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Wanyi Chen

Wanyi Chen is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science. She is from China and received a B.A. in computer science and cultural studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019. She worked as a software engineer at Audible before joining graduate school. Her current research centers around Human-AI interaction. She investigates the subjectivities involved in machine learning model creation and aims to build tools to help fellow computer scientists think more critically about the models they are training. At Duke, she served as a teaching assistant for the “Race, Gender, Class, and Computing” class.

Stephen Zaksewicz

Stephen is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies. His dissertation examines the relationship between conceptions of nature and models of worldhood in contemporary Austrian prose, from global to planetary existences in the Anthropocene, against a history of nature writing and the cultural and political significance of nature in the Austrian contexts. He is also an “Austrophile,” having spent two years as an English Teaching Assistant in Linz and a year conducting dissertation research in Vienna through Fulbright Austria. He is most likely to be found hiking a mountain, at the opera, playing volleyball, at his cello, hunched over a board game, or studying a new language.

Lexi Holloway

Alexis Ligon Holloway is a Cultural Anthropology Ph.D. candidate and Dean’s Graduate Fellow at Duke University. Stemming from personal experience, her research explores how the mechanisms of white supremacy operate in classical music performance, examining how racial and aesthetic hierarchies position Black bodies as aberrant in these spaces. Specifically, Alexis’s research centers on the resilience and resistance that Black musicians display in the face of racism in classical music pedagogy and performance. As a filmmaker, Alexis hopes to produce a multi-modal dissertation, consisting of a written portion and an accompanying documentary that attends to the aural and performative aspects of her research.

Kiersten Hasenour

Kiersten Hasenour is a Ph.D candidate in Sociology at Duke University. She received a B.A in Sociology and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Evansville in 2018. Through her research, she seeks to better understand how others’ identities impact our understanding and response to interaction with them. Her work primarily focuses on gender identity and often takes place in the legal sphere.

Kaylie Page

Kaylie Page is a candidate in the Graduate Program in Religion, concentrating in Christian Theological Studies. Her dissertation research compares four pre-modern theologians on the theme of Christ as the Mediator between God and Man, considering how this theme speaks to modern debates about Trinitarian theology and how theological language signifies; her broader research interests are Trinity, Christology, and pre-modern interpretation of Scripture. Kaylie grew up homeschooled along with her nine younger siblings, and she maintains a keen interest in the philosophy of education broadly conceived. In addition to her teaching roles at the Divinity School, she has led reading groups for undergraduates and Bible studies for various populations.

Jonathan Colen

Jonathan Colen is a Ph.D. candidate in the University Program in Ecology. His research interests focus on how species may stay distinct despite the homogenizing effects of hybridization. As an educator, Jonathan believes that teaching is an act of empathy and that the best teachers are those that foster kindness and compassion in the students that they instruct. His prior teaching experience includes teaching labs as a Teaching Assistant in introductory biology courses (Bio 201 and 203) and leading guest lectures for Bio 263. Prior to graduate school, Jonathan served as a tutor for UNC-Chapel Hill’s Academic Support for Student Athletes Program. He graduated from Stanford University with a B.S.H. in Biology in 2016.