 Kristen Bergman Waha received her Bachelors Degree in English in 2006 from Westmont College. She is pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California at Davis, where she studies nineteenth century British and French literature and South Asian literature in Tamil and English. Her research currently focuses on fin du siècle women’s movements and nationalist depictions of women in European and South-Asian periodical and print cultures. |
 Susan Bilynskyj Dunning received her BA in Classics and Linguistics in 2008 from Seattle Pacific University and is currently pursuing her PhD in Classics at the University of Toronto, where she received her MA in 2010. Susan's specialization is in Roman Religion; her dissertation will examine the history and development of the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games) from the Republic to the Empire. She is also interested in Roman and Greek hymns and prayers, early Christian liturgy, and Indo-European linguistics. |
 Bethany Carlson received her Bachelors Degree in 2007 from Indiana Wesleyan University. This fall she will be an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing Program at Indiana University (concentrating in Poetry). Bethany's writing often reflects parallels found in the relationship between contemporary urban life and nature. Her academic interests include literary nonfiction, ekphrastic poetry, and the American novel. |
 Ian Corbin received his Bachelors Degree in 2006 from Gordon College and his Masters degree in Theology from Yale Divinity School in 2008. This fall Ian is entering the philosophy department at Boston College, intending to study the philosophy of politics and art, with an eye to understanding how politics and art interact and shape each other. |
 Kirsten Hasler recieved her Bachelor's Degree in 2007 from Gordon College and her Masters Degree in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queens University, Belfast in 2008. She is studying Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, with a specialization in International Relations and Political Theory. Kirstin's dissertation is on the role of nationalism in military combat effectiveness, advised by Prof. Daniel Philpott. She is also interested in the ethics of nationalism and the role of religion in international politics. |
 Nathan Kilpatrick received his Bachelors Degree in 2006 from Azusa Pacific University. Kilpatrick will be studying at Baylor University in the PhD in Literature and Religion program. In this program, he intends to study how American authors have been influenced by indigenously American religious experience and how this influence shapes how they communicate religious experience within their writings. Specifically, he plans to focus on how contemporary American authors are dealing with a literary heritage of religious individualism while still maintaining an identity within the religious community. |
 Angela Heetderks received her Bachelors Degree in 2006 from Wheaton College. Heetderks is a Ph.D. candidate in English language and literature at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. Her dissertation focuses on representations of intellectual disability in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English literature. Her other research addresses intersections of music and literature in medieval and early modern England.
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 Jessica Morton received her Bachelors Degree in 2008 from the University of Notre Dame. Morton will be entering the PhD program in English Language and Literature in the fall at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. She plans to study late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British and Irish literature, with an interest in nation, war, and terror. |
 Benjamin Safranski received his Bachelors Degree in 2006 from Belmont Abbey College and a Master of Theological Studies degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2008. He is working towards the Ph.D. in Church History at The Catholic University of America, specializing in Latin Patristics. His interests include patristic ecclesiology and the early development and theology of ministry, as well as the liturgical roles of Christian ministers.
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 Andrea Smith-Rippeon received her Bachelors Degree in 2007 from the University of Dayton. This fall she will enter the doctoral program in Political Science at Indiana University with a focus on comparative politics and secondary interests in political theory and East Asian politics. She is particularly enthusiastic about Chinese minority policy, legal reform, and issues of nationalism. |
 Samuel Stoner studied the Great Books at the University of Notre Dame as an undergraduate. He now studies philosophy at Tulane University, where he focuses primarily on the history of modern philosophy, Plato, and Aristotle. Stoner will write his dissertation on the topic of Kant’s evolving understanding of his own activity as philosophical author. |
Donovan Tann received his Bachelors Degree in 2008 from Eastern Mennonite University and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in English Literature at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. His research interests include the relationships among literature, religion, and gender in the seventeenth century, women’s writing, transatlantic literature, and devotional religious texts. He is currently researching the operations of gender and contemporary intellectual debates within frustrated gestures of religious retreat in seventeenth century England and early America.
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 Johanna Brinkley Tomlinson received her Bachelors Degree in 2008 from Valparaiso University. She is entering the Ph.D. program in English this fall at the University of Iowa where she hopes to study nineteenth-century literature, both American and British, and she is particularly interested in visual culture as it pertains to literature in this time period. She is also interested in literature for children. |
 Amanda Weppler received her Bachelors Degree in 2008 from Baylor University. She will be studying in the Medieval Institute at Notre Dame. Her greatest interest is the works of Dante, so she will be probably be concentrating her work in the fields of Italian and philosophy/theology. She is also interested in the influence of the Middle Ages on modern literature. |
 Mallory Wilhelm received her Bachelors Degree in 2008 from Grove City College. Wilhelm intends to study modernist literature in the Ph.D. program at Penn State University. Her areas of interest include the novel (British and American), French poststructuralist theory, and the intersections among literature, religion, and philosophy. |
 Dr. Jane Kelley Rodeheffer
Faculty Mentor, Lilly Graduate Fellows First Cohort
Dr. Jane Kelley Rodeheffer has been appointed to the Fletcher Jones Chair in Great Books in the Humanities at Pepperdine University, effective August 1, 2012. From 1989 to 2010, she was Professor of Philosophy at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, where she taught from 1989 to 2010. She holds degrees from Boston College, Harvard, and Vanderbilt (M.A., Ph.D). Professor Rodeheffer has published a range of articles in philosophy, literature, and great books, and she is the co-editor of three collections of essays. Her awards include the Brother J. Robert Lane Chair in Humanities and the Brother Charles Severin Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the 2011 Graven Award from Wartburg College, which honors a Christian whose faith informs her work in the world. |
 Dr. Michael Beaty
Faculty Mentor, Lilly Graduate Fellows First Cohort
Dr. Michael D. Beaty has been at Baylor University since 1987, holds the rank of Professor of Philosophy and is currently chair of the philosophy department. Also, he has served as Vice Provost for Faculty Development at Baylor and was founding Director of Baylor's Institute for Faith and Learning. Dr. Beaty holds a B.A. degree in Philosophy from Ouachita Baptist University, an M.A. in Philosophy from Baylor University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Notre Dame. His areas of academic specialization include Christianity and Higher Education, Philosophy of Religion, and Moral and Social Philosophy. Dr. Beaty was voted Outstanding Tenured Faculty member at Baylor in 1994. He was Visiting Distinguished Scholar and Research Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Culture, the University of Notre Dame, spring, 2005. |
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