Ted Alexander
ealexander3@uchicago.edu
Ted Alexander has been working for the Writing Program since 2021. His academic background is in American poetry from modernism to the present. He received his PhD in English literature and critical theory from UC Berkeley and has taught at the City University of New York and NYU. His writing has appeared in Contemporary Literature, The Wallace Stevens Journal and Paideuma.
Will Ardery
wardery@uchicago.edu
Will Ardery received a BA degree in History from Hamilton College in 2017, where he also worked as a peer writing tutor. He completed the University of Chicago’s Masters in the Social Sciences Program (MAPSS) in 2020, and joined the Writing Program the following year. He currently serves as a Writing Specialist for the Humanities Core, where he helps first year students become more confident and proficient writers. Beyond writing pedagogy, Will specializes in Antebellum American political, intellectual, and literary history.
Elizabeth Fiedler
efiedler@uchicago.edu
Elizabeth started teaching for the Writing Program while completing her PhD in Italian at the University of Chicago. Since then she has worked as a Writing Specialist in the Humanities Core and as a Lector in Little Red Schoolhouse.
Michelle Hoban
mehoban@uchicago.edu
Michelle Hoban first joined the Writing Program as a Writing Intern in 2019, after completing an MA at the University of Chicago with a focus on English literature. After leaving for a year to work in marketing for a nonprofit, Michelle returned to the Writing Program as a Writing Specialist in 2021. They now teach academic writing to both undergraduate and graduate students. They also have experience tutoring beginner French and Swedish and have been trained in teaching English as an additional language.
John Y. Lawrence
jylawrence@uchicago.edu
John Y. Lawrence began teaching writing at the University of Chicago in 2022. He completed his PhD in Music History and Theory at UChicago in 2020, and previously taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. His work has been published in the Journal of Music Theory and is forthcoming in Music Theory Spectrum in 2024.
Sophie Myers
sophiemcmyers@uchicago.edu
Sophie McMillan-Myers has been teaching in and out of the Humanities Core since 2018 as a graduate student, Teaching Fellow, Instructional Assistant, and now Writing Specialist. She received her PhD in Music Composition from the University of Chicago in 2021, and is a composer, violist, and conductor. Her music is concerned with agency and labor, processes of becoming and unbecoming, and fragile utopias. Her other interests include gender, film and video games (especially but not only their music and sound), and, above all, teaching.
Nick Nurre
nanurre@uchicago.edu
Nick started working with the Writing Program as a Writing Intern in 2020 following his graduation from the University of Chicago’s MAPH program in the same year. Nick’s academic work concentrated in contemporary fiction and philosophy, which informs his current work as a Writing Specialist in the Reading Cultures and Philosophical Perspectives Cores. He has also taught academic writing and literary analysis to language learners abroad as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Macau, an experience which still informs his enthusiasm for engaging pedagogy that addresses diverse student needs.
Sarah Osment
sosment@uchicago.edu
Sarah joined the Writing Program as a Writing Specialist in 2021, after many years teaching academic writing, American literature, poetry and poetics, critical theory, film and environmental humanities in New England and Florida. She received her PhD from English at Brown University in 2016, and has been most driven since then by the collaborative and public-facing possibilities of academic writing. She is co-founder and editor of Hyped on Melancholy, an online magazine devoted to academic writing about music, and recently co-edited a Post45 Contemporaries cluster on the legacy of the late poet and musician David Berman.
Mike Ossman
mwo@uchicago.edu
Mike Ossman joined the Writing Program as a Writing Specialist in 2023. He earned a Master’s in the Humanities at the University of Chicago in 2013, and he then spent nine years teaching introductory philosophy courses at community colleges in Chicagoland and Orlando, Florida. His scholarship focuses on ancient Greek philosophy and the history of philosophy, but he is most passionate about teaching and pedagogy. He has also done marketing and grant writing in the nonprofit sector.
Claire Palo
cpalo@uchicago.edu
Claire began working for the Writing Program in 2019, after receiving her MA from the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities at UChicago. Claire’s research interests focus on women writers and natural philosophy in Early Modern English Literature. Since joining the Writing Program, Claire has worked as a Writing Intern, writing tutor, Peer Writing Tutor Mentor, and Lector. After leaving to complete a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program in Romania, Claire returned to the Writing Program in 2022 as a Writing Specialist.
Cameron Powell
cgpowell@uchicago.edu
Cameron holds a BA in Mathematics and Political Studies from Bard College at Simon’s Rock, plus an MA in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. He joined the program in 2020 as a Writing Intern and Lector, and returned as a Writing Specialist in 2022. He has interests in University Studies and the politics of education and pedagogy, which inform his teaching. He has also worked as a Graduate Writing Consultant for UChicagoGRAD.
Thomas C. Sawyer
tsawyer@uchicago.edu
Tom received his Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021. He joined the Writing Program in the same year. His scholarship operates at the intersections of book history and knowledge-formation in the literatures of medieval Europe. He has published in ELH, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Philological Quarterly, and The Journal of Medieval Latin. He is hard at work on his first book, Recomposing Bodley 851.
Jeremy Schmidt
jschmidt1@uchicago.edu
Jeremy Schmidt is a Writing Specialist and part-time Lecturer in the Humanities Core. Born and raised in Hyde Park, he completed his PhD in the UCLA Department of English in 2020 before returning to Chicago. Jeremy has over fifteen years of experience teaching university courses in composition, literature, and creative writing, and he is particularly dedicated to helping undergraduates write about the questions—and for the disciplines and audiences—that matter to them. His own poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in publications such as The Believer, Boston Review, Lana Turner, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Anne Marie Smith
amsmith2@uchicago.edu
Anne Marie Smith began teaching writing at the University of Chicago in fall of 2022. In addition, she has over ten years of experience as a writing specialist and writing instructor. She has taught Research Writing in the Sciences and Nature Writing to science majors, Scholarly Communication to nursing majors, and Argumentative Writing and Ecology to non-science majors. She also has extensive experience in effectively helping students write personal statements for graduate and professional schools.
Karen Xu
kxu2@uchicago.edu
Karen received her MA from the University of Chicago in 2019 and began teaching with the Writing Program in the same year. She has taught writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences Core sequences, and also has experience with translation, creative nonfiction, and grant writing.