Anna CohenMiller, PhD

Editor in Chief, Founding Editor

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.

Karina Vado, PhD

Associate Editor

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, FL, and affiliate faculty in the university’s Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida as well as an M.A. 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.

Barbara Perez, MA

Managing Editor

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 (esp. 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. Prior to that, Barbara earned her BA and BS degrees at the University of Florida in English and Psychology, respectively. During her undergraduate career, Barbara conducted behavioral research with cetaceans and canids.

Tyler Sheldon, PhD, MFA

Assistant Managing Editor

Miriam Sciala, MA

Book Review Editor and Copy Editor

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.

Roxanne Henkin, PhD

Children’s Critical Media Literacy Editor

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 includemultiliteracies 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 US, South Africa, India, the Philippines, and Kazakhstan.

Douglas CohenMiller

Production Editor and Creative Director

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 US 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.

Robert Gordyn, MPhil, MA

Copy Editor

Robert Gordyn has been an English Language Instructor since 1995, mostly teaching internationally in a variety of countries and regions of the world.Originally from and now 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

Copy Editor

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

Copy Editor

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 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 neighbourly 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

Copy Editor

Ani Fung is a Master’s student in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) at McGill University, 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, U.K.. 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.

April Manabat, MLIS

Reference Editor

April Manabat is a Senior Expert Librarian at Nazarbayev University 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

Reference Editor

Joseph Marmol Yap is currently earning his Ph.D. 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 Ph.D. 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

Reference Editor

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.