Editor-in-Chief
Anna CohenMiller, PhD, Nord University, Norway
Anna CohenMiller, PhD, is an award-winning educational leader, TEDx and keynote speaker who addresses systemic issues of equity and inclusion in teaching and learning. She specializes in arts-based decolonial research and innovative pedagogy, including addressing critical media literacy (in)formal learning through popular culture. For eight years, CohenMiller worked in Kazakhstan (Central Asia) leading education and research at an emerging flagship university. During that time she co-founded the Consortium of Gender Scholars and led the development of The Motherscholar Project, an online platform promoting and advocating for inclusion of mothers in higher education across the academic pipeline. Today, Professor CohenMiller is a Full Professor at Nord University (Norway) where she brings together her international experiences to empower and promote justice-centered research and education. Professor CohenMiller’s contributions can regularly be seen in popular outlets such as InsideHigherEd, Medium.com, as well as in over 100 research and educational journals and books, including the award winning Leading Change in Gender and Diversity in Higher Education from Margins to Mainstream and Questions in Qualitative Social Justice Research in Multicultural Contexts. Her recent book integrating research and adult learning, Transformative Moments in Qualitative Research: Method, Theory, and Reflection, has been termed a “must read.” Since 2011, Professor CohenMiller has been involved with SWPACA in developing Dialogue and then as an Executive Team member.
Associate Editor
Karina Vado, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Karina A. Vado (she/her/ella) is an Assistant Professor of Latinx Studies in the Department of English at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, and affiliate faculty in the university’s Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. She earned her PhD in English from the University of Florida (UF) as well as an MA in Women’s Studies from UF’s Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research, and a Graduate Certificate from UF’s Center for Latin American Studies. Karina’s research interests span the fields of Hemispheric American Studies (especially Afro-Latinx, Chicanx, Latin/x American, and African-American literary and cultural studies), Science and Technology Studies (especially Critical Race & Feminist Science Studies), and Science Fiction and Utopian Studies. Her scholarship has been supported by several competitively awarded fellowships including the Florida Education Fund’s McKnight Doctoral Fellowship, the University of Texas at Austin’s Gloria E. Anzaldúa Summer Research Fellowship, and Penn State University’s Diversity Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. You can find samples of Karina’s scholarly writing in edited collections such as Race and Utopian Desire in American Literature and Society and in Human Contradictions in Octavia Butler’s Work. For more information on current research projects and opportunities for collaboration, visit vadokarina.com.
Managing Editor
Barbara Perez, MA, Florida Atlantic University, USA
Barbara Perez (she/her) is a third year doctoral student in the Culture, Society, and Politics track of the Comparative Studies Program at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Her research areas of focus are Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (especially ecofeminism & environmental feminisms, and feminist epistemology and STS), as well as Latinx Environmentalisms. She is also interested in political ecology, critical animal studies, and feminist pedagogy. Prior to coming to FAU, Barbara completed an MA program in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, and an advanced certificate in LGBTQ+ Studies at San Diego State University. Her MA thesis was a feminist epistemological critique of comparative cognition research. Before that, Barbara worked for three years as the research coordinator of a comparative cognition lab in San Diego, California. Prior to that, Barbara earned her BA and BS degrees at UF in English and Psychology, respectively. During her undergraduate career, Barbara conducted behavioral research with cetaceans and canids.
Assistant Managing Editor and Co-Editor for Poetry
Tyler Robert Sheldon, PhD, MFA USA
Tyler Robert Sheldon is the author of seven books including Everything is Ghosts (Finishing Line Press, 2024) and When to Ask for Rain (Spartan Press, 2021), a Birdy Poetry Prize Finalist. He is Editor-in-Chief of MockingHeart Review and Assistant Managing Editor of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Pop Culture and Pedagogy, and his work has appeared in Dialogue, The Midwest Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Ninth Letter, Pleiades, Slant, and other places. His research interests include poetry and poetics, comics studies, pedagogy, and World War II. A recipient of several awards for his writing and teaching, Sheldon earned his PhD at Louisiana State University and his MFA at McNeese State University, and spends his days teaching, writing, and catering to the whims of his impish cats, Chai and Scruffy.
Musings Editor
Elizabeth Gonzalez, MFA, Our Lady of the Lake University, USA
Elizabeth Gonzalez was born and raised in the lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas, often referred to as the 956, El Rio Grande, El Valle. She is a multimedia artist who graduated from Edinburg High School and earned a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts and a Bachelor’s in Mexican American Studies from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She also holds a Master’s in Fine Arts and a Master’s Certificate in Mexican American Studies from the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. Her work serves as a personal narrative/visual testimonio, exploring family stories, cultural identity, history, language, border culture, and the community that surrounds the Rio Grande Valley. Currently, she is in her second year as a doctoral student in Leadership Studies at Our Lady of the Lake University. She has been recognized as a 2024 HSF Scholar, 2024 Schoenecke Institute Fellow, 2022 Chautauqua School of Art Resident, and 2021 Warren and Spector Fellow. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at Texas Southmost College.
Book Review Editor and Copy Editor
Miriam Sciala, MA
Miriam Sciala has been teaching Academic English internationally for over 25 years. She holds an MA in Geography from York University in Toronto and an MPhil in Second Language Studies from Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Born in Switzerland and raised in Zambia, she now carries a Canadian passport. She considers writing and editing her second career, having written and published numerous articles and short stories and has a first novel in progress.
Children’s Critical Media Literacy Editor
Roxanne Henkin, PhD, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA (Emerita)
Dr. Roxanne Henkin is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning & Teaching at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Henkin’s research interests include multiliteracies and multimodal digital literacies, children’s literature, confronting bullying through literacy, critical literacy for social justice, writing process and instruction, and global in-service staff development in literacy. She has published many articles and two books, Who’s Invited to Share: Using Literacy to Teach for Equity and Social Justice and Confronting Bullying: Literacy as a Tool for Character Education, both published by Heinemann. Dr. Henkin is a Past-President of Literacies and Languages for All. She was also the lead co-editor of the journal Voices from the Middle (2006–2011). She has received many awards including the 2020 Literacies and Languages for All Lifetime Membership Award, the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award from Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois, the 2020 NCTE LGBTQ+ Advocacy and Leadership Award, and the 2022 Literacies and Languages for All Service Award. Dr. Henkin created and is Director Emeritus of the San Antonio Writing Project. She has helped to create and teach writing projects in the United States, South Africa, India, the Philippines, and Kazakhstan.
Production Editor and Creative Director
Douglas CohenMiller, Umbrella Works, Spain
Douglas CohenMiller is a graphic designer and founder of Umbrella Works design studio (www.umbrella-works.com), where he is the principal graphic designer and creative director. His practice focuses on long-term branding and identity for clients in the United States and internationally. Since 2011, Doug has been involved with the SWPACA; first spearheading a rebranding effort and helping to launch Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. Alongside this work, he has been developing unique conference identities and material each year and producing and creative directing each issue of Dialogue. His other clients range from fields of academic institutions, non-profits organizations, as well as small businesses. Beyond graphic design, Douglas is an active photographer. His photography and essays can be found at http://fotografica.umbrella-works.com. Currently, Douglas is living in the Balearic Islands in Spain with his family.
Copy Editors
Robert Gordyn, MPhil, MA
Robert Gordyn has been an English Language Instructor since 1995, mostly teaching internationally in a variety of countries and regions of the world. Based in Canada, he is a freelance editor and part-time English instructor. His academic background includes graduate degrees in Geography and Second Language Studies. Along with being an avid reader of philosophy and history, Robert has ongoing interests in communication, both in terms of the written word and in public speaking.
Arlyce Menzies, MFA, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Arlyce Menzies was raised in the Rust Belt, educated in the Bluegrass and New England, and now teaches writing in the windy steppe of Kazakhstan. She got her MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry at Boston University, where she enjoyed studying and practicing translation from Russian to English, copyediting for Agni, and honing her writing craft. In addition to teaching at Nazarbayev University, Arlyce facilitates translation workshops through OLS@NU and is an Art Editor for Angime, Kazakhstan’s first trilingual arts and literary magazine.
Janan Chan, Co-Editor for Poetry, McGill University, Canada
Janan Chan is a PhD student in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) at McGill University, Montréal, Canada. His research project engages multilingual language learners in writing translingual poetry for aesthetic and expressive purposes. Completing his MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Concordia University, he moved to Shanghai, China, where he taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) from 2021 to 2024. His poems, appearing in Warm Milk, The Mitre, Fauxmoir, and Soliloquies Anthology, explore themes such as identity, belonging and nostalgia. Through his regular blog posts for BILD (Belonging, Identity, Language, Diversity), a blog and journal based out of McGill University, he has reflected upon and documented his teaching practices, the subversive uses of internet culture in China, and neighborly trust during China’s pandemic lockdown. He was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Toronto, Ontario and a small town in Québec. He now lives in Montréal.
Ani Fung
Ani Fung is a Master's student in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, expected to graduate in 2025. Her current research explores poetic inquiry to understand student-athletes' perspectives from diverse cultural contexts in pursuing athletic careers. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she earned her Bachelor's in Sociology at Durham University, United Kingdom. Her unsettling and evolving life experiences fueled her research interest in human behavior, identity development, gender studies, and arts-based research. During her time at Durham, she interned as a research assistant and journalist at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, where she published her first article, "A new way of empowerment: The digital society and its impacts on women," on Diva International. No longer wanting to hold a student visa, she plans to settle in Canada in the coming years.
Reference Editors
April Manabat, MLIS, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
April Manabat is a Senior Expert Librarian at Nazarbayev University (NU) in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. She is currently the Subject Librarian for the School of Sciences and Humanities and the Information Literacy Coordinator of the NU Library. She is also a part-time Professorial Lecturer at the Department of Library and Information Science at Polytechnic University of the Philippines. A Filipino licensed librarian, she finished her Masters of Library and Information Science at the University of the Philippines Diliman. She is currently the Secretary of the Special Libraries Association (SLA)–Asian Chapter and a member of the Editorial Board of the Jurnal Kajian Informasi & Perpustakaan (JKIP). With more than a decade of experience in academic librarianship, she has presented and published papers on academic librarianship, library services, and information literacy.
Joseph Yap, MLIS, Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary
Joseph Marmol Yap is currently earning his PhD at the Doctoral School of Literary Studies at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary. He is a professional librarian and holds the 2023 Excellence Award in the field of Librarianship under the Global Filipino Practice and Service category given by the Philippine Federation of Professional Associations. He is a recipient of the 2023 Bonnie Hilditch International Librarian Award bestowed by the Special Libraries Association, Sci-Tech and Engineering Communities. He is a part-time assistant professor at the University of Perpetual Help System Laguna and a professorial lecturer at West Visayas State University. As part of his extension services, he acts as the President of the Special Libraries Association–Asian Community. He received the Best Research Award–Graduate/Professional Category given by the National Library of the Philippines in 2022. He is involved in local and national community civic engagements supported by Stipendium Hungaricum by being a mentor for new international students in Budapest under the Hook Program. He was the first Philippine student ambassador representing PhD students in Hungary under the DOSZ Ambassador Program. He has published works in highly cited journals such as Education for Information, Journal of Library Administration, Internet Reference Services Quarterly, Reference Librarian, Journal of Information Literacy, and Library Management. His research and academic works can be found here: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7852-1047.
Yelizaveta Kamilova, MLIS, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Yelizaveta Kamilova is a Masters of Library and Information Science and an Expert manager at Nazarbayev University Library in Kazakhstan. She is currently the Subject Librarian for Graduate School of Education and the coordinator for the Interlibrary Loan Document Delivery Service, also responsible for the Department Documentations as well. She has more than a decade of experience in academic librarianship. Her research interests include academic librarianship, library virtual services, and information literacy.
Advisory Board
Lynnea Chapman King, Adams State University, USA
Ken Dvorak, Northern New Mexico College, USA
Marc Ouellette, Old Dominion University, USA
Alison Macor, Texas State University, USA
Laurence Raw, Baskent University, Turkey
Ediitorial Board
Aaron Adair, Massachusettes Institue of Technology, USA
Maria Alberto, University of Utah, USA
Donna Alden, New Mexico State University, USA
Mark Allen, South Texas College, USA
Jenn Avery, Southern New Hampshire University, USA
Lexey Bartlett, Fort Hays State University, USA
Michelle Bedeker, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Chris Bell, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA
Justin Bendell, University of New Mexico, Valencia, USA
Kelli Bippert, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA
Jerry Bradley, Lamar University, USA
Stephanie Brownell, Bentley University, USA
Tamy Burnett, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Melissa Vossen Callens, North Dakota State University, USA
Geoffrey Carter, Saginaw Valley State University, USA
Natasha Chuk, Independent Scholar, USA
Elizabeth Morrow Clark, West Texas A&M University, USAA. S. CohenMiller, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Tobi Collins, New Mexico State University, USA
Brian Cowlishaw, Northeastern State University, USA
Becca Cragin, Bowling Green State University, USA
Byron Crape, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Janet Brennan Croft, Rutgers University, USA
Adam Crowley, Husson University, USA
Julie DeLong, Independent Scholar, USA
Kurt Depner, New Mexico State University, USA
Diana Dominguez, University of Texas at Brownsville, USA
Laura Dumin, University of Central Oklahoma, USA
Brad Duren, Oklahoma Panhandle State University, USA
Lance Eaton, Brandeis University/North Shore, Community College, USA
David Emerson, Independent Scholar, USA
Justin Everett, Independent Scholar, USA
Susan Fanetti, California State University, Sacramento, USA
Carly Finseth, Boise State University, USA
Draga Gajić, University of Novi Sad, Bosnia and Herzogovina
Robert Galin, University of New Mexico, Gallup, USA
Clayton Garthwait, West Chester University, USA
Bridget Goodman, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Robert Gordyn, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Kelly Grace, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Jimmy Guignard, Mansfield University, USA
Valerie Guyant, Montana State University-Northern, USA
Chuck Hamilton, North Texas Community College, USA
Darrell Hamlin, Fort Hays State University, USA
Roxanne Henkin, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
Brent House, PennWest California, USA
Michael Howarth, Missouri Southern State, USA
Jenna Hunnef, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Lutfi Hussein, Mesa Community College, USA
Roxie James, Northwestern Oklahoma State University, USA
Jennifer Jenkins, University of Arizona, USA
Jamie M. Jones, Grays Harbor College, USA
Nancy Kay, Merrimack College, USA
Warren Kay, Merrimack College, USA
Hyein Amber Kim, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
Brad Klypchak, Texas A&M Commerce, USA
Jane Kubiesa, Univerity of Worchester, UK
Kim Lacey, Saginaw Valley State University, USA
Carmela Lanza, University of New Mexico, Gallup, USA
Samantha Lay, University of West Alabama, USA
John Lepley, Independent Scholar, USA
Dalyn Luedtke, Norwich University, USA
Jessica Maerz, University of Arizona, USA
Julienne McGeough, Liverpool Hope University, UK
Liz Medendorp, Pueblo Community College, USA
Richard Mehrenberg, Millersville University, USA
Michael Miller, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
Iulian Mitran, University of Bucharest, Romania
Mona Monfared, Univerisity of California, Davis, USA
Erika Tiburcio Moreno, Complutense University, Spain
Rikk Mulligan, Longwood University, USA
Angelique Margarita Nairn, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Barbara Perez, Florida Atlantic University, USA
Deirdre A. Pettipiece, Lehman College, USA
Timothy Ray, Independent Scholar, USA
Shelley Rees, University of Science and Arts, Oklahoma, USA
Pamela Rollins, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, USA
Tim Rupert, Slippery Rock University, USA
Tiffany Scarola, Bowling Green State University, USA
Miriam Sciala, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Kelli Shapiro, Texas State University, USA
Gregory Stephens, University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, USA
Joy Sterrantino, Southern Utah University, USA
Karen Tatum, University of Texas at Arlington, USA
Robert Tinajero, University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Deanna Tomasetti, Independent Scholar, USA
Shane Trayers, Macon State College, USA
Pat Tyrer, West Texas A&M University, USA
Karina Vado, University of Florida, USA
Margaret Vaughn, Metropolitan State University, USA
Erik Walker, Plymouth (Massachusetts) South High School, USA
Rob Weiner, Texas Tech Univeristy Library, USA
Ryan Windeknecht, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA