French PhD
Emma Ben Hadj
Emma, native speaker of French coming from Cannes, is a PhD student in the French and Film program. She graduated from Université Paris 10 and worked as an audiovisual translator for French television. She was also a Fulbright Foreign Language Assistant in Wisconsin for a year. Later she received her MA in French from the University of North Texas where she taught French as a Teaching Fellow and an Adjunct for three years. Her work focuses on cinema with an emphasis on horror films in France and in the United States. She occasionally writes movie reviews for journals.
Maxime Bey-Rozet
Maxime Bey-Rozet is a Ph.D. candidate in Film Studies with a concentration in French. He holds a BA in English and Spanish Literatures from the Université catholique d'Angers, and an MA in Film Studies from the Université de Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne. His current research interests lie in the representation of bodily violence in French cinema and literature during the first half of the 20th century.
Emily Bryan
Faculty Liason, FRIT GSO
Emily is a French PhD student with a concentration in Romance Languages and Literatures (French, Spanish, Italian). Her current research examines both literary and theoretical responses to historical moments of 'ethical rupture' in 20th-century French, francophone and Hispanic contexts. By putting certain writers and thinkers in dialogue with one another, Emily intends to explore the ways in which literature functions to (re)interpret, (re)construct, and (re)order social ideals of justice.
Yacine Chemssi
Yacine is a PhD student in Film and Media with a concentration in French. He is also pursuing the PhD certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. His interests lie in the areas of beur and Maghrebi cinema.
Cole Cridlin
Cole Cridlin is in the PhD program with MA en-route. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007 and holds degrees in English, French, and Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies. He is most interested in sexuality studies, more specifically the intersections of geography and identity formation. When not studying, Cole can likely be found doing one of the following: binding handmade books, reading poetry, drinking a cup of tea, or growing something.
Caitlin Dahl
cmd166@pitt.edu
Caitlin Dahl received her BA in 2015 as a double major in French and German at Montana State University. She is now pursuing a PhD with MA en route in French Literature. Her research interests include Gender and Sexuality studies, specifically Women’s studies and the construction of identity. Outside of reading and studying, she spends time traveling, looking up the etymologies of words in the dictionary, socializing, dancing, cooking, gardening, and writing.
Jonathan Devine
Graduate-Faculty Seminar Coordinator
Jonathan originally hails from sunny Brisbane, Australia, and graduated with an honors degree in French linguistics (with minors in Classics and International Relations) from the University of Queensland in 2012. He then completed his M.A. in French Language and Literature from Miami University in Ohio in 2015, after which he spent a year in France as a lecteur d’anglais, where he taught spoken English at the Université de Nantes. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D., and is particularly interested in Film Studies, namely the role of psychoanalysis and gender in films from France and the Francophone world. Jonathan is also a keen traveler, and hopes to further explore the many facets of North America during his time at Pitt.
Brendan Ezvan
Brendan Ezvan is in his third year of the PhD with an M.A. en route. He received his B.A. in French and English (with a concentration in British literature) from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri (2014). His principal research interests include issues of gender and performance in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century novel and theater as well as the traditions of the fantastic and the absurd.
Donald Joseph
dlj45@pitt.edu
Donald (Don), originally from Texas, received his BA at the University of North Texas as a double major in cognitive psychology (neuroscience focus) and French. He is a first year PhD with MA en route in French Literature. His research interests include Francophone Literature, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and queer male identity in the Maghreb. In his free time he likes to travel, watch films, learn languages and discover Pittsburgh.
Phoebe Marshall
phoebemarshall@pitt.edu
Phoebe Marshall is a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh in Film and Media Studies with a concentration in French. After earning her BA in French from Wellesley College, she received her first MA from the University of Chicago in the Humanities in Film and Media Studies and her second MA from the University of Pittsburgh in French Language and Literature. Her interest in political and activist cinema focuses on experimental documentary, alternative moving-image logistics models, and political philosophy. Phoebe adores her dog, Henry.
Patoimbasba Nikiema
pan32@pitt.edu
Patoimbasba Nikiema is in the French and Francophone PhD program. He graduated from West Virginia University in 2016 and holds an MA in French. His areas of interest are among others Maghreb, Antilles and Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa Feminist Literature, Postcolonial and Francophone Africa war literature, African diaspora literature. He is also a student in the program of Gender, Sexuality and Women Studies where he is interested in the questions of Identity and Intersectionality. In a previous life, Patoimbasba Nikiema was interested in Renaissance and Seventeenth Century Literature.
Italian MA
Eliza Jermyn
Meghan Hudock
Meghan Hudock, a Pittsburgh native, graduated Duquesne University in 2013 with a BA in Integrated Communications and Italian. Meghan taught Italian at Oakland Catholic for four years, moved to Rome to work at Duquesne University’s Italian Campus in 2017 and recently worked as the Bilingual Italian Product Analyst at HCL America on-site at Google Pittsburgh. She is most interested in Baroque Art and Architecture, Food and Culture Studies and Italian Film. Holocaust Education and Italy’s involvement in World War II is also one of her areas of interest. In her free time she enjoys cooking, listening to music, attending concerts and of course exploring the ever-changing and budding social scene Pittsburgh has to offer.
Eric Johnson
eej19@@pitt.edu
Eric, a native of Pittsburgh, is in his first year of the Italian MA program. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 2014 with a BA in Economics and Italian. After graduating, Eric spent two years overseas—primarily in Italy—before moving back to Pittsburgh. Once back, he worked for a start-up for an additional two years before coming to Pitt. When he’s not in the classroom, Eric enjoys watching and playing all sorts of sports, going to shows, and playing various instruments.