Faculty

Department Chair

Program Leader

Faculty

Staff

  • Sidney Afsarzadeh

    Administrative Support Assistant


  • Kenna Kay Hyatt

    Administrative Support Coordinator


  • Janaee' Sykes

    Professional Advisor


Emeritus and Retired Faculty

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Christina Hsu Accomando

Christina Hsu Accomando

Professor

I was born in New York, grew up in Southern California, and came to Humboldt in 1997. As a joint appointment in the Departments of English and Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, I teach multi-ethnic U.S. literature, ethnic studies, women's studies, and multicultural queer studies. My scholarship focuses on the law and literature of U.S. slavery and resistance, including the work of Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, as well as contemporary issues of race, gender and the law.

Janelle Adsit

Janelle Adsit

Associate Professor

I teach writing classes at Cal Poly Humboldt, along with courses on environmental and health justice.

I'm interested in the role of the arts in health, wellbeing, and advocacy. 

I'm currently working on a textbook titled Creative Writing and Health Care (forthcoming from Bloomsbury in 2024).

The books I've published in recent years are primarily meant to support the teaching of creative writing. Another book, which was released by Routledge, focuses on mindfulness and contemplative practice, epistemic justice, and the environmental humanities.

Sidney Afsarzadeh

Administrative Support Assistant

Marianne Ahokas

Marianne Ahokas

Composition Program Faculty and Lecturer in English

I've been a lecturer at Humboldt State since back in the 1900s. In graduate school my research focused on early American literature and culture; since coming to Humboldt my interests have shifted to composition theory and pedagogy. Lately I've served as faculty adviser to Sigma Tau Delta: APT. I grew up in the Bronx.

Nicolette Amann

Nicolette Amann

Co-Director First Year Composition Program & Redwood Writing Project Director & ERWC Trainer

  

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Sarah Ben-Zvi

Sarah Ben-Zvi

Composition Program Faculty

I've been a lecturer at Humboldt since 2011 and have taught a variety of first-year writing classes. Most recently, I've worked with the various place-based learning communities at Humboldt and have taught STEM-centered first-year writing courses.

Jennifer Brown

Jennifer Brown

Lecturer

Renée Byrd

Renée Byrd

Associate Professor

Dr. Renée M. Byrd is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Cal Poly Humboldt. Dr. Byrd received her B.A. in Ethnic Studies from Mills College and her Ph.D in Feminist Studies from the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is an outspoken prison activist scholar, whose research centers the intersection of race, gender, mass imprisonment and neoliberal political rationalities. Dr.

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Daniela Cerbino

Daniela Cerbino

Assistant Professor

EDUCATION

  • Ph.D, University of California, Davis
  • M.A. in Linguistics, West Virginia University
  • B.A. in TESOL, Universidad Nacional de San Juan

HONORS AND AWARDS

  • Dissertation Writing Fellowship (Spring 2020)
  • Provost’s Fellow (2016-17)
  • Fulbright FLTA (2008-09)

PUBLICATIONS

Barbara Brinson Curiel

Barbara Brinson Curiel

Links: Poem, “My Father Comes Home From Work,” in The Acentos Review, August 2012: http://www.acentosreview.com/august_2012/Curiel.html Interview for The Competitive Writer:http://www.competitivewriter.com/2013/06/barbara-brinson-curiel-teacher-... Birthing Genoveva: A Conversation with Barbara Brinson Curiel, Letras Latinas Blog, Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame: 

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Andrea Delgado

Andrea Delgado

Assistant Professor

I grew up in Los Angeles, where I got huarache tan lines in the summer sun and heard stories about the way life used to be in the small towns in Mexico from which my family emigrated. One of my current projects, Captured on VHS: Personal Narratives Situated in History, invites Humboldt community members to preserve their personal or family memories stored on old media formats, like VHS, and then make a digital storytelling project using the footage to highlight how History with a capital ‘H’ happens in our living rooms and kitchens. The stories we tell shape the reality around us.

Kathleen Doty

Kathleen Doty

Honors:Excellence in Teaching Award, HSU (2013)Visiting Professor, University of Lund (Sweden, 1999-2000)Fulbright Senior Scholar (Finland, 1995)

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Justin Egan

Justin Egan

Lecturer

Michael Eldridge

Michael Eldridge

Professor

  

Dean Engle

Dean Engle

Lecturer

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Natalie Giannini

Natalie Giannini

Lecturer - English and Composition Program Faculty

Natalie Giannini is a lecturer in English. She grew up in Humboldt county and then returned with her family in 2009. She teaches in both the English Studies and the Rhetoric and Composition Programs.

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Photo of Tessa Head

Tessa Head

Composition Program Faculty

I've been teaching in the English Department at Humboldt since 2011. I'm deeply interested in my work as a teacher, and in the collective and critical nature of learning. I see the most important part of this work as studying how oppression functions through language and in our institutions, precisely so we can challenge, intervene in, and dismantle it, in working to create a less violent world. I've also worked with the Humboldt Sexual Assault Prevention Committee, in various capacities, from 2009-2020.

Jocelyn Heaney

Jocelyn Heaney

Lecturer

Marcos Hernandez

Marcos Hernandez

Publishing Program Faculty

Marcos Hernandez is the Faculty Advisor and Administrative Support Coordinator for Toyon Literary Magazine at Cal Poly Humboldt, where he also provides administrative support for Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society and HSI-STEM. He received his M.A. in English: Composition Studies and Pedagogy and B.A. in English: Teaching Pathway from Humboldt in 2019 and 2017, respectively. His writing has appeared in local publications such as Toyon, ideaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative and Scholarly Works at Humboldt, and The Times-Standard.

Nikola Hobbel

Nikola Hobbel

Professor - English Education

Nikola Hobbel is the Coordinator of the English Education Program. She holds a B.A. in English from UC-Berkeley, an M.S. in Education Studies from Dominican University, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She taught English and ESL at the secondary level in Sonoma County before beginning her graduate studies. Before that, she worked in restaurants---serving, cooking, and managing.

Kenna Kay Hyatt

Administrative Support Coordinator

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Emily Lavrador

Emily Lavrador

Lecturer

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Photo of Kerry Marsden

Kerry Marsden

Composition Program Faculty

I've been teaching since 2013 and what I enjoy most about the work is the explicit call to think deeply and study with other humans. My reading and teaching interests include queer and crip theory, fat liberation, speculative fiction, and literacy studies. Beyond my teaching work, I enjoy attempting to garden, playing role-playing games with friends, and spending time with my deeply obnoxious but equally loveable cats.

Katherine Masters

Katherine Masters

Lecturer

Originally from the South Lake Tahoe area, Katie received a BA in English from San Jose State University, MA in Linguistics from University of California Davis, and -- after teaching back at SJSU for several years -- a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Penn State University, where she conducted research on Global English discourse and critical language teacher education in rural areas of Nicaragua, where she has volunteered for over a decade. Her research and teaching often focus on the interconnected nature of language, power, and social interaction.

Heal McKnight

Heal McKnight

Creative Writing Program Faculty

I've taught at the college level since 2000 and it just keeps getting better: I love this work and I love my students' energy. Right now I teach several courses in creative writing, walking in the footsteps of influential writers and teachers like Lynda Barry, JoAnn Beard, Paul Diehl, and Felicia Rose Chavez. I'm interested in helping people make their best and most insightful work, and in stoking a long-term interest in writing. And I'm deeply committed to anti-racist teaching and community-building. I live in Arcata with my wife and our two kids. We ride our bikes everywhere.

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Jolien Olsen

Jolien Olsen

Composition Program Faculty

I grew up in the hills behind Humboldt and spent the majority of my time exploring the remote backwoods and byways of HumCo. I attended our locals schools: Jacoby Creek and St. Mary's Elementary School, Arcata High School, College of the Redwoods where I earned an AA, and Humboldt State University where I earned a BA in English, a Secondary Education Teaching Credential in English, and an MA in the Teaching of Writing.

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Erin Sullivan

Erin Sullivan

Composition Program Faculty

  

Janaee' Sykes

Professional Advisor

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Lisa Tremain

Lisa Tremain

Department Chair & Co-Director First-year Composition Program

My research investigates the ecologies of writing knowledge development and transfer, including how writing and literacy are taught and learned in and beyond the classroom and post-secondary institution. My most recent interests have turned toward mulitmodality and transfer, linguistic justice, and writing in, across, and beyond the academic disciplines. I am currently co-editing a collection (forthcoming from Peter Lang Publishing) with Dr.

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Mark Wicklund

Mark Wicklund

I earned a PhD in linguistics from the University of Minnesota in 2012. This was a midlife venture; I'd already lived 45 years at that point. I started teaching as an adjunct lecturer in HSU's English department that fall, then accepted an offer to work as the university's director of academic assessment in 2017. I still occasionally teach linguistics to keep my knowledge of teaching and learning fresh—and because I love teaching.

Here are some of my interests and formative experiences outside of academia, in no particular order:

Janet Winston

Janet Winston

Professor & Graduate Program Coordinator

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, went to college in Los Angeles and East Sussex, UK, and have worked in Idaho, Iowa, Oregon, and Virginia. Before launching a career in university teaching, I worked a variety of jobs: from baton twirling instructor to floral arranger; from Applied Behavior Analysis language tutor to program director for the Idaho Special Olympics. In between my BA in psychology and my PhD in English, I took courses at CSU Hayward (now East Bay).