Curriculum Vitae
Updated October 2026 · jec454@cornell.edu
Research Areas
Environmental Humanities; Caribbean Literature; Blue Humanities; Disaster Studies; Ecopoetics; Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies; Latina/o/x Studies
Education
Ph.D., Comparative Literature
Cornell University
Dissertation: To Stand with Wet Feet: Hurricanes, Floods, and Seawater in the Caribbean Anthropocene
Winner, 2026 Caribbean Studies Association Best Dissertation Award
M.A., Comparative Literature
Cornell University
M.A., English
Florida International University
Thesis: “Reading/Listening for Disremembered Voices: Additive Archival Representation and the Zong Massacre of 1781”
Winner, 2017 College of Arts, Sciences, and Education Best Thesis Award
B.A., English
University of Miami
Publications
Book Manuscripts
To Stand with Wet Feet: Elemental Crisis and Caribbean Environmental Form
Book manuscript in advanced revision; proposal in preparation.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Seawater, Form, and the Limits of Evidence in M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.
Forthcoming.
“‘A House with Room Enough for Everyone’: Climate, Migration, and Posthumous Care in Ana Menéndez’s The Apartment.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.
Revised and resubmitted (October 2026).
“The Hurricane’s Syntax: Glissant, Brathwaite, and the Tourbillon Sentence.” Journal of West Indian Literature.
Under peer review.
Academic & Professional Appointments
Adjunct Instructor
Department of World Languages & Communication
Miami Dade College, Hialeah Campus
Academic Support Writing Coach
Learning Resources
Miami Dade College, Medical Campus
Information Literacy Instructor
Learning Resources
Miami Dade College, Medical Campus
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of Comparative Literature & Department of Romance Studies
Cornell University
Graduate Research Assistant to Dr. Heather Russell
Department of English
Florida International University
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of English
Florida International University
Selected Fellowships and Awards
Best Dissertation Award
Caribbean Studies Association
First Alternate, Humanities Scholars Pathway Postdoctoral Fellowship
Society for the Humanities, Cornell University
Sage Fellowship
Cornell University
Reading Group Grant
Institute for Comparative Modernities, Cornell University
Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Sage Fellowship
Cornell University
Best Thesis Award
College of Arts, Sciences, and Education, Florida International University
Language Schools Scholarship for Students Attending HBCUs, HSIs, or Tribal Colleges
Middlebury College
Teaching Experience
Miami Dade College
- Instructor of Record, ENC 1102: English Composition II (Spring 2026, Fall 2026)
Cornell University
- Instructor of Record, COML 1106: Robots – Freshman Writing Seminar (Spring 2019)
- Instructor of Record, SPAN 1210: Elementary Spanish I (Fall 2018)
Florida International University
- Teaching Assistant, ENC 1102: Writing & Rhetoric II (Spring 2016)
- Teaching Assistant, ENC 1101: Writing & Rhetoric I (Fall 2015)
- Guest Instructor: 20th Century Literary Theory (Spring 2017), Deconstruction and Ethics (Fall 2016)
Scholarly Presentations
Invited Talks
“What Does a Hurricane Sound Like? Caribbean Poetics, Testimony, and Storm-Time”
Early Career Scholar Showcase, dLOC: Digital Library of the Caribbean
Selected Conference Papers
“Capitalist Alienation, World-Making, and Interspecies Ethics in Ana Menéndez’s The Apartment (2023)”
Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA
“Oceanic Altars: The Watery Thresholds to an Erotics of Resistance in Ana-Maurine Lara’s Erzulie’s Skirt”
MELUS Annual Conference, Cincinnati, OH
“‘My Body Belongs to Everyone but Me’: Tracing Transcultural, Translingual, and Transoceanic Ruptures in Feeding the Ghosts”
Modern Languages and Literatures Graduate Conference, Miami, FL
“Toward an Ethics of Acknowledgment”
ASLE Graduate Symposium, Ann Arbor, MI
Selected Conference and Program Organization
“Just in Time: Ana Menéndez’s The Apartment”
Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA
“In/Difference—Queer, Affect, After Disidentifications: A Queer of Color Critique Speaker Series”
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Professional Service
Cornell University
- Organizer, Queer of Color Critique Working Group
- Organizer, Postcolonial Environmental Humanities Reading Group
- Treasurer, Comparative Cultures and Literature Forum
- Field Representative, Graduate and Professional Student Organization
- Organizer, Environmental Humanities Reading Group
Florida International University
- President, Graduate English Association
- English Department Liaison, Council of Student Organizations
- Accessibility Advisor, Graduate English Association
University of Miami
- Fiction Editor, Mangrove Literary Journal
- Reader, Mangrove Literary Journal
Languages
English (native); Spanish (native); French (reading proficiency)