Maria Belem Mendoza is a 4th year undergraduate student at New Mexico State University, double majoring in English and Gender & Sexuality Studies. Originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, she moved to the U.S. to continue her studies in literature. She is the current president of NMSU’s English Undergraduate Student Organization and is completing an internship with Zephyr Press, an independent press that publishes poetry from around the world. Her interests and research mostly focus on the intersection between literature, gender, and activism around the U.S.-Mexico border region. Her research paper “Femicides: Gender Violence in Mexico” was published in NMSU’s interdisciplinary undergraduate journal, The Agora. Her paper discusses femicides and gender violence in Mexico as a systematic problem by borrowing from her activism and lived experiences in Mexico. Her goal is to become an English professor, but before that, she hopes to work in the publishing industry as a book editor to gain meaningful insights that would benefit her future students.
Kalaya Melancon is a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, majoring in English and minoring in African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. They are extremely passionate about Black lesbian literature, Black dialect poetry, Black speculative fiction, and Black feminism. In their freetime they write and engage with poetry about Black queer identity. They also paint in addition to drawing. Scholars who inspire Kalaya’s work are Danez Smith, Briona Simone Jones, Stephanie Andrea Allen, and Jewelle Gomez. They currently work as a Campus Engagement Intern at the Gender Sexuality and Resource Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Kalaya has an intense passion for advocating for the advancement of Black LGBTQ+ people. Kalaya aspires to attend graduate school in order to become a professor of English so that they can transform the lives of future scholars.
Nickcolus Blakemore is an upcoming graduate of Tennessee State University, due December 2024, where he majored in English, Creative Writing with a minor in Mass Communication. His academic interests range from works of Afrofuturism and Speculative Fiction, that reimagines Black futures free of oppression, as well screenwriting and plays, with purpose of portraying the nuance that is often overlooked within the black community, due to the existence of racial stereotypes and caricatures. Nickcolus finds his passion when exploring questions of identity, sexuality, race, and gender, and plans to further delve into these topics during his graduate studies. Nickcolus also has used his affinity for asking questions as a writer on TSU’s official newspaper, The Meter. He gains his inspirations from Black scholars and artists such as Spike Lee, Justin Simmien, Issa Rae, and Lena Waithe and plans to follow their example in centering and representing Black people and their experiences. His hobbies include singing, listening to music, writing, watching TV, and planning his next steps to success.
Sangmithra Nataraj is a third year fiction candidate at the MFA Program at New Mexico State University. She is originally from India and came to the United States to study creative writing. She is a published author with two books of fiction and a creative nonfiction novelette. Her creative thesis explores the sociocultural reasons for, and the implications of silence with regards to taboos, and the transmission of knowledge. She is currently a Digital Pedagogy Fellow working with the English Department at NMSU in order to make digital assignments and technology more accessible to students and faculty alike. Her previous research includes a sociopolitical analysis of the effect of the tea trade on colonial history, current trends in composition pedagogy and accommodating disabilities in the writing centre. Sangamithra hopes to become an English and Creative Writing professor in order to pursue both her passions of being a working writer and a teacher.
Kimberly Monserrat Grimaldo is pursuing her M.A. in Mexican American Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). She graduated with her B.A. in Mexican American Studies (Summa Cum Laude) and in English (Magna Cum Laude) from UTRGV. Born and raised in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas, she embraces her bilingual, bicultural, and biliterate identity and is proud to be a first-generation student. She explores her Mexican American identity as she delves into Mexican American, Tejana, and Chicana literature, art, oral histories, and pláticas. Inspired by Chicana scholar Gloria Anzaldúa, her research recognizes the decolonial and embodied form of knowledge that connects the body, food, and healing. She encourages communities to share their stories, lived experiences, and knowledge to preserve their family and cultural history. Her first essay was recently published in Walking Away: Refusing and Resisting Reactionary Curriculum Movements. Kimberly works a graduate assistant in UTRGV’s Puentes: A Cultural Wealth Model for Student Success, where she is part of the Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Learning Collaborative. She will pursue a PhD in Mexican American Studies and will apply to doctoral programs this fall.