Presenters

• Tori Arpad-Cotta

  

  Tori Arpad-Cotta is the chair of art and art history and an associate professor of art at FIU, where she teaches ceramics. She received an MFA from the University of Arizona, Tucson in 1996. Her site-based practice ranges deep, into the rusted remnants of farms past, and far into the as-yet-unbuilt places accessible only by foot and kayak. She has been an artist in residence at AIRIE, Everglades National Park, and Land Arts of the American West, a field-study program at University of New Mexico. Arpad-Cotta received a Florida State Cultural Council Artist’s Fellowship and an NCECA Emerging Artist Award. Exhibitions nationally and internationally includethe Shumen Biennial, Bulgaria, and her work has been featured in Land Arts of the American West by Bill Gilbert & Chris Taylor, Confrontational Ceramics by Judith S. Schwartz, and Ceramics: Mastering the Craft by Richard Zakin. In addition to teaching, she works the earth on a few acres in the Redland Agricultural District.

• Tovah Bender

  Tovah Bender is an associate teaching professor and the undergraduate program director for history, FIU. She received a PhD in history from the University of Minnesota in 2009. Professor Bender has been at FIU’s history department for eleven years. Her research focuses on families, marriage, and social networks in Renaissance-era Florence, especially for those who were not elite. She teaches a variety of courses on European history during the Medieval and Early Modern periods, with a focus on social history, families, women, and daily life. In addition, she serves as the undergraduate program director for history, which means she works to improve the program to meet the changing needs of students and with students directly to help them get the most out of their time at FIU.

• Phillip M. Carter

  

  Phillip M. Carteris an associate professor of English and linguistics in the Department of English and director of the Center for the Humanities in an Urban Environment at FIU. He received a PhD in English linguistics from Duke University in 2009. His interdisciplinary work moves between quantitative and qualitative approaches to sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, critical discourse analysis, ethnography, and critical theory. His scholarship addresses a range of issues of contemporary concern, including the relationship between social formations and linguistic variation, Spanish language change in the U.S., maintenance and shift of Spanish in the U.S., new dialect formation, and popular discourses about language. Carter’s current research projects interrogate the dialectic between national narratives about immigration and the circumstanced individual.

• Julio Capó, Jr.

  Julio Capó, Jr. is an associate professor of history and deputy director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at FIU. He received a PhD in history from FIU in 2011. His first book, Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940, received five awards. In addition to curating museum exhibitions, his research has appeared in major academic journals. A former journalist, his work has also been published in mainstream outlets, including Time, El Nuevo Día (Puerto Rico), The Miami Herald, and The Washington Post, where he serves as an editor of its Made by History section. Capó has held fellowships at Yale University and the University of Sydney.

• Molly Castro

  

  Molly Castro is the Digital Humanities Librarian at Florida International University. Prior to that, she worked in digital collections for the Wisconsin Historical Society and the University of Wisconsin. She is passionate about teaching and learning, digital scholarship, and open and equitable access to information. Molly holds an MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• Brian Chico

  

  Brian Chico is a dynamic instructional design associate pursuing a degree in communication arts from Florida International University. With two years of experience in higher education, he passionately advocates for visual design integration to create engaging online courses. Embracing the transformative power of storytelling, inspired by his love for reading, podcasts, and gaming, Chico artfully weaves narratives into instructional materials. A strong advocate for equitable education, he challenges traditional standards to foster inclusive and creative learning environments. With an unwavering commitment to lifelong learning, Chico encourages others to seek knowledge from unexpected sources, driving positive change in the realm of education.

• Shawn Christian

  

  Shawn Anthony Christian is an associate professor and chairperson of the Department of English at FIU. He is also affiliate faculty in its African and African Diaspora Studies program. He received a PhD in English and education from the University of Michigan in 2003. Professor Christian is author of The Harlem Renaissance and the Idea of a New Negro Reader and lectures and publishes generally on twentieth-century African American literary and print culture. His scholarship has been published in multiple journals and books, including  American Periodicals, CLAJ, Ethnic Studies Review, MAWA Review, Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, and the volumes Reading African American Experiences in the Obama Era, The Harlem Renaissance Revisited, Editing the Harlem Renaissance, and African American Literature in Transition: 1930–1940. His varied leadership roles include a term as associate provost at Wheaton College and as vice chair of the Board of Directors for the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.

• Omar Figueras

  

  Omar Figueras is an assistant professor of English composition, literature, creative writing, and humanities at the Padrón Campus of MDC. He received an MFA in creative writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2013, where he was a student fiction editor at The Louisville Review, and he received his BA from FIU. He has published work in Penumbra Literary Magazine and Composite Arts Magazine. His historical nonfiction essay, “Massacre at La Plaza de las Tres Culturas,” was published in 1968: Today’s Authors Explore a Year of Rebellion, Revolution, and Change by Candlewick Press. He has read for the Miami-based storytelling series Lip Service and has served as a fiction co-editor for Blood Lotus. He is currently working on a collection of short stories and a poetry chapbook reflecting on his experiences growing up in South Florida and Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He is the 2023 recipient of Miami Dade College's Squires Sanders Endowed Teaching Chair.

• Rebecca Friedman

  

  Rebecca Friedman is  the founding director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab, FIU's hub for the humanities, and she isa professor in the Department of History. She received a PhD in Russian history from the University of Michigan in 2000. She is a specialist on the history and culture of modern Russia. Her monograph Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Modern Russia: Time at Home was published with Bloomsbury in  2020. She is also author of Masculinity, Autocracy and the Russian University, 1804–1863 and editor of Russian Masculinities in History and Culture and European Identity and Culture. In addition to her role with the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab, Friedman has been a leader at FIU in a number of capacities, including serving as the director of the European Union Center of Excellence/European and Eurasian Studies and as a faculty fellow in the provost’s office.

• Michael Grafals

  

  Michael Grafals is an associate teaching professor in the English department at FIU. His research focuses on representations of diasporic cross-cultural identity in Caribbean and Latinx literatures. He has published on Guyanese writer Wilson Harris, the Chicana writer Gloria Anazldúa, and the Cuban American writer Jennine Capó Crucet. At FIU Michael regularly teaches courses in Caribbean, Latinx, and African literatures.

• Jawhara Graham

  

  Jawhara Graham started her career in the office of admissions at FIU as an undergraduate student. Over the past seven years she has served admissions in a variety of roles including recruiter, assistant director, and currently associate director. Her specialty populations are transfer students, Connect4Success students, and international students from the Middle East and North Africa. Jawhara holds a BA in psychology from FIU and an MS in school counseling from Nova Southeastern University.

• Michelle Grant-Murray

  

  Michelle Grant-Murray is an associate professor and coordinator of dance MDC’s Kendall Campus. She holds a BS in dance education from Jacksonville University, an MA in cultural studies from FIU, and an MFA from Jacksonville University. She is a choreographer, writer, performer, founder, and artistic director of Olujimi Dance Collective and the Black Artist Talk, and cofounder of the Florida Black Dance Artists Organization and the Woodshed Dance Online Dance Platform. She serves as a council member with MDC’s Earth Ethics Institute and is a 2020–21 artist in residence with the MDC Live Arts Lab Alliance and the Deering Estates Artist Residency program.

• Shewonda Leger

  

  Shewonda Leger is an assistant professor of multilingual writing and pedagogy in the Department of English at FIU. She received her PhD in rhetoric and writing with an interdisciplinary graduate specialization in women's and gender studies at Michigan State University. Leger is a recipient of the Florida Education Fund Junior Faculty Fellowship.

• Carmen Lopez

  

  Carmen Lopez is an associate professor, senior, at the Wolfson Campus of MDC. She earned a BA and MA at FIU and holds a PhD from the University of Miami. She teaches courses in American, world, Holocaust, and women's history for the Department of Social Sciences, the Honors College, and MDC Online, where she serves as the developer for history courses. She also co-chairs the campus Impact Team and is a faculty co-facilitator for the Institute for Civic Engagement and Democracy and serves on the MDC Civic Literacy Student Success Workgroup. She has published articles in Tequesta Journal and History Miami Magazine and has worked several times with Cengage Publishing to revise their Global Americans textbook and create supplemental instructional materials. She has mentored students for the Humanities Edge Undergraduate Research Program and recently was selected to attend the Florida Master Teacher Seminar at Pensacola State College.

• Jenille “Jeni” Lopez

  

  Jenille “Jeni” Lopez is an instructional design consultant with degrees in finance and instructional systems & technology as well as over eight years of experience working in learning design and support in higher education. She is an advocate for lifelong learning and strongly encourages others to seek knowledge and novelty from even the most unexpected places. She is passionate about game-based learning, psychology, equitable education, and challenging current educational standards, all of which contributes to her standing as the resident game designer and theory guru on FIU Online’s Learning Design Innovation team.

• Daniel Marosi

  

  Daniel Marosi is an adjunct faculty member in graphic design at FIU. He received his MFA from FIU in 2018 and his BFA from The University of Akron in 1991. He is a multi-disciplinary artist who maintains a rigorous practice through his award-winning design studio Creative Order. In addition to a regular exhibition schedule, Marosi designs branding for network television, sets for news and entertainment media, public artworks, and private commissions. His work has appeared at the Frost Art Museum, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Miami Beach Public Library, and St. Thomas University. His pieces have also been shown at numerous international art fairs in Miami, New York, and London. 

• Ana Menéndez

  Ana Menéndez is an associate professor at FIU with joint appointments in English and the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab; previously she directed FIU’s Humanities Edge program. She earned an MFA from New York University and a BA in English from FIU. She has published five books of fiction: Adios, Happy Homeland!, The Last War, Loving Che, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, whose title story won a Pushcart Prize, and The Apartment. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, lastly as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she wrote about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Bomb Magazine, The New York Times, and Tin House and has been included in several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. From 2008 to 2009, she lived in Cairo as a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt. She has also lived in India, Turkey, Slovakia, and The Netherlands, where she designed a creative writing minor at Maastricht University in 2011. For the past twenty years, she has taught at various writing conferences and programs including, most recently, Bread Loaf and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

• Laura Reyes

  

  A first-generation double alumna from FIU, with a BA in liberal studies and an MS in international and intercultural education, Laura “bleeds blue and gold.”  She lives in the 305 with her husband and her dog Pandora aka Panda. 

• Maikel Right

  

  Maikel Right is the associate director of instructional learning technology with FIU Online, a faculty fellow at FIU’s Honors College, the CDO of his own digital consulting company, and  board member of VirtueCo, providing art programs for underserved youth in South Florida and Latin America. He earned an MBA from FIU in 2015, a BA from FIU in biological sciences in 2012, and a BA from the University of Florida in cultural anthropology in 2010. His primary research interests and publications are in cardiovascular molecular biology, aging, social media, anthropology, online pedagogy, and innovation.

• Shannonlee Rodriguez

  

  Shannon oversees FIU’s Academy of Leader program and advises the Lead Team. A native of South Florida, she earned both of her degrees from FIU. She is committed to students by supporting their academic development.

• Enrique Rosell

  

  Enrique Rosell is the program manager at the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at FIU. He received a BA in mass communications/media studies from FIU in 2018. He works hand-in-hand with the lab’s digital archivist, Katie Coldiron, through the Community Data Curation grant funded by the Mellon Foundation. This grant connects FIU with eight cultural institutions around the Miami area and supports them by helping them digitize their archives, conduct oral histories, and create new public programming initiatives.Rosell leads the lab’s audio/visual production and has a wide variety of experience with podcast production and oral history recording within different communities in Miami. He is also a photographer and musician, currently working with Carl Juste as an Iris Photo Collective Fellow through the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance and preforming locally with the indie-folk band stillblue.

• Dan Royles

  

  Dan Royles is an assistant professor of history at FIU, where he teaches courses on United States, African American, LGBTQ, oral, and public history. He received a PhD in American history from Temple University in 2014. His first book, To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS, was published in 2020 by UNC Press.

• Michelle Troche

  

  An FIU alumna, Michelle has over fifteen years of experience working at FIU in different enrollment service departments such as Financial Aid and FIU Online. She received an MA in design management in 2016. Recently, she joined the FIU in DC team to handle the operations of its new showcase center in the nation’s capital.

• Imani Warren

  

  Imani Latifah Warren is an adjunct lecturer in art and art history at FIU. She holds a BA in African studies from Savannah State University and an MA in film and media arts from Savannah College of Art and Design. With an unbridled level of passion and insight, Warren is a skilled connector in South Florida and has been an active member of the arts, culture, and education sector for two decades. As an emotionally intelligent leader and outstanding nurturer of relationships and collaborations, she has the heart of an entrepreneur fused with the sensibilities of a creative director. Imani’s thought leadership converges at the intersection of African Diaspora history, arts curation, and multimedia. Her consulting expertise revolves around strategy, event production, education, and outreach promotion. She has decades of expertise in media ( Clear Channel, Radio One, and Tribune Entertainment) in museums (Historic Hampton House, Georgia Aquarium, Penn Center, historic preservation), and in event design (One Night in Miami, #DoSomethingBlack, The Florida Grand Opera). She started Sepia Kaleidoscope in 2015 working with various filmmakers, musical artists, and historical preservationists in the Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, and South Florida area. Warren is part of a new generation of leaders who are change agents, working with and for community uplift, always looking for mediums of positive progression. 

• Taurie Gittings Wheeler

  Taurie Gittings Wheeler is an associate professor of humanities at MDC. She earned an MS degree with a focus on interdisciplinary arts from NOVA Southeastern University, a master’s of humanities n art & visual media from Tiffin University, and a BS in theatre from Florida A & M University. A Miami native with family roots from Jamaica and Georgia, she is a graduate of New World School of the Arts, where she studied Theatre. She is an artisan, performer, and educator, with over twenty years of experience. Wheeler teaches humanities, cinema, art, and theatre appreciation. She is passionate about global education, and has led four summer study abroad trips (England, France, Italy, and Greece). Over the years she has been very involved at MDC, serving on various campus committees, and was chair of college-wide College Academic and Student Support Council.

   

• Kieron Williams

  

  Kieron Williams is an instructional design consultant at FIU Online. He will earn an MFA in creative writing from FIU in 2023 and received a BA in communication arts from FIU in 2015. In his role with FIU Online he helps faculty reimagine their courses using innovative course tools and pedagogical frameworks to inspire and engage their students. He has over four years of experience helping professors create unique, award-winning experiences for their online students. As a lover of tabletop RPGs, music, movies, and cooking for his friends and family, Williams is passionate about the things that bring people together. Most specifically, he is deeply passionate about the power of storytelling to immerse learners and engage them in a unique and memorable experience, which naturally centers his research around game-based learning, narrative psychology, storytelling as pedagogy, and harnessing new and emerging technologies to tell better stories. His goal is for his work to help define the role of storytelling in the future of online learning.

Center for Excellence in Writing, Peer Writing Mentors

• Charles Donate

  

  Charles Donate is the coordinator of FIU's Center for Excellence in Writing. He has taught the Writing Assistant Program seminar course since 2012. He has an MFA in creative writing from Boston University.

• Peer Writing Mentors

  Mario Avalos MA, English, ‘19	Nicholas R. Cabezas BA, English, ’22, MA, English, ‘24
  Andrew Ruby BA, English, '24	Selene Serra BA, communications, '24
  Valeria Silveira BA, Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communications, ’24

Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum

• Amaris R. Cruz-Guerrero

  

  Amaris R. Cruz-Guerrero is the education assistant at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum Frost Art Museum at FIU. She graduated from FIU in 2020 majoring in art and minoring in art history and religious studies. Cruz-Guerrero is also a practicing multidisciplinary artist in Miami.

• Amy Galpin

  

  Amy Galpin is the chief curator of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at FIU. She received a PhD in art history, criticism, and conservation from the University of Illinois, Chicago; an MA in Latin American studies from San Diego State University; and a BA in radio, tv, and film from Texas Christian University. She previously served as the curator of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College and the associate curator, Art of the Americas, at the San Diego Museum of Art. Her exhibitions include Alfredo Ramos Martinez: Picturing Mexico at the Pasadena Museum of Art in California and Translation Revolution: U.S. Artists Interpret Mexica Muralism at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. In 2010, she worked with the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Timken Museum of Art, and the San Diego Museum of Art on an exhibition and publication titled Behold, America! Art of the United States from Three San Diego Museums. At both the Frost and at the Cornell, Galpin curated numerous group exhibitions of contemporary art, including Displacement: Symbols and Journeys, Cut: Abstraction in the U.S. from the 1970s to the Present, and solo projects with Patrick Martinez, Liu Shiyuan, and Jess T. Dugan, among others.