.
Holly Ryan, Associate Director, is beginning her third year as a Thompson Writing Program Fellow, teaching Writing 20 courses focusing on rhetoric, health, and medicine. She has a PhD from the University of Arizona in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English. In her scholarly work, she examines rhetorical constructions of emotional health, specifically depression. Holly has worked as a writing tutor for several years and has published articles and book chapters on the practices of tutoring.
Rene Caputo, ESL Specialist, teaches academic writing for Duke’s Graduate School as well as directing the ESL efforts of the Writing Studio and Thompson Writing Program. She has taught in the Language Institute of The Fuqua School of Business, in the MBA language program at UNC-Chapel Hill, at Durham Technical Community College, and at a Puerto Rican university. Rene received her Master’s degree in Education, specializing in teaching English to speakers of other languages, from Shenandoah University and her B.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Tutors
Lindsey Andrews is a third-year graduate student in the Department of English at Duke. Her interests include late 19th- and 20th-century American literature, with a particular focus on the relationship among (media) technologies, experimentation, and the production of race and gender. She received her B.A. from the University of Southern California. (Fall tutor)
Lynn Badia is a fourth-year graduate student in the Department of English and Comparative
Literature at UNC. She studies 19th- and 20th-century American literature and cultural studies, with a focus on science and
literature. Lynn teaches undergraduate composition and academic writing at UNC, and
she has tutored ESL participants in Duke's Sanford Institute State Administration of
Foreign Experts Affairs program. She received a B.A. in English from Pomona
College in Claremont, California. (Fall and spring tutor)
Leigh Campoamor is a Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Anthropology. Her academic interests include the cultural construction of childhood and the family, national identity and the idea of development, and urban Latin America. Her dissertation, based on over two years of ethnographic research, focuses on child street labor in Lima, Peru. (Fall tutor)
Cynthia Curtis is a third year doctoral student at Duke Divinity School in practical theology with a major in spirituality and and minor in Biblical studies (primarily Old Testament). Before earning her MDiv at Vanderbilt, she did an MAT in English and taught secondary school English for 5 years. She completed B.A. from the University of Richmond with majors in English and Psychology and minors in Women's Studies and Art History. Cynthia has experience teaching graduate-level divinity courses and undergraduate intro to scripture and world spiritualities courses as well as tutoring experience with undergraduate students. (Fall and spring tutor)
Anna Gibson is a third-year doctoral student in the English Department at Duke, specializing in 19th-century British literature and culture. Her current research interests include questions of kinship, community, family, domesticity, and narrative structure in the 19th-century novel. She worked briefly in publishing before coming to Duke and has some journalism experience. Originally from England, Anna received a B.A. from the University of Southern Mississippi and an M.A. in English from the University of Exeter, England. (Fall tutor)
Astrid Giugni, a third-year graduate student in the Department of English at Duke, studies 17th-Century English literature with a focus on Milton. Before entering the graduate program at Duke, Astrid taught Mathematics at an independent high school in San Francisco. (Spring tutor)
Heidi Scott Giusto is a doctoral candidate in the History Department at Duke. She studies early American and Caribbean history, the Atlantic World, legal history, and early modern slave societies. Her dissertation examines slavery, war, and the legal culture of South Carolina, 1670-1763. She received a B.A. in History and Political Science, an M.A. in History, and a Certificate in Historic Preservation from Youngstown State University. (Spring tutor)
Karen Gonzalez Rice is a doctoral candidate in Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University. Her research interests include contemporary art; performance art history and theories; religion, theology and art; Trauma Studies and traumatic representations; minimalism; and art historical pedagogies. Before matriculating at Duke, Karen worked in the advertising industry as a marketplace planner, brand consultant, and focus-group moderator. She received an M.A. in American Studies and B.A. in Art History / Plan II from the University of Texas at Austin. (Fall tutor)
Patrick Horn is a Ph.D. candidate in English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major fields of interest include African American literature and literatures of the American South. Prior to graduate school, he served as an Air Force intelligence officer in Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and East Africa. (Fall and spring tutor)
Makiko Kawamoto is a doctoral candidate in the Music Department at Duke and is writing a dissertation on the musical silence in Richard Wagner's opera. Her interests include silent moments in music and the related arts, philosophers' influence on musical compositions, and the interaction between music and visuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She received a B.A. in music and a M.Ed. in music education from Tokyo Gakugei University (Japan), and an M.A. in music from Duke. (Spring tutor)
Jina Kim is a Ph.D candidate in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her three fields of study include Political Theory, International Security, and International Organizations. She received B.A. in Political Science and Diplomacy from Busan National University and M.A. in International Studies in Yonsei University, and got a teacher’s license issued by the Ministry of Education in South Korea. Her dissertation explores nuclear nonproliferation regime and nuclear taboo. Published journal titles include: “Development of Regional Human Rights Regime: Implications to Asia,” “An Endless Game: North Korea’s Psychological Warfare”, “Prospects of International Security Environment in 2005”, “Implications of the North Korean Human Rights Act 2004”, “Foreign Policy of the Second Bush Administration and its Policy Toward North Korea” and “Scenarios to Solve North Korean Nuclear Crisis after the Second Six Party Talk.” (Fall and spring tutor)
Beth Long has 15 years of experience teaching and tutoring ESL. She has taught ESL in Germany, at Penn State University, at Central Carolina Community College, and in public schools. She has tutored undergraduate and graduate students, as well as visiting scholars, in ESL writing and conversation. Beth received an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language and a B.A. in English from Penn State University. (Fall tutor)
Jessica Martell is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also teaches academic writing. Her fields of study include nineteenth and twentieth-century British literature, modernism, Irish studies, and postcolonialism. She has an M.A. in English from UNC, an M.A.T. in English Education from City College CUNY, and a B.A. in Writing and Italian from Northwestern University. Before graduate school, she taught English at Louis D. Brandeis High School in New York City. (Fall tutor)
Celia Mellinger recently completed an M.A. in International Education Policy at the University of Maryland. Her interests include international student programming, immersion cross cultural education, and service learning. Celia received a degree in Physics from Goshen College and also holds a M.A. in Theological Studies from Emory University. She previously taught ESL in Chad and in Edmonton, Alberta. (Fall and spring tutor)
Kinohi Nishikawa is a Ph.D. candidate in the Program in Literature. Kinohi's research and teaching focus on 20th-century American literature and film, black popular culture, and the history of the book. His co-authored article on M. Night Shyamalan's The Village appeared in the March 2008 issue of PMLA. Kinohi received his A.B. from Dartmouth College and is an avid follower of the Barclays Premier League. (Fall tutor)
Sheryl Overmyer studied philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and theology at Duke Divinity School. Now a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Religion Department at Duke, she is writing a dissertation on the virtue tradition in medieval texts. Her primary interests include moral theology, moral philosophy, and literature. (Spring tutor)
Elizabeth Paley is a practicing musician who has taught music theory at the University of Kansas and at Duke, where she developed the Writing in the Disciplines course “Writing About Music.” Her writing has appeared in The Astrophysical Journal, Nineteenth-Century Music, South Atlantic Quarterly, The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, and (under a pseudonym) The Chronicle for Higher Education. Before earning a Ph.D. in music theory from the University of Wisconsin, she received a B.S. in physics from the University of Illinois and an M.S. in astronomy from the University of Arizona. Elizabeth has tutored at the Duke Writing Studio for several years and helped organize the collaboration between the Studio and Durham Public Schools. (Tutoring with DPS only)
Alex Ruch is a graduate student in the Program in Literature at Duke University. His academic interests include comparative modernisms, film and cultural studies, and continental philosophy. He is currently working on a dissertation about depictions of the afterlife in twentieth-century fiction. At Duke, he has taught courses on psychoanalysis, late modernism, and comic books. He received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota, majoring in cultural studies and comparative literature. (Fall and spring tutor)
Margaret Swezey recently completed a Ph.D. in medieval English literature at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she wrote a dissertation on courtship and marriage in Middle English romance, taught writing and literature, and tutored at the Writing Center. She also holds a B.A. in History from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her interests include Bollywood movies, Bruce Springsteen, Terry Pratchett, and occasional weekend canoeing. (Fall tutor)
Sean Zeigler is a third-year doctoral student in International Relations in the Department of Political Science. His primary academic interests center on conflict, foreign policy, game theory as well as political theory. This fall he will serve as a TA for PS 167, a course on International Law. He took his M.A. in economics from the Johns Hopkins University and received his B.A. in mathematics and economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Spring tutor)
Magdalena Zurawski is a third-year graduate student in the Department of English at Duke University. She studies nineteenth-century American and British literature and Aesthetics. Her novel, The Bruise, was published in the fall of 2008 by FC2 and won a Lambda award in 2009. She is the curator of the MINOR AMERICAN reading series in Durham, which features both national and local innovative writers. This past summer Magdalena taught creative writing in the Duke and Rutgers in Berlin program. (Fall tutor)