Please join us in welcoming the English Departments newest faculty members: Zackary Gregory, C.R. Grimmer, Mary Taylor Mann, and Kristen Wheaton. We are thrilled to have them!
Zackary Gregory (he/him/his) earned an MS in Literature, Culture, and Composition from Utah State University. 
He is a lecturer for USU’s Blanding campus in Southeastern Utah, where he teaches introductory composition courses. In his courses, Zack centers writing and other composition methods as tools for students to explore their own curiosity and interests. His master’s thesis pairs Octavia Butler’s science fiction trilogy Xenogenesis with theories of Jane Bennett, Donna Haraway, and Mel Chen. Through this project, Zack explores the interplay between the human and nonhuman elements in Butler’s novels by applying a New Materialist lens, and questions hierarchical structures present in Western culture. Zack is also interested in creative writing, philosophy, bicycles, film, evolutionary biology, printmaking, and music.
C. R. Grimmer (they/them) received their PhD in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Washington.
C. R. is a poet, public scholar, and teacher. Their books include The Lyme Letters (Texas Tech University Press, Winner of the Walt McDonald First Book Award), O–(ezekiel's wife) (GASHER Journal and Press), and The Poetry Vlog: Critical Edition, forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press. They created and host teaching series such as The Poetry Vlog (TPV), have poems in journals such as Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, FENCE Magazine, and [PANK], and have research in journals such as The Comparatist. Their poetry, research, and teaching has been made possible with support from fellowships and grants, including the Harlan Hahn Disability Studies fellowship, The Simpson Center's Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Public Scholarship fellowship, the Vermont Studio Center residency fellowship, and Project for Interdisciplinary Pedagogy fellowship. Prior to joining USU, they taught poetry, critical race and gender studies, multimodal composition, and related courses for over twelve years at universities such as Portland State University, University of Washington, and Seattle University.
Mary Taylor Mann (she/her/hers) recently completed her PhD in English at Emory University, and she holds an MA in Bioethics from Wake Forest University.
Mary Taylor is a postdoctoral teaching fellow in nineteenth-century British literature. She specializes in Romantic and Victorian literature, and her research and teaching interests include poetry, the history of medicine, and the health humanities. Mary Taylor’s current research project explores how Romantic and Victorian poets engaged emerging physiological discourses of blood dynamics to shape the aesthetic intricacies of their poetry. Her work on William Wordsworth and cerebral circulation is forthcoming in European Romantic Review.
Kristen Wheaton she/her is a new lecturer in the English Department. 
A current PhD candidate at the University of Oklahoma (OU), she studies narrative genres within protest and resistance rhetorics, while utilizing a variety of qualitative analytical approaches. Kristen’s broad research interests lay in protest, culture, narrative, ethos, and genre, and she has presented on such topics at the Conference for College Composition and Communication, Rhetoric Society of America, and more.
As a lecturer, Kristen is deeply committed to rhetorical education, focusing on student capacities for ethical engagement in public discourse which are grounded in a social justice orientation. She has worked in Writing Program Administration during her time at OU and taught a variety of composition courses, including piloting co-requisite first year writing classes. She also possesses a TESOL certification and has taught academic English for non-native speakers of English.