Kana Abe
Kana Abe is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Foreign Language Education program at the University of Texas at Austin. For seven years, she taught Japanese to college and high school students and Korean to college students. She earned her master’s degree in Japanese at The Ohio State University and bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts at International Christian University in Tokyo. Her research interests include second language acquisition, language learning with technology, technology affordances, sound symbolism (Japanese and Korean onomatopoeia and ideophones), and extensive reading. Her work on this project includes web page development and administration, the biography of John Webster, and the development of teaching activities for the “Revenge: Part 2” pedagogical pathways section.
Margo Blevins
Margo Blevins is a first year Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin. She got her B.A. in German at Allegheny College in 2012. Her teaching experience includes being a teaching assistant at Allegheny College and tutoring privately. She is now currently teaching German at the German-Texas Heritage Society in Austin, TX. Her interests include: language pedagogy, dialectology, endangered languages, and language contact. In terms of this website, Margo worked on the background information for The Duchess of Malfi, The Duchess of Malfi in contemporary theatre and film, the “Relationships” pedagogical pathways section (more specifically the “Marriage” section thereof) and copy editing.
Devon Donohue-Bergeler
Devon Donohue-Bergeler earned a B.A. from Boston University and an M.A. from the Technische Universität Dresden in Germany. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin and is a Graduate Research Assistant at the institution’s Center for Teaching and Learning. Devon has supported STEM field international students and scholars in both Dresden and Hamburg and was a trainee in the Terminology Coordination Unit at the European Parliament in Luxembourg. She has 10+ years of experience teaching German and English in formal and informal contexts, with learners ranging from university students, teens, and children to CEOs and ex-pats. Her favorite course involved giving a bike tour of Berlin. Her research interests focus on second language acquisition and transcultural learning using experiential methods, like study abroad and drama-based instruction. On this project, Devon worked on the development of teaching activities for the “Revenge: Part 1” pedagogical pathways section, and on web page development.
Matthias Fingerhuth
Matthias Fingerhuth is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that, he studied at the University of Bonn, Klaipėda University, and the University of Cologne. In 2012, the latter awarded him the title Magister Artium in German language and literature. Among other things, he has taught German as a private tutor, as an assistant teacher at a high school, and, most recently, as an assistant instructor at UT-Austin. His academic interests include questions of language variation and standardization, of language contact, and also of language teaching. He furthered the project through development of teaching activities for the “Revenge: Part 1” pedagogical pathways section and basic knowledge of WordPress and HTML.
Steven Kroman
Steven Kroman is a first year M.A. student specializing in English as a Foreign Language in the Foreign Language Education program at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his B.A. degree in Economics at Boston University and spent four years in Japan teaching English as an assistant teacher in Japanese junior high and elementary schools. His academic interests include phonology, pronunciation instruction, and pronunciation assessment. Steven contributed to this project by writing the synopsis of The Duchess of Malfi and collaborating in the design of the “Gender” lesson in the pedagogical pathways section.
Bokhee Na
Bokhee Na received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chonnam National University in South Korea. She then taught English to Korean students in secondary schools in Gwangju, South Korea for more than 12 years before she became a Ph.D. student in the Foreign Language Education program at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interest deals with emotions involved in second/foreign language learning contexts, such as developing culturally relevant reading materials and tasks and exploring the effect of teachers’ emotions and peers’ emotions. On The Duchess of Malfi Project, she contributed to the author biography page and the development of the “Friendship” teaching materials in the pedagogical pathways section.
Tavis Satin
Tavis Sartin is currently a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. His interest in second language instruction began while working for a developmental tutoring program in Germany for students of all levels during a year abroad. Tavis then spent three years teaching English to elementary and junior high school students in Shimane, Japan. His research interests include historical and synchronic linguistics, as well as foreign language teaching. His contributions to the project include organizing and assisting in the creation and development of teaching activities for the “Revenge: Part 1” pedagogical pathways section, as well as assisting with the web page design and construction.
Kristina Saunders
Kristina M. Saunders received an M.A. in German Second Language Acquisition in 2013 from Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS. She is now working on her Ph.D. in Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and is focusing on digital language learning. Kristina has three years of teaching experience. While at Kansas State University, she taught first-, second-, and third-semester language courses, an accelerated summer course, as well as a fourth semester culture course on German films; in her first year at UT-Austin, she has taught first-semester German. Kristina’s research interests include Digital Game-Based Learning for Second Language Acquisition, Conversation Analysis, Discourse Analysis, and Interactional Linguistics. For this project, Kristina helped develop the pedagogical pathway on “Gender” in The Duchess of Malfi. She also worked on the “Language” tab of the website, in addition to copy editing.
Laura Snyder
Laura Snyder is a Ph.D. student at the Germanic Studies Department at University of Texas at Austin. She received her first undergraduate and graduate degrees in translation for German, English, and Russian from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany. She earned her second master’s degree in German from the University of Kentucky. She has been teaching German at U.S. universities for five years and also has experience teaching Russian at the collegiate level. Her research interests include Technology in Foreign Language Learning, specifically Mobile-Assisted Language Learning, as well as German film and the history and culture of the GDR. Her contributions to The Duchess of Malfi project include work on the educational outreach page, the biography of John Webster, and development of teaching activities in the pedagogical pathways section on “Emotion.”
Jessie Trawick
Jessie Trawick is a graduate student in Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin. She received bachelor’s degrees in English and German at Davidson College in 2013. Jessie worked as an assistant teacher for first- and second-semester German courses at Davidson for two years and is currently working on her certification to teach high school German in Texas. Her research interests include foreign language anxiety and English as a second language to students who are hard of hearing. She made significant contributions to the “Gender” pedagogical pathway and the section on “Language” in The Duchess of Malfi.
Clarissa Ysel
Clarissa Ysel spent several years working in music and film before receiving her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She then tutored Korean secondary school students in English and test preparation for four years. She then returned to the University of Texas at Austin, where she is now finishing her master’s degree in Foreign Language Education and interning in an advanced ESL reading class. Her research interests include second language listening comprehension and strategies, vocabulary acquisition, and language learner identity. On this project, she contributed to the development of teaching activities for the “Revenge: Part 2” pedagogical pathways section and to the educational outreach page. She also worked as a copy editor.
Per Urlaub
Per Urlaub is an assistant professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford. Before coming to the University of Texas at Austin, he was an assistant professor at Southern Connecticut State University, a graduate student at Stanford and the University of Utah, a high-school instructor in the UK, and an undergraduate student at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel. His main research publications theorize (literary) reading in the second language, literacy-centered language instruction, as well as the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in foreign language disciplines. Additional publications address the potential contributions of creative writing, documentary film, and rap music for collegiate foreign language/culture learning. On this project, he served as the project manager.
Maley Thompson
Maley Thompson is a graduate student in the English Department at the University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on her dissertation prospectus on Shakespeare’s hand in The Spanish Tragedy additions. After earning a dual BA in English and Spanish from Vanderbilt University, Maley worked in publishing before returning to UT, where she has designed and taught special courses on Banned Books and the Rhetoric of Revenge. Her research focuses on drama and poetry at the turn of the 16th/17th century, specifically performance criticism, genre and attribution studies, and the literalization of metaphors. Maley’s lecture for this course contextualized The Duchess of Malfi and offered approaches for reading, staging, and teaching early modern drama in the 21st century.