Brice Nordquist, A&S Dean’s Professor of Community Engagement, Associate Professor of Writing & Rhetoric

Brice is a community-engaged writing and rhetoric researcher and teacher. He works through participatory research and humanities- and arts-based programming to study and support students’ movements across contexts of learning and stages of education. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Narratio Fellowship, a storytelling program for resettled refugee youth, and the founder and director of the College of Arts & Sciences’ Engaged Humanities Network.

Lauren Cooper, Engaged Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow

Lauren Cooper (she/her) received her PhD in English from Syracuse University in May 2024. She is currently working on a book project, Climate Justice Before the Anthropocene: How Inclement Weather Shaped British and Irish Romanticism, which uses climate history to trace emergent conceptions of environmental justice in canonical and lesser-known works of British and Irish Romantic literature. Her research examines colonialism and the slave trade, class, gender, landscape aesthetics, changing conceptions of wastelands and wildernesses, and crucially, early discourses of environmental justice. She serves as a Community Program Director for Write Out programming at Girls Inc. and a collaborator with Environmental Storytelling Central New York.

Miryam Nacimento, Engaged Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow

Miryam Nacimento's doctoral dissertation, "Coca Mestiza: Small Farmers, Multiculturalism, and the War on Drugs in Colombia," provides the basis for her first book project, exploring the political struggles of impoverished small farmers who cultivate illicit coca in Colombia. Specifically, Nacimento follows these farmers as they advance their demands for cultural recognition, resist state criminalization, and attempt to survive the Colombian agrarian crisis. Nacimento’s future research will continue exploring illicit agrarian economies by focusing on how the expansion of illicit coca affects the Ticuna people, an Indigenous group living in the Peruvian Amazon. She aims to shed light upon the different experiences of dispossession the Ticuna must endure as international organized crime spreads into the Amazonian Forest, threatening Ticunas’ ancestral lands and territories.

Destinyi Fernandez, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Destinyi is a junior studying Art Photography. She is committed to using photography as a driving force to amplify voices from communities that often go unheard and composing narratives that represent the beauty of culture and identity in everyday life. She was first introduced to the EHN as a high school student through the Photography & Literacy program at Syracuse’s Clarence Jordan Vision Center and is now a project lead on the Southside Stories, a cross-generational, community-powered multimedia storytelling initiative rooted in Syracuse’s Southside neighborhood. The program trains community members of all ages—from youth to elders—in visual storytelling, including photography, video, writing, and audio. Working with National Geographic photographers and filmmakers Amy Toensing and Matt Moyer, Destinyi helps document the people, places, and organizations shaping life on the Southside—amplifying voices, fostering civic engagement, and strengthening connections across generations and throughout the Syracuse community.

Olivia Fried, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Olivia is a senior pursuing dual majors in International Relations and Magazine Journalism. She works with Environmental Storytelling CNY and has been developing a digital and social media presence for the organization, aiming to expand its reach. Her larger research interests include Indigenous studies, multimedia storytelling, and global environmental studies. She approaches her work with the goal of amplifying and platforming marginalized voices that have systematically been ignored.

Olutoyin Grace Green, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Toyin is a Senior majoring in Political Philosophy, Health Humanities, and Law, Society, and Policy, with a minor in Public Health. Her multidisciplinary research attempts to address health access and disparities in vulnerable populations using a bottom-up approach, centering community health and social organizing as foundational efforts to the broader goal of system reform. Much of her work focuses on community organizing, systemic reform, and the restructuring of institutions, particularly health institutions, to achieve health equity and resource redistribution. As a research assistant working with Southside Connections (SSC), Toyin assists in the connection of community programs throughout the Southside of Syracuse. Similar to Toyin’s interests, SSC works to address racial and socioeconomic inequities through community connection, engagement, and restoration.

Madeline Hurlbert, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Maddie is a senior studying Communication Science and Disorders with a minor in Education Studies. Her research interests include the language development of CODAs and hearing-impaired children. She has worked with Deaf New Americans’ Advocacy Inc. in the CODA tutoring program since her sophomore year. Her work involves enhancing communication skills, fostering a positive learning environment, and coordinating tutors to cultivate a strong sense of community between SU students and the Syracuse community.

Lexie Lazarus, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Lexie is a senior majoring in Human Development & Family Science with a minor in Education Studies. Her research focuses on early intervention to support the emotional and behavioral resilience of students. She is a research assistant for Mindfully Growing, which combines nutrition education and mindfulness to help Pre-K children develop healthy eating habits and self-discipline skills in school settings. Lexie’s interests include exploring how mindfulness can strengthen attention and develop creative thinking. 

Valeria Martinez Gutierrez, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Valeria is a Senior triple-majoring in Sociology, Geography, and Environment, Sustainability, & Policy. Her intersectional narratives dissect the pillars sustaining structural environmental injustices. She works with the Environmental Storytelling Series of CNY developing multidisciplinary angles within the guides. She works with community partners, like La Casita Cultural Center, to enhance visibility and engagement with the EHN. Valeria also serves as the President of the Mexican Student Association, President of the Latine Honors Society, is a Remembrance and Our Time Has Come Scholar, as well as a bi-weekly Opinions columnist for the Daily Orange.

Anna Mirer, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Anna is a senior in the Maxwell School and College of Arts and Sciences, triple majoring in neuroscience, psychology, and policy studies. As a Russian immigrant and longtime New Yorker, she is passionate about using mental health research to drive meaningful, long-term change. Anna served as Undergraduate Representative to the Board of Trustees and Vice President of University Affairs for the Student Government Association, where she worked to elevate student voices. At the Barnes Center at The Arch, she managed the Peer Leader team within Health Promotion, developing outreach strategies and campus-wide wellness initiatives. She interned with the YMCA of Central New York and volunteered as a research assistant with the Golisano Center for Special Needs, supporting behavioral health initiatives.

Anna co-founded Connect 315, a student-led initiative aimed at strengthening relationships between Syracuse University and the surrounding community through collaborative programming and civic dialogue. In partnership with the City of Syracuse, she co-authored a literature review on community engagement strategies related to the I-81 redevelopment project. 

Rayan Mohamed, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Rayan is a senior majoring in Film and Media Art with a minor in Anthropology. Her work explores storytelling as a tool for expression, healing, and care, with a focus on migration, identity, and belonging. She is committed to expanding access to filmmaking and redefining who gets to tell stories and how they are shared. A former Narratio Fellow, she has returned to the program as a facilitator and 2025 Artist-in-Residence, supporting the second film cohort since 2020. Her films have been screened nationally, and she continues to engage audiences as both a filmmaker and educator.

Ella Roerden, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Ella is a junior majoring in Anthropology and International Relations. She is working with the Southside Connections (SSC) project for the EHN. Her research includes data collection on the Southside Connections partners, working with them to collect information on what they do, how they do it, why they do what they do, and what their plans and goals are for their organizations. She hopes to further her research to learn more about how the Southside Connections partners interact with and engage with their communities.

Maeve Ryan, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Maeve is a junior pursuing a double major in History and Law, Society, and Policy. Her research and areas of interest include understanding systemic barriers in refugee communities and building cross-cultural relationships. She has worked with Deaf New American’s Advocacy Inc. in their CODA educational support program since her freshman year. Her work involves improving communication skills, building community relationships, and creating a positive learning environment.

Brooklyn Toller, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Brooklyn is a junior Environmental Engineering major working in Dr. Tao Wen's lab on the Safeguarding Syracuse Communities project. She oversees the research field work, collecting water samples and data on temperature, electrical conductivity, and pH for local Syracuse streams.

Mariah Willor, Engaged Humanities Undergraduate Research Assistant

Mariah is a senior pursuing a double major in Anthropology and Writing & Rhetoric, with minors in Native American & Indigenous Studies and Creative Writing. Her interdisciplinary scholarship critically engages with the intersections of language, power, and colonialism. Recent research explores English as an extension of control, disproportionately implicating indigenous people into cycles of incarceration, as well as the historical processes that contribute to the body – specifically the indigenous women’s body – gaining materiality in the imperial imagination.

She has contributed to a range of public humanities initiatives through the Engaged Humanities Network (EHN), including Write Out, Project Mend, Environmental Storytelling, and Stories of Indigenous Dispossession Across the Americas. Over the summer, she served as a Teen Specialist at a Syracuse-based family services organization, mentoring local high school students through community-centered programming. She is currently working on Involution, a Syracuse-based poetry publication amplifying voices from the region.