Officers
President: Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam
Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam is Visiting Assistant Professor in German Studies Studies and Film & Media Studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Last year, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies at the Frei Universität Berlin, where she was working on her book project “Panelled Pasts: East German History and Memory in the German Graphic Novel.” In addition to founding the University of Michigan’s first comics studies working group, the Transnational Comics Studies Workshop, Biz is also the Secretary for the Executive Committee of the International Comic Arts Forum.
Vice President: Adrienne Resha
Adrienne Resha is a Ph.D. student in the American Studies Program at the College of William & Mary. She studies Arab and Muslim representation in American popular media, especially in the superhero genre.
Twitter: @AdrienneResha
Secretary/Treasurer: Safiyya Hosein
Safiyya Hosein is a PhD candidate in the joint program in Communication and Culture at Ryerson University and York University in Toronto, Canada. She was chosen by Vice Media’s Motherboard as one of their “Humans of the Year” for both her dissertation project and comic book writing (2017). She is an intersectional feminist scholar who specializes in Muslim superhero representation and Muslim audiences. She has also been interviewed by Radio Free Krypton, Vice, Quill & Quire (Canadian publication), and the Spanish publication, Tebeosfera. Her comic book fiction writing has appeared in the anthologies, Toronto Comics: Yonge at Heart, Called Into Being: A Celebration of Frankenstein, and in the upcoming My Kingdom for a Panel: A Shakespearean Anthology. Most recently she wrote a comic on Muslim grieving in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings for The Nib.
Twitter: @safibelle30
Member-at-Large: Hanah Stiverson
Hannah Stiverson is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Culture at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on comics and how they can be used to interrogate the intersections of race, accessibility, industry, and representations of power.
Twitter: @hanahstiverson
Member-at-Large: Alex Lampp Berglund
Alex Lampp Berglund is a third-year Ph.D. student in Language and Literacy Education at The University of Georgia. Her work focuses on (dis)ability in comics and graphic narratives and the inclusion of popular culture in family literacy practices surrounding discussions of (dis)ability.
Twitter: @arlberglund
Web Editor: Jeremy Carnes
Jeremy Carnes is a Ph.D. candidate in Literature and Cultural Theory at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His dissertation explores the ways comics can help rethink the ways we historicize and read temporality in literary studies.
Twitter: @jmcarnes