MICHELLE SANCHEZ
Major: Professional Writing
Minor: Psychology
Thesis: “Facebook & Narcissism”

SKYE AKIYAMA
CONOR ANDERSON
MICHELLE CANTEY
SYLVIA CHURCHILL
TIHELA FEIT

SKYE AKIYAMA
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: Philosophy
Thesis: “Noting,” a short story

CONOR ANDERSON
Majors: Creative Writing and Psychology
Minor: Philosophy
Thesis: “He Will Remember You,” a short story

MICHELLE CANTEY
Major: English Literature
Minor: Africana Studies
Thesis: “Tragedy and Emotional Turmoil:  The Myth of the Tragic Mulatto”

SYLVIA CHURCHILL
Major: English Literature
Minor: Early Childhood and Childhood Education
Thesis: “Native American Legends and Their Efficacy in the Past and in the Present”

TIHELA FEIT
Majors: English Literature and Art History
Minor: Sociology
Thesis: “Getting ‘back-to-the-text’ Really:  The Formal Features of On Beauty and Persepolis”

NG FRUCTUOSO
Major: English Literature
Minor: Anthropology
Thesis: “The Literary Contributions of Barbauld, Coleridge, Wordworth, and Blake to the Antislavery Campaign in 19th-Century England from a Christian Perspective”

JORDANA LOPEZ-DA SILVA
Major: English Literature
Thesis: “All That Glitters Isn’t Gold:  Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Trilogy”

KAMINIE SINGH
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “‘A Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n’:  What It Means To Be Satanic or Non-Satanic”

ANITA SPEARMAN
Major: Professional Writing
Thesis: “Conservation and Clean Energy: Solutions for a Warming Planet”

KISSIE SPENCER
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “‘Whiskey and Water, a good combination’: A look at James Baldwin’s Treatment of Literature and Sociology in Go Tell It on the Mountain and ‘Notes of a Native Son’”

LISA ABATE
LISA MARIE BLANCO
GRECIA HUESCA
YVETTE LEWIS
SHERIN MATHEW
VIVIANA OCAMPO

LISA ABATE
Majors: English Literature and Italian
Minor: Business
Thesis: “The Worm in the Apple: The Bastardization of Human Behavior”

LISA MARIE BLANCO
Majors: English Literature and Italian
Thesis: “Denial in the Face of Imminent Demise in Bassani’s The Garden of the Finzi-Contini,” Wiesel’s Night, and Muñoz Molina’s Sepharad”

GRECIA HUESCA
Majors: Creative Writing and Comparative Literature
Thesis: "Swollen," a poetry collection on pregnancy

YVETTE LEWIS
Major: English Literature
Minor: Early Childhood and Childhood Education
Thesis: “Mary, Mary: Hardly Contrary”

SHERIN MATHEW
Majors: English Literature and History
Thesis: “Archetypes of Fairy Tales and Christianity in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield and Great Expectations”

VIVIANA OCAMPO
Majors: English Literature and Spanish
Minor: Italian
Thesis: “William Faulkner: Postcolonial Narrator of a Decaying South”

SUELY RIORDAN
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “An Empowering Trinity: Christine de Pizan, Mary Astell, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz”

BRIAN RIVERA
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “‘Every Negro Walk in a Circle’: Re-Examining Women as Leaders in Neo-Slave Narratives”

VALARIE ROSS
Major: English Literature
Thesis: “Up from Termagancy: The Taming of the Shrew and The Color Purple”

CARMEN SANTIAGO
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “Magical Realism as the True Latin American Literary Expression”

PABLO TORRES
Major: Creative Writing
Thesis: “DR. NEVERMORE @ HOTMAIL.COM,” a short story

SHABANA YUSUF
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: History
Thesis: “Tragic Love Song of Destiny,” a short story

DELFIN ALVARADO
JESSICA BOURET
MARCO CENTENO
ILANA DADRAS

DELFIN ALVARADO
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “An Evolutionary Revolution”

JESSICA BOURET
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “In the Mind of a Mother: Love and Scars”

MARCO CENTENO
Major: Creative Writing
Thesis: “Metafiction: Fictional Mimesis of Reality”

ILANA DADRAS
Major: Professional Writing
Thesis: “New Journalism: Revealing a Subjective and Collaborative Truth”

ALLISON DILLON
Majors: English Literature and Political Science
Thesis: “What a Character: A Metafictional Story and an Analysis of Postmodern Metafiction”

SHARENE SHAW
Major: English Literature
Thesis: “The End of the World as We Know It: As Seen Through the Lenses of Japanese Multimedia”

IVANNA UQUILLAS
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “‘Let me remember what . . . herself should say’: Chaste Maidens and Wives in Shakespeare and Contemporary Women Writers”

KENNY AGUIRRECHE
SANDRA CORTEZ
STEPHANIE CROTTY
SEAN ENGELDRUM
VERONICA GARCIA

KENNY AGUIRRECHE
Major: English Literature
Minors: Middle and High School Education and Japanese Studies
Thesis: “Escaping the Shadow of the System: Alternatives to Utopias and Dystopias in Literary History”

SANDRA CORTEZ
Major: English Literature
Minor: History
Thesis: “Embracing Duality and the Need for Expression:  Women’s Roles in Gothic Literature”

STEPHANIE CROTTY
Major: Creative Writing
Thesis: “Tragedy: A Conundrum of Green Stilettos”

SEAN ENGELDRUM
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: Multimedia Journalism
Thesis: “Bronx Destiny”

VERONICA GARCIA
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “The Tropical Negro: Rethinking The Identity of The New Negro Through the Writings of Claude McKay and Eric Walrond”

KASHIF GRAHAM
Majors: English Literature and Spanish
Thesis: “‘A Place Espyrituell’: Looking at Shakespeare’s Gardens as Places of Human Interaction”

RIK LEE
Major: English Literature
Minor: History
Thesis: “‘Weaving Words Together’: A Diachronous History of the English Dictionary”

MADELINE SCHER
Major: Professional Writing
Minor: Business
Thesis: “Wth Happened?: Technology, Education, and the Decline of Professional Communication Skills in the Millennial Generation”

REBECCA SEVERN
Major: English Literature
Minor: Early Childhood and Childhood Education
Thesis: “Leaping Over Fences: A Repertoire of Gender Performance in Peter Pan”

ALEXANDRIA TORRES
Major: Creative Writing
Thesis: “Who Are You”

STEPHANIE CHUNG
SHABRAJ MILLER
DANYELLE MILTON
JASMINE MIRANDA

STEPHANIE CHUNG
Majors: Creative Writing and Multimedia Studies
Minor: Film and Television Studies
Thesis: “Nature in Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ and Whitman’s ‘When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer’: A Study of Breaking Bad”

SHABRAJ MILLER
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: Multimedia Journalism
Thesis: “Child of Trauma: The Multifaceted Black Woman”

DANYELLE MILTON
Major: English Literature
Minor: Multimedia Journalism
Thesis: “Transforming Oppression: Revolutionary Women Re-Gender Rights and Virtue”

JASMINE MIRANDA
Majors: Creative Writing and Linguistics
Thesis: “The Critical Revival: Scientific Approaches to the Works of Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath”

JENNIFER MORIN
Majors: Creative Writing and Psychology
Thesis: “Navigating the Gray Area: Defining Diversity in a Black and White World”

OREVA OBARO-BEST
Majors: English Literature and Political Science
Thesis: “The Palliation of Racial Oppression: Social Darwinism in the Novels of Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe”

OCTRISHA PARKER
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: History
Thesis: “Momma Where Are You?: The Traumatic and Beautiful Childhood of a Child Named Boo”

EBBA ZAJMI
Major: English Literature
Minor: Philosophy
Thesis: “From Hana to Mark and Back Again: Dones’ Sworn Virgin & the Evasion and Subversion of Patriarchal Gender Prescriptions”

BIDGET KELLY
Majors: Professional Writing and Political Science
Thesis: “The Future Value of Liberal Arts”

ALIVIA LOPEZ
Major: Professional Writing
Thesis: “The Current State of Criticism: The Art of the Review”

NORA MONCADA
Major: English Literature
Minor: Latin
Thesis: ”Joyce’s Dubliners: Constructs of Gender and Nation in Early Twentieth-Century Ireland”

YESICA MONTESINO
Major: English Literature
Minor: Early Childhood and Childhood Education
Thesis: “The Creation of Revolutionary Women through the Restrictions of Machismo and Marianismo during Rafael Trujillo’s Dictatorship”

GERGELY NEMETH
Major: English Literature
Minors: Early Childhood and Childhood Education and Political Science
Thesis: “Agents of Order and Chaos in Society in Traditional Detective Fiction”

YOCASTA NOVAS
Major: English Literature
Minors: Italian, Psychology, and Professional Communications
Thesis: “Influences of White Standards of Beauty on Black Women and Girls in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”

VERONICA SEDA
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “The Protean Power of Poetry: Over the Classroom and Beyond”

JEAN CARLOS SOTO
Majors: Creative Writing and Latin
Thesis: “Daggers and Drones,” Part I of an Urban-Apocalyptic Novel

STEPHANIE TRINIDAD
Majors: English Literature and History
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “The Evolution of a Genre: How William Golding Influenced a Generation of Writers and the Young Adult Fiction Genre through Lord of the Flies”

SUMEYA YAFAIE
Major: English Literature
Minors: Anthropology and Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “Self-Establishment in the Works of Women Writers from Eighteenth-Century Christian England to Twenty-First-Century Muslim America”

SHEEMA ALAMARI
DANITSA ANDALUZ
KEJANA AYALA
ELISSA FANZO
NADIA FLOYD
MELANIE HERNANDEZ

SHEEMA ALAMARI
is a student with an interest in Professional Writing. She is pursuing a Middle and High School Education minor and plans to become a teacher after graduation. She is also fluent in Arabic, her home language.

Thesis: “‘She’s Split in Half’: The Hybridity of Genre in Irani and Afghani Women’s Memoirs”

DANITSA ANDALUZ
is a student in the Macaulay Honors Program as well as the English Honors Program. She has a special interest in creative writing, particularly works of fiction. She is minoring in Middle and High School Education and plans to become a teacher upon graduation. She works as a writing tutor at the Academic Center for Excellence.

Thesis: Vacio: Three Stories

KEJANA AYALA
is a Lehman Scholars Program student majoring in English with a specialization in Creative Writing. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Obscura, Lehman's student literary magazine, and she aspires to be an author and screenwriter in the future. An avid lover of Peter Pan, she hopes to have an "awfully big adventure." Her thesis shall feature a collection of short stories with magical realist aspects.

Thesis: Waking Up to Stars

ELISSA FANZO
is a returning adult student in the Lehman Scholars Program. She is an Honors English Literature major, and expects to graduate in January 2017 after an extended hiatus. She is a lifelong avid reader and an aficionado of all things science fiction, fantasy, and dark. Rumor has it she may be the original emo kid. She is copy editor of the Meridian, as well as editor to her significant other, author Thomas Behnke. In her not-so-spare time she is a mother of four—a junior and a sophomore also attending Lehman College, and sixteen-year-old fraternal twins—as well as a Girl Scout leader. She enjoys crocheting, cooking, baking, and entertaining friends and family. You may have seen her around the English Department, attempting to knit a replica of the signature scarf worn by the fourth Doctor Who, Tom Baker.

Thesis: “Edgar Allan Poe: Progenitor of Contemporary American Genre Fiction”

NADIA FLOYD
will graduate with degrees in Psychology and English Literature. After graduation, she plans on attending a PhD program for Social Psychology. Traveling is a hobby of hers, and she hopes to conduct research abroad while pursuing her graduate degree.

Thesis: “Pyramids: Exploring Emotional Agency with Respect to Colorism and Patriarchy”

MELANIE HERNANDEZ
expects to graduate with a degree in English with a concentration in Professional Writing and a minor in Professional Communications. She is a member of the Tau Sigma Honors Society for transfer students and the Golden Key International Honor Society, where she serves on the Executive Board as the New Member Engagement Officer. She blogs and plans events for Obscura, Lehman's literary magazine. She is a graduate of the Student Leadership Program and a Senator serving on the Governance Committee. She is an avid cat lover and has worked hard to create a substantial social media presence for her two cats, Charlie and Friday. She will be creating the deliverables for a two-day seminar designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs successfully promote their brands using social media platforms as her Senior Honors Thesis.

Thesis: “A Yogi’s Journey Towards Practicing Vinyasa”

MERITA LJUBANOVIC
is a student in the English Department and a member of the Lehman Scholars Program. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Early Modern Literature after graduation. Her senior thesis project focuses on Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa.

Thesis: “‘She Looked What She Said’: Discourse and Identity in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa”

LUIS MACHUCA
is a student in the English Department with a special interest in literary studies. He is pursuing a Developmental Disabilities minor and plans to obtain a master's degree in Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling after graduation. His senior thesis project deals with disability narratives and the portrayal of characters with disabilities, particularly blindness, in literary works. Luis is a winner of this 2016 Don and Mary Ellen Passantino Scholarship, awarded by CUNY's University Student Senate. 

Thesis: “The Autonomy of Blindness:  Reimagining Blind Characters in Literature Through Disability Studies”

ALEJANDRA PEREZ-FONSECA
is a student majoring in English with a focus on Professional Writing. Her thesis project focuses on the media portrayal of menstruation in the last decade. After graduation, Alejandra will apply to internships in the radio field. Her dream internship would be at WNYC with the Brian Lehrer Show. 

Thesis: “How the Media Portrayal of Menstruation Has Changed in the Last Decade”

COREY LIONEL SPENCER
will graduate from Lehman College with a B.A. in English Literature and a minor in African American Studies in 2017. While attending Lehman, he has spent some time as a columnist for the college newspaper, The Meridian, and published poetry in its literary magazine, Obscura. He has been accepted to the CUNY Pipeline Program where he hopes to further his education in a doctoral program. He currently resides in the Bronx, New York, where he works as a non-teaching adjunct and tutor at Bronx Community College.

Thesis: “The Family Values of Hip Hop: An Analysis of Kendrick Lamar’s and Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter’s Hip Hop Texts (Lyrics)”

JODELL ULERIE
Majors: English Literature and Philosophy
Thesis: “Condemned To Freedom: An Existentialist Reading of Choice and Identity in Invisible Man and Madame Bovary”

NISHA VARUGHESE
is an English major with a specialization in Literature. She is pursuing a minor in Middle and High School Education and hopes to obtain her certification in teaching. Throughout her college career, she has had the pleasure of collaborating with organizations such as the G.O.A.T. Music Club and Lehman Bollywood Dance Club to hold performances both on and off campus. She has also completed an internship with the CUNY Service Corps in which she was able to work with a phenomenal group of students from the Bronx. 

Thesis: “Unraveling the Mystery: Exploring the Representations of Women and Children Victims During the Partition of India”

KIMBERLEY AGUIRRE
RAKIYE BENJAMIN
SHIVANI BOODHOO
TANA CAMBRELEN
DIERDRE FANZO
JUSTIN JOYCE
PARBATTIE KHALAWAN
MENA McCARTHY
FRANCES ANGEL MINDANAO

KIMBERLEY AGUIRRE
is an English major with a specialization in Creative Writing and a minor in Professional Communications. She is currently a Senior College Assistant for Lehman College with hopes of entering the publishing field soon. When she is not on campus working or learning, she is caring for her toddler daughter, Emmaliene. Additionally, she is a freelance blogger, independent writing teacher, and book reviewer for Penguin Random House USA. Kimberley hopes to author captivating novels to inspire young adults for generations. She is a supporter of the movement #WeNeedDiverseBooks. While she has many ambitions, her foremost goals are to improve her daughter’s life and have a positive impact on the world she lives in.

Thesis: “Rizada Roots”

RAKIYE BENJAMIN
is an English Honors Creative Writing major who is especially interested in screenwriting. She is also majoring in Film Studies to learn as much as she can about the industry. She enjoys all kinds of creative expression, but her favorite form is writing. (She is a self-proclaimed "word artist.") Rakiye is also an active member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.

Thesis: Digital Storytelling – High School Story (a pilot)

SHIVANI BOODHOO
is an English Major with a concentration in Professional Writing. She has had her work published in both Lehman’s literary magazine, Obscura, and Lehman’s newspaper, The Meridian. Shivani aspires to write, edit, and publish in the future. In her free time, she enjoys reading, going to concerts, and planning adventures in New York City.

Thesis: “Appropriation Versus Assimilation: Navigating A Path to Appreciation”

TANA CAMBRELEN
is a Creative Writing major with a great love for poetry and short stories. She aspires to be a professor so she can change the lives of her students in the same way professors at Lehman did for her. Her poem “Red” (which she has tattooed) was featured in Obscura, Lehman's literary magazine. 

Thesis: “Boxed In: A Walk Through the Intersections of An Afro-Latina White Girl from The Bronx”

DEIRDRE FANZO
is an English Literature major at Lehman College. After earning her Bachelor’s degree, she would like to obtain a job with a publishing company. Deirdre is a writing tutor at the Academic Center for Excellence on campus, where she enjoys helping students enhance their writing skills. In her free time, she enjoys writing, going to the movies, cooking, and baking. She hopes to one day publish a collection of short stories.

Thesis: “Sympathy for the Devil: Mapping Addiction Narratives in Gothic Literature”

JUSTIN JOYCE 
was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. He is an English major with a concentration in Creative Writing currently attending Lehman College. He is a contributing writer to the Theater Development Fund's PXP Magazine.

Thesis: Great, a novel-in-progress

PARBATTIE KHALAWAN 
is an Honors English Literature major with a minor in Childhood Education. She began pursuing her degree at Lehman College in 2013. She was born and raised in Guyana and migrated to the United States in 2010, fully equipped with almost eleven years of experience in classroom teaching. She is still profoundly passionate about teaching and desires to get back to it after she earns her master’s degree. Though a mother to a five-year old boy, a full-time housewife, and a full-time bank teller, Parbattie dedicates her limited spare time (burning the midnight oil, really) to studying assiduously as a means of maintaining good grades. She has always been a top student, and it is her dream to graduate from Lehman College with Honors. On weekends and special holidays, she enjoys going to church, cooking sumptuous meals, listening to music, and dancing. She also greatly fancies Danielle Steel’s novels, as well as New York Times Bestsellers. Additionally, Parbattie is a long-serving volunteer member of the Nirvana Humanitarian Foundation based in Queens, New York. She dedicates some of her time to performing in the organization’s Annual Variety Fund Raising Christmas Concert, which offers her a soothing break from her work and puts her in the holiday spirit. 

Thesis: “Shakespeare and Women: A Feminist Perspective”

MENA McCARTHY 
is an English Literature major on the pre-veterinary track. She hopes one day to be a veterinarian that works closely with animal rescues and non-kill shelters to rehabilitate abandoned animals. In her free time, she enjoys belly dancing and playing with her pets: a cat and six dogs. 

Thesis: “Representations of Trauma Through the Authorial Lens of Haruki Murakami”

FRANCES ANGEL MINDANAO
is a pre-law English major minoring in Psychology studying with the Macaulay Honors College at Lehman College. She works as a writing tutor for the Instructional Support Services Program at Lehman and a journalist at The Meridian, a student-run newspaper. She is currently a summer intern at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. In the fall of 2017, she will be working as a fundraising coordinator at the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition through the CUNY Service Corps. She was the president and co-founder of the Macaulay Step Club in 2016 and was a senator of the 2015-2016 Lehman College Student Government on the Co-Curriculum Development Board. As a musician, she has sung in choirs, performed at Carnegie Hall, was an instrumentalist and dancer for nine years at the Filipino Arts and Music Ensemble, and was a music volunteer at the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Brooklyn hospital from 2015 to 2016. She continues to sing and mentor children at the Lord’s Flock Catholic Charismatic Community Brooklyn Chapter.

Thesis: “Red, White, Blue & Yellow in the Big Apple: The Stories of Filipino Immigrants in New York City”

ARLINDA MULOSMANAJ
is an in English major with a special interest in fictional literature. She plans to begin a career in publishing after graduation. She is also pursuing an Early Childhood and Childhood Education (ECCE) minor and plans to continue her education by pursuing a graduate degree.

Thesis: “A Poet’s Role: Identity, Nationalism, and the Ability to Incite Change”

MARIA REYES-RAMIREZ 
is a student at Lehman College pursuing an English degree with a minor in Middle and High School Education. She is a member of Tau Sigma, an honor society for transfer students. She hopes to become a teacher after graduation and plans to eventually pursue a doctorate degree in education. 

Thesis: “‘Long Live the King’: The Power of Legacy in Fatherhood in 20th Century African-American Literature”

MELISSA RUIZ
is an English major with a double minor of Japanese and Linguistics. She is planning for a career in translation or overseas education. Her immediate goal is to study abroad. She ended up winning a Gilman Scholarship and studied abroad in Japan her Junior year to to pursue language studies for her Japanese minor.

Thesis: “Queer Visibility, Liminality, and Otherness:  The Importance of Representation in Young Adult Literature”

JEFFREY SANDERS
is a Bronx native who came to Lehman in 2014 to pick up where he had previously left off as an English undergrad. He will complete his degree in the spring of 2018 at age thirty-two. Jeffrey has spent much of his life with an active imagination, channeling his emotions through characters and stories centered on individuality and personal power.  While earning a bachelor's degree is an accomplishment, it is only the beginning, a small step towards a much larger journey.  Jeffrey intends on pursuing a master's degree sometime in the near future, out of sheer desire to explore the craft of storytelling. His main focus is seizing opportunities that come from his education, including teaching English abroad—or wherever he is needed in his community (that doesn't involve standardized test prep!)—as well as finishing his thesis and other creative works-in-progress.

Thesis: “Engleke, Elisabet”

NICHOLAS SANTIAGO
is a student with a double major in English Literature and Philosophy. A former Computer Science major, he works at the SEEK Learning Center on campus, where he doubles as a writing tutor and critical thinking instructor for first-year students. He greatly enjoys helping students strengthen their writing and discover their own distinct writing style. He plans on becoming a professor, but becoming a published author is his ambition. Seeing personal hardships as didactic, he aims to study abroad in London upon graduation and earn a doctorate degree in English (Composition Theory and Rhetoric), setting the groundwork for his dream to author books on world-building and writing practices. Stealth fiction and war fiction are his favorite genres to read, and he finds solace in contemplating major philosophical questions. In his free time, he loves to travel, enthuse about both nature and avian life, and partake in human rights activism. He hopes to soon join Obscura, Lehman’s literary magazine, to try his hand at creative writing.

Thesis: “To Live Again: Digital Rhetoric and First-Year Composition”

EILEEN SEPULVEDA
has had a love for writing poetry and short stories since about age thirteen. She continues to live in the South Bronx where she was raised, and currently dedicates her life as a single mom to her two teenage boys. She works full-time and attends Lehman College part-time. She joined the EHP at Lehman in the fall of 2015. For now, her goals include receiving a bachelor’s degree and getting her writing recognized and published. She also wishes to explore playwriting and directing. Eileen's hobbies including reading graphic novels and cooking Latin cuisine.

Thesis: “Q”

RACHEL STROM
was born in Paraguay, South America. She is adopted and was raised by an American family. Rachel is majoring in English with a specialization in Professional Writing. She plans to pursue a career in publishing. She enjoys writing stories of various different genres. Her goal is to become a successful author and to reach as many people as possible with her work.

Thesis: “Lifeline”

NICOLE TORRES
is a student majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at Lehman College. She is currently doing an internship with Lehman's literary magazine, Obscura. She loves to write poetry and short stories, especially in the realm of darker genres. She most gravitates towards literary works of horror, fantasy, and sci-fi and she hopes to become a published author that covers those topics. She hopes to attend graduate school for an M.F.A. in English along with editing, publishing, and owning her own literary magazine someday.

Thesis: “Perturbation”

ANABEL VENTURA 
is an English Literature major with a minor in History. Before she transferred to Lehman, Anabel studied Childhood Education at LaGuardia Community College. Her hobbies include collecting records, listening to music, and reading.

Thesis: “Five Degrees of Separation”

CALANDRA ALBERT
BERNARD ALEXANDER
JENNIFER CHANG
ASHLEY DAVIS
ASHLEY GONZALEZ
AMBERLY JIMENEZ
ALIA KHOURY

CALANDRA ALBERT
is a student at Lehman College studying to be an English teacher for Middle and High School Students. Her love for writing and teaching started young: at the age of five she joined her first creative writing class. The following year, she began teaching her two-year-old sister the ABCs and basic words. Calandra aspires to be a teacher in the New York City Department of Education after graduating with her Bachelor’s Degree. Her long-term goals are to be a college professor and writer of several genres. Currently, she works at Lehman’s ACE tutoring center. She finds her work fulfilling and a great way to train for her future endeavors.

Thesis: “Growing in Darkness: Colorism, Adultification, and Rape in Black Girlhood Narratives”

BERNARD ALEXANDER
is an English major with a specialization in Creative Writing and a Philosophy minor. He transferred to Lehman in the Fall 2017 semester. He is a spoken word artist, poet, and fiction writer. He hopes to one day write novels, shows, and movies that will live on forever in people’s hearts and minds. Growing up his favorite books were the Harry Potter series and the Series of Unfortunate Events. However, the most impactful book to Bernard's life is Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.

Thesis: “‘The Sisserou That Flew’: An Immigrant’s Journey to Self-Discovery”

JENNIFER CHANG
Major: English Literature
Minor: Early Childhood and Childhood Education
Thesis: “Invisible Woman: Analyzing Race, Color & Identity in Nella Larsen’s Passing”

ASHLEY DAVIS
transferred to Lehman in the Fall 2016 semester. She came to New York from Georgia to finish her English Literature degree. She has a great passion for the art of storytelling. Whether from a book, movie, or play, she enjoys experiencing tales from a variety of different genres. She began her own journey as a storyteller over fifteen years ago when she discovered she had a knack for fiction writing. Ashley hopes to one day publish a novel born from the ideas of her over-active imagination. For her, imagination is paramount. She particularly resonates with this quote from Albert Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

Thesis: “The Case for Fanfiction: The Establishment of Fanfiction as a Literary Genre”

ASHLEY GONZALEZ
is a student at Lehman College. Her major is English Literature with a minor in Education.  She loves to read, write and, most of all, travel.  Ashley enjoys journaling about her experiences with all the places she has visited and hopes to soon share it with others.  Although she is pursuing a career in education, she hopes to one day get a job writing in the travel section of a newspaper or magazine.

Thesis: “Cervantes’ Squires: Don Quixote Through Four Translators”

AMBERLEY JIMENEZ
Major: English Literature
Minor: Middle and High School Studies
Thesis: “Dominican-American Literature: Expanding Women’s Voices and Understanding Their Identity Through Poetry”

ALIA KHOURY
is a student who lives and breathes art. She is a painter, actress, and writer. Her favorite poets are Philip Larkin, William Wordsworth, W.B. Yeats, and T.S. Eliot while her favorite painter is Vincent Van Gogh. Additionally, her creative inspirations in her own work are Anne Rice, Stephen King, H.P Lovecraft, and David Benioff. She is an English major with a specialization in Honors Literature. She is interested in the field of international law, but her real dream is to become an author and screenwriter.

Thesis: “The Reconstruction of Morality on a Spectrum in the Wake of Trauma and an Existence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Literature and Cultural Studies”

SHARON LEE
is a student majoring in English Literature with the intentions of minoring in Japanese and Psychology. As of late, she enjoys watching Adventure Time and crocheting. She hopes that studying Asian-American narratives will help her better understand and explore her Korean-American identity. Sharon won a Fulbright Teaching award and first prize in the CUNY-Wide AAARI Virtue Essay Contest. She was also featured on the Lehman Website and in the Queens Chronicle newspaper. Her winning essay can be read here

Thesis: “‘Meat is the Message’: Female Asian and Asian-American Protest in The Vegetarian and My Year of Meats”

JAVIERA MORALES-REYES
is a student of the Macaulay Honors College. She is majoring in English Literature and History. She aspires to become a teacher at the high school level and to eventually teach abroad in South Korea.

Thesis: “Defying Patriarchy in England and New Spain: Free Speech and Self-Empowerment in Elizabeth Cary’s Mariam and Sor Juana’s La Respuesta”

CAROLINA PERALTA
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: Middle and High School Education
Thesis: “Purple and Blue Collide”

KARINA RICE
is an English Creative Writing major with a specialization in Fiction Writing and a double minor in Philosophy and African American Studies. She is a poet with a lot to say and her work was published in the Spring 2018 issue of Lehman’s literary magazine, Obscura. She aspires to become a successful author, but dabble in writing shows and movies that will be impactful. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she plans on pursuing a Master of Fine Arts. Eventually she hopes to obtain a job in the publishing world (and who knows, maybe even open a publishing company of her own!).

Thesis: “Because We Matter,” a collection of YA short stories

ASHLEY SANCHEZ
is an English Honors student graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Professional Writing and a minor in Business. She plans to continue studying Professional Writing in graduate school. She holds the positions of secretary and office manager at Lehman College's school newspaper, The Meridian. She is also a member of Lehman L.I.F.E., an alternative break program that allows students to do volunteer work domestically and internationally. Traveling and volunteering are two hobbies that she is truly passionate about. She hopes to one day become an editor at a publishing house. She also aspires to create an organization that will donate books to shelters, school libraries, and youths in need.

Thesis: “BLAST! Imagist and Vorticist Legacies: The Ugliness of the English Language from Pound to Trump”

HEMA SOOKHAI
is a native Trinidadian, but has lived most of her life in the Bronx. After transferring from LaGuardia Community College with a background in Psychology, she found her passion in the expansive world of writing and literature. Her goal is to use her skills of observation to write novels, TV shows, and screenplays that connect with people in a meaningful way. Ever the believer in complex characters, she considers herself one as a Creative Writing major with a minor in Business. When she is not thoroughly engrossed in classwork, she enjoys photography, meditation, and keeping up with new media and tech.

Thesis: “Episodes of Disordered Complexion”

HARDIK YADAV
is an Indian-born Honors student studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing. He tutors English at Lehman’s Academic Center for Excellence and contributes to the campus’s literary magazine, Obscura, every Monday in his recurrent section CINÉMONDAYS WITH HARDIK. His other claim to fame: he has appeared in The New Yorker for “taking issue with Trump’s ‘gibberish’” in their 2016 article, “Donald Trump vs. New York City” by Daniel Wenger. Other than that, he’s just an introspective Earth-child like Nate Fisher from HBO’s Six Feet Under—just as one should be.

Thesis: “A Coming To: Towards Making the Contemporary Gay Man as His Own Subject”

SALLY BARILLA
RYAN CABRERA
YENICK GONZALEZ
NATALIA KIERZKOWSKA

SALLY BARILLA
is an English major with a creative writing specialization and professional communications minor. She is also a new writer for Lehman College’s newspaper, The Meridian. Her passion for reading and writing was sparked by her teachers bringing her books after noting she was only able to speak Spanish. She transferred to Lehman in Fall 2017 because she wanted to attend a university that had a diverse community and would prepare her to reach her career goals. Sally has also recently become a Presidential Scholar and a recurring member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars as well as the National Honor Society. She loves to take a hands-on role in teaching her family members how to read and write in English. Sally has hopes to work in various writing careers, from journalism to blogging to writing novels (she currently has a goal to write a 1,300-page book). Her favorite author is Stephen King and she can reread almost all of his horror stories without getting bored.

RYAN CABRERA
is a Macaulay Honors College student set to graduate in 2020. He is majoring in English Literature and minoring in Latino/Puerto Rican Studies. As of now, he is preparing to become a firefighter and hopes to read many books in between his duties. 

YENICK GONZALEZ
was born and raised in New York City. She is also known as DJ Nicky G on The Bronx Journal Radio, producing the Latin Lunch Hour at Lehman College. She is an English major with a specialization in Creative Writing and a minor in Theatre, Film and Television. She plans on earning her master’s degree in Creative Writing. She started writing poetry at a young age and credits Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Eliza Haywood, Julia de Burgos and Sia as influences in her writing. She has had three of her poems published. She hopes to one day win a Pulitzer Prize and become part of the Literary Canon.

NATALIA KIERZKOWSKA
is a Macaulay Honors Student majoring in English and Philosophy. Growing up, she spent an abundance of time reading, and dreamed of one day writing like her favorite authors. Natalia also enjoys baking, decorating, and listening to music.

FRANCIS PAUL MERENCILLO
is currently majoring in English with a literature concentration. He aims to grow as an academic as he forwards his understanding of what literature is and how it creates an impact in the twenty-first century. Besides reading, he also enjoys listening to music, vandalizing his notebooks with random scribbles and doodles, and watching anime and classic movies.  

RENÉE PENDARVIS
is a double major in African American Studies and English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She is also pursuing a minor in Women’s Studies. One of her favorite hobbies is writing poetry, and she hopes to publish a poetry book in the future. Renée believes that the best people do things solo. (Go Renée!)

DAVAUGHN RILEY
is an English Honors Professional Writing major with a minor in Philosophy. He is also a member of Tau Sigma National Honor Society and the National Society for Collegiate Scholars. He hopes to one day own his own public relations company. He also wants to contribute to rewriting the narrative of the African American minority that has been incorrectly portrayed for centuries. He hopes his writing will inspire others the same way writing continues to inspire him. He wants to be able to share his voice and lift the voices of others. He would also like to write scripts for films and television shows as well as become an executive producer.

MELISSA TEJADA
is a student at Lehman College majoring in English Literature. She has always loved reading books, so it was fitting to make it her focus in life. She is a writer for the college's newspaper, The Meridian. She is also a member of the ASEZ club, a group determined to clean up the streets and the Earth with positive reinforcement.