MA Graduate Instructors
Our graduate students come to us from four continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Representing almost 15 countries (such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, China, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Germany and Italy), our students create a diverse community of emerging scholars, committed to learning, collegiality, cultural exchange, world citizenship, civility, and social outreach.
We currently have 37 graduate students enrolled in our programs, 22 for the MA in English and 15 for the PhD in Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. While the majority of our students are financially supported through departmental teaching assistantships, two carry research assistantships outside of the department and one is funded through a dissertation fellowship. Five of our PhD students are self-funded and hold teaching, academic, or administrative appointments outside of the department or the university.
Damilola Precious Adenjii
MA Student
Email: damilola.adeniji@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E34
Lydia Baker
Email: lydia.baker@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E26
I am pursuing a Master of Arts degree in NDSU’s English program. I earned my B.S. in English with a teaching specialization from South Dakota State University (2025). My research interests include American literature, specifically the American West, fiction, and book-to-film-adaptations. I have recently submitted a book review on Beenash Jafri’s Settler Attachments and Asian Diasporic Film for publication. I am currently a GTA for NDSU and I am teaching English 120.
Alyssa Cantu
Email: alyssa.cantu@ndus.edu
Office: Minard Hall, Room 318 E6
Alyssa Cantu is a graduate student at North Dakota State University pursuing a Master of Arts in English. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English with a credential emphasis from California State University, Bakersfield in 2023. Her research focuses on postcolonial and anglophone literatures, with particular interest in magical realism. In addition to her studies, Alyssa works as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, supporting undergraduate instruction, and serves as the Graduate Student Representative on the English Department’s Publicity Committee.
Kaitlyn Carpenter
Email: kaitlyn.carpenter@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard Hall 318E26
Kaitlyn Carpenter is a masters student in NDSU’s English Program. She earned her B.A. in English from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (2024). Her research interests include Critical Theory, British Literature, and Gothic American Literature. She is currently working on a book review for Johns Hopkins University and recreationally working on a fantasy physiological horror novel. In addition to this, she is also a GTA teaching English 120.
Devon Cottle
Email: devon.cottle@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E6
I am currently pursuing a Master of Arts in English and serve as a graduate instructor for first-year writing. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Earth and Ocean Sciences from Duke University in 2014. I have a deep interest in how people and animals relate to each other and their environments. I am currently exploring this through the lens of humor, folklore, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque. I love music and the outdoors.
Pinki Rani Das
Email: pinki.das@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E2
M.A. TESOL, BRAC University, Dhaka
B.A. (Hons), English, Dhaka International University (DIU), Dhaka
Elizabeth Eggl
Email: elizabeth.eggl@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E6
Elizabeth Eggl is a MA student and current Graduate Teaching Assistant in NDSU’s English program. She earned her BA in English and BFA in Painting from Minnesota State University Moorhead (2024) Her research interests include experimental narratives and multimedia storytelling. She is currently working on developing her masters thesis as well as a certificate in publishing.
Elisabeth Eller
Elisabeth Eller, MA student in English
Email: elisabeth.eller@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E26
Elisabeth Eller is a graduate student working towards her master’s degree in the NDSU English department. She is also a Graduate Teaching Assistant for first-year writing. Elisabeth received her BA in English and BA in Music from the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2024. Her research interests include nineteenth-century British literature, ecocriticism, the Gothic, and multimedia humanities.
Fred Gaisie
Email: fredrick.gaisie@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E2
Louisa Gambah
Email: louisa.gambah@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E34
Louisa Gambah is an M.A. student in the NDSU English program. She received her BA in English (2019) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and then worked as an English teacher for four years in Ghana before moving to NDSU to continue her studies. She is a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Department of English, teaching first-year writing. Her scholarly interests include writing studies, multilingual writing, translingual studies, genre, and pedagogy and their intersections with rhetoric and writing. Her current research focuses on translingualism in the Ghanaian X community by analyzing users’ comments on socio-political discourse.
Katilynn Herout
Email: katilynn.herout@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E18
B.A., English, North Dakota State University, May 2024
Arya Rogne
Email: arya.rogne@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E18
Bachelors degree in Comparative Literature, University of Bergen, 2018 – 2023 | Bergen, Norway
Bachelors degree in Theater Studies, University of Bergen, 2019 – 2022 | Bergen, Norway
Kaniz Tahera
Email: kaniz.tahera@ndsu.edu
Office: Minard 318E2
M.A. in English Literature, 2017-2018, University of Rajshahi
B.A. in English, 2014-2017, University of Rajshahi