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Staff Directory

Administration

Erin Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Director
Erin Zimmerman has been the director of the Writing Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas since July 2020. She is the founder and managing editor of Center Moves: A Peer-Reviewed Archive of Tutor Training Materials, a scholarly venue for the research and pedagogical work relevant to writing center tutor training. Her most recent publication is a co-authored piece titled "Centering MENA…
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Alanna Bitzel, J.D., M.P.Aff.

Assistant Director
Alanna arrived at UNLV in June 2024 after 13 years with UT Austin’s Athletics Student Services, where she acted as assistant director of supplemental instruction, writing and academic enrichment. She previously worked at UT's University Writing Center; taught reading development as well as introductory college rhetoric courses; has held leadership roles in the International, Online, Rocky…
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Emma Fox, M.A.

Coordinator
Emma is from Provo, Utah, where she received her bachelor and master’s degrees in English from Brigham Young University. The highlight of her college experience was working at BYU’s writing center for three years, doing everything from research on helping multilingual writers, to tutoring in public health and women’s studies classes, to assisting as a student administrator. When not at a writing…
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Olivia Rojas

Administrative Assistant
Olivia, raised in Las Vegas, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work. Passionate about making a positive impact, she dedicates her free time to volunteering with community organizations. When she’s not lending a hand, Olivia enjoys attending shows, watching movies, and expressing her creativity through drawing.
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Shelbi Fitzpatrick

Lead Consultants
Shelbi, born and raised in Las Vegas, graduated from UNLV in 2018 with a Bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in Political Science. Now, she is pursuing an M.A. in literature. Shelbi enjoys studying and focusing on 19th-century British literature. Outside of school, Shelbi enjoys being with her dogs, traveling, and sleeping.
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Lacie McEntire

Lead Consultant
Lacie was born and raised in Las Vegas and is pursuing an M.A. in literature. Their special interest of study resides in occult Modernism, especially during the interwar period of the US. They have always had a passion for teaching and love to help others, especially with writing—both academically and creatively. They like to spend their free time watching movies, playing instruments and…
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Consultants

Jade Boren

Consultant 
Jade is a first-year student in the Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts program. She grew up on Maui. Prior to UNLV, she graduated from Chapman University with an English B.A. (journalism emphasis) and worked in celebrity news for seven years in L.A. Her interests include horror movies, anime, games, learning Cebuano + Japanese, and animals—especially rodents and horses!  
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Madison Browne

Consultant
Madison Browne is a consultant and instructor with a master’s in English literature from UNLV. Her award-winning thesis explored the narrative function that conspiracy theories serve in Don DeLillo’s novels. Her research interests include posthuman philosophy, science fiction, and game studies. She has published on the Metal Gear Solid series and discussed it with NPR in a special feature…
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Shannon Carr

Consultant
Shannon is a Las Vegas native and second-year undergraduate student double-majoring in English and Philosophy. She loves Manchester United, Andrea Dworkin, cooking, and her long-term boyfriend. During breaks, Shannon can be found camping and skiing into trees with her boyfriend.   
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Qandeel Chevalwala

Consultant
Qandeel is an undergraduate psychology student at UNLV with a strong interest in research—especially work related to childhood trauma—and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. They enjoy supporting writers in developing research questions, organizing their ideas, and building strong academic arguments. When not digging into a research project, Qandell can usually be found gathering…
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Raluca Comanelea

Consultant
Raluca Comanelea is a writing consultant at UNLV’s Writing Center and a part-time instructor in UNLV’s Department of English. She earned her MA in literary studies from UNLV in 2019. She is currently pursuing her MFA in creative writing from Spalding University’s Sena Jeter Naslund-Mann School of Writing. Her fiction has been published in various literary magazines. She was born in Romania and…
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Zaira Gomez

Consultant
Zaira is a first year student in the Creative Writing UNLV graduate program specializing in creative non-fiction. She hails from the East Coast and deeply misses frolicking in the forest. She believes that a little whimsy and woo can go a long way in this current world. She enjoys action films, yoga in 90 degree weather, thrifting at the bins, and yapping.    
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Joleen Jones

Consultant
Joleen was born in Central California and later received her Bachelor of Arts in English from UNLV. She is currently a Master’s student at UNLV in the English Department with a focus in Literature and an interest in Aestheticism. She loves art history and Gothic themes in Literature. Some of her favorite authors include Sylvia Plath, Carmen Maria Machado, and Anthony Burgess.  
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Andrew Killebrew

Consultant 
Andy is a creative writing MFA student at UNLV. He is originally from Lexington, North Carolina, the Barbecue Capital of the World.   
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Celia Langford

Consultant
Celia Langford is a fiction writer, poet, and translator currently pursuing her MFA in creative writing at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her creative work is eternally curious about time, distance, barriers of language, and differences of perception — those slippery boundaries which often appear to separate people from one another, and yet may, at any given moment, shrink to the slenderest of…
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Rachel Lopes

Consultant
Rachel is a first-year graduate student in Writing and Rhetoric. As a military brat, she lived all across the U.S. before finally settling down in Las Vegas in 2019. The youngest of four children, she can usually be found bothering her siblings in some way. In her free time, she enjoys playing video games or reading manhwas in the company of her cat and dog.
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Praise Osawaru

Consultant
Praise Osawaru is a writer whose work appears in Agbowo, FIYAH, Frontier Poetry, The Maine Review, Uncanny Magazine, and Strange Horizons, and has been interviewed on Literary Hub. He is a creative writing MFA student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a Watering Hole Fellow, and a HUES 2024 Scholar. His work often explores identity, longing, and the landscapes that hold us. He is…
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Nina Rodenko

Consultant
Nina Rodenko is a fiction MFA student and a reader of all things literary. She calls San Francisco her home, but she was born in Ukraine. In her free time, she keeps finding new ways to procrastinate on homework. As a cinephile and a TV-show connoisseur, she’s never short on distractions.   
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Karlié Rodríguez

Consultant
Karlié Rodríguez is a nonfiction MFA candidate at UNLV. She loves reading, playing Switch, and watching bad reality TV. 
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Ella Rosenkranz

Consultant
Ella loves exploring the great outdoors and finds motivation in helping others. She was born in Orlando, Florida and spent most of her life in Manhattan, Kansas. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Couples and Family Therapy. She spends her free time baking, reading all things fiction, and playing Stardew Valley.   
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Marlan Smith

Consultant
Marlan received his MFA in creative writing from UNLV in 2023. Before that, he earned his MA in English from University of Idaho where he taught first-year composition. He has been published in several science fiction journals and served as a contributing editor and reader for Witness magazine at UNLV. He was also a reader for Fugue Literary Journal during his time at the University of Idaho,…
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Emily Stevenson

Consultant
A Las Vegas native and certified bookworm, Emily is a first-year graduate student pursuing an M.A. in literature. With a love for all things make-believe, she can usually be found with her nose in the latest horror novel or soaking up cinematic greatness at the movie theater. When it comes to her work, a stack of old notebooks and an extra-large coffee are never far from reach.  
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Jalees Tamayo

Consultant
Jalees Axia Tamayo (She/Her) is a First Gen Mexican-American Graduate student. She is currently a first year M.A. student in Writing and Rhetoric. She received her English B.A. in Honors with minors in creative writing and poetry from Nevada State University in May 2024. Jalees is a Las Vegas Native who enjoys her time writing, playing Star Wars Battlefront, and collaging.   
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Madina Tuhbatullina

Consultant
Madina Tuhbatullina is a poet from Turkmenistan. She holds a Creative Writing MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Madina's work has been published or is forthcoming in New American Writing, SRPR, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere.
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Mauricio “Mo” Ortiz Zaragoza

Consultant
Mauricio “Mo” Ortiz Zaragoza is a consultant and recent graduate Literature MA student from Las Vegas, his home of 24 years, after immigrating from Querétaro City, Mexico. He has completed his bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in film and a graduate certificate from UNLV. He enjoys spending an inordinate amount of his income on vinyl records, 35mm film cameras, and Criterion Collection…
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