• Degree: Began PhD program in 2013
• Concentration: American Literature (19th-century)
• Advisor: Dorri Beam

Rachel’s research and teaching interests include nineteenth-century American literature, women's rights and women’s suffrage movements, social reform, political theory, and feminist theory. Her dissertation examines the importance of popular literary motifs for understanding the political philosophies of nineteenth-century U.S. women’s rights advocates. She focuses on reading these texts and their representations of women’s suffering and vulnerability in relation to politics rather than affect in order to demonstrate how these texts think through the relationship between women's oppression, women’s agency, and women’s economic, political, and social inequality. Her project will enrich our knowledge of the U.S. suffrage movement by demonstrating that women’s rights activists and writers were political thinkers who engaged with, critiqued, and contributed to American political thought. Rachel has taught Survey of American Literature, Beginnings to 1865; Survey of American Literature, 1865- Present; Gender and Literary Texts; and Interpretation of Nonfiction.

• Certificate of University Teaching, Syracuse University
• Certificate of Advanced Study, Women’s and Gender Studies, Syracuse University
• MA, English, State University of New York at Buffalo
• BA, English and Inclusive Education, Nazareth College