Meet Our Team

ICS Staff

Valeria Grinberg Pla | Director

Dr. Valeria Grinberg Pla wearing a red scarf

Dr. Valeria Grinberg Pla is a literary, cultural and film critic from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who like many other Latinxs has moved to the United States. Since 2006 she is a Professor of Spanish at BGSU. She teaches classes that reflect her research interests on violence representation in Latin America, literature and film, on the appropriation and transformation of crime fiction and noir aesthetics in Latin America and the Caribbean, on literary and film strategies to think about war and dictatorship trauma in Central America, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, and on the Panafrican, transnational literary movements of the Afro-Caribbean populations of Central America. She has also developed a service-learning class to learn not just about, but rather from and with the Latino/a/x community in the area.

Rhodalene wearing a red sweatshirt and white pants

Rhodalene Odai

Graduate Research Assistant

Rhodalene is a first year PhD student at the School of Media and Communication Studies. Her research interests focus primarily on the fields of Intercultural Communication, Health Communication and Women Studies. In her free time, she loves to cook, bake and listen to music. 

abiola

Abiola John Sobayo

Graduate Research Assistant

Abiola John Sobayo is a PhD student in Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University, where he also holds a master’s degree in Media and Communication in 2025. He serves as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society. His research interests include health communication, social media, and political communication. He enjoys listening to music and watching movies in his leisure time.

Emme wearing a purple sweat shirt

Alexander Wagner

Graduate Assistant

Alexander Wagner is a second-year Master’s student in Creative Writing with a focus in fiction. His research is primarily concerned with speculative fiction, fantasy, and other forms of fabulism in media. His interests include scriptwriting, music performance & composition, and interactive media. At ICS, he hopes to participate in and encourage the intersectional aspects of arts and humanities.

Emme wearing a purple sweat shirt

Daylan Jordan

Social Media Intern

Daylan Jordan is a Media Production major with a minor in Theater, from Cleveland Ohio, a senior at Bowling green state university. His future goals for his career is to work in the entertainment industry, more specifically as a creative director for brands, artists, films and all mediums of media. He is a the new social media intern and in interested in enhancing his skills in media and communication.

Emme wearing a purple sweat shirt

Makenna Halm

PR Intern

Makenna Halm is a Senior at Bowling Green State University studying Journalism and PR with the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. Through ICS Makenna plans on furthering her writing skills to become an even better writer and explore different avenues of being a part of an organization like ICS such as event planning, social media strategies and so much more. In her free time she enjoys rooting for Cincinnati’s sports teams, reading, collecting records and cooking.

Emme wearing a purple sweat shirt

Breana McOrner

Media Intern

Breana McGrier is a third-year undergraduate student studying Journalism with a minor in Political Science. She loves learning new things and being part of something bigger than herself. In her time with ICS, she hopes to be able to grow her research capabilities and knowledge in the study of society and culture.

ICS 2025-2026 EXECUTIVE BOARD  

  • Zachary Huber | Community Representative | Spring 2026 - Fall 2029
  • Nick Pavlik | Manuscripts & Digital Initiatives Archivist | Fall 2022 - Spring 2028
  • Phil Peek | Professor, World Languages and Cultures | Fall 2025 - Spring 2028
  • Jacqueline Hudson | Instructor, BGSU Firelands | Fall 2025 - Spring 2028
  • Laura Sanchez | Professor, Sociology | Fall 2024 - Spring 2027
  • Tim Messer-Kruse | Professor, American Culture Studies | Fall 2024 - Spring 2027
  • Bruce Collet | Professor, School of Educational Foundations, Leadership, & Policy | Fall 2023 - Spring 2026
  • Luis Moreno | Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies | Fall 2023 - Spring 2028
  • Phil Dickinson | Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences (ex officio)

Role of the Board: 

The primary role of the ICS Executive Board is to act in an advisory and decision-making capacity reporting to the Director on matters involving the activities and responsibilities of ICS. 

Terms of Service: 

  • Three-year term, on a staggered rotation (so that no more than 1/3 of seats are open in any year) 

  • A Board members whose cycle has ended may re-apply for another term at any time 

Makeup of the Board: 

  • A minimum of six (6) and a maximum of ten (10) members 

  • Faculty of any rank may apply to be on the Executive Board, but at least three (3) members must be tenured or tenure-track faculty 

  • One (1) seat will be held by an ex-officio member designated by the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences (chair/director, associate dean, faculty member, etc.) 

  • At least one (1) seat must be held by someone in the humanities (English, Philosophy, etc.) 

  • At least one seat (1) must be held by someone in the fine or performing arts (Art, Theatre, Creative Writing, etc.) 

  • At least one (1) seat must be held by someone in the qualitative social sciences (Sociology, Political Science, etc.) 

  • At least one (1) seat must be held by faculty outside the College of Arts & Sciences 

  • One (1) seat must be held by a representative from a division other than Academic Affairs 

  • Up to one (1) seat may be held by an alumnus or community member 

Graduate Assistant/Research Assistant II
Halima Lul AliPhD, Media and CommunicationSpring 2026
Nilufer IslerMA, Media and Communication Fall 2025
Phoenix EllisonMA, Literary and Textual StudiesFall 2025
S M Russel RabbiMA, Media and Communication Spring 2025
Joseph MacdonaldMA, Popular CultureSpring 2025
Sarah UrbankMA, Literary and Textual StudiesAY 2024 - 2025
Man LuoPhD, Media and CommunicationAY 2024 - 2025
Allyson SpoeringPhD, American Culture StudiesAY 2023 - 2024
Ahmad BilalMA, Literary and Textual StudiesAY 2023 - 2024
Mays KuhailMFA, Creative Writing Spring 2024
Renee AyalaPhD, American Culture Studies   Spring 2023
Iswat Jinaid  MA, American Culture Studies 
Spring 2023
Stanley Owusu                                       MA, in Public Administration Spring 2023  
Joseph Elia                                            MA, Literary and Textual StudiesAY 2022-2023
Johanna Simpson                                      PhD, American Culture Studies AY 2021-2022
Kari Hanlin                                                      PhD, Rhetoric and Writing         AY 2020-2022
Stevie Scheurich                                           PhD, American Culture StudiesAY 2019-2021
Courtney Keeney                                                 MA, in Public AdministrationAY 2019-2020
Elizabeth Brownlow                                  PhD, American Culture StudiesAY 2017-2019
Lauren O’Connor                                        PhD, American Culture StudiesAY 2017-2018
Shane Snyder                         PhD, American Culture StudiesAY 2016-2017
Interns
Jabari TwittyGraphic DesignFall 2025
Marissa MontgomeryEnglishFall 2025
Rudrashias MandalComputer ScienceSpring 2025
Elyse AdrianPolitical ScienceFall 2024
Joshua Hayden-MartinAdvertising  Fall 2024
Mary DeLisleJournalismFall 2024
Dylana HarrisMA, Spanish  Fall 2023
Autumn DunawayBA, PsychologyFall 2023
 
  • Jason Kucsma | Toledo-Lucas County Public Library | Fall 2021 - Spring 2025
  • Remy Attig | Assistant Professor in World Languages and Culture | Fall 2022 - Spring 2025
  • Lisa Hanasono | Associate Professor, School of Media & Communication | Fall 2021 - Spring 2024
  • Rebecca Kinney | Associate Professor, School of Cultural & Critical Studies | Fall 2021 - Spring 2024
  • Ana Brown | Deputy Chief for Diversity, Belonging, and Multicultural Affairs | Fall 2019 - Spring 2023
  • Elizabeth Balint | Great Lakes Consortium | Fall 2021 - Spring 2023
  • Thomas Edge | Lecturer of Ethnic Studies | Fall 2020 - Spring 2023
  • Leigh-Ann Pahapill | Associate Professor of Art | Fall 2020 - Spring 2023
  • Jerry Schnepp | Associate Professor, College of Technology Architecture and Applied Engineering | Fall 2020 - Spring 2023
  • Elizabeth Balint | Great Lakes Consortium | Fall 2021 - Spring 2023
  • Holly A. Kirkendall | Curator, Wood County Museum | Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
  • V Jane Rosser | Director of Civic Engagement in the C. Raymond Marvin Center for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement | Fall 2021 - Spring 2023
  • Abishek Bhati | Assistant Professor of Poltical Science | Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
  • Julie Carle | Retired BGSU Marketing and Communications Manager | Fall 2021 - Spring 2022
  • Geoffrey Howes | Professor Emeritus of German and Community Member | Fall 2019 - Spring 2022
  • Mary-Jon Ludy | Associate Professor of Food and Nutrition | Fall 2019 - Spring 2022
  • Thomas Castillo | Associate Professor of Theatre and Film | Fall 2019 - Spring 2022
Vivian Patraka 1996 – 2011
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Dr. Patraka is Professor Emeritus from Bowling Green State University, and first Director of ICS. She is a performance scholar whose work has appeared in Theater Journal, Women and Performance, Discourse, The Drama Review, The Kenyon Review, and Art and Cinema. She is the author of Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism and the Holocaust and editor of a collection of Joan Schenkar’s plays, Signs of Life: Comedies of Menace. In 2010, Dr. Patraka received the BGSU Faculty Distinguished Service Award for inspiring leadership and elevating intellectual community. Her contributions and support of the activities at ICS include interdisciplinary research and writing groups, lecture series, and awards of fellowship to untenured faculty
Ellen E. Berry 2011-2015
ellen
Dr. Berry is Emeritus Professor of English and American Culture Studies at BGSU. She has published 8 books, including the monographs Curved Thought and Textual Wandering: Gertrude Stein's Postmodernism, Transcultural Experiments, and Women's Experimental Writing: Negative Aesthetics and Feminist Critique. She is the founding co-editor of Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, which celebrated 25 years of publication in May 2025. At ICS, she supervised the annual Faculty Fellowship competition, organized reading and writing groups, and sponsored outside speakers, including those at a 4-day conference, "Digital Cultures in the Age of Big Data."
Jolie A. Sheffer 2016-2023
jolie-2026
(she/her) Dr. Sheffer is a professor of English and American Culture Studies and an affiliated faculty member in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies program at Bowling Green State University. She is the author of The Romance of Race: Incest, Miscegenation, and Multiculturalism in the United States, 1880-1930 and Understanding Karen Tei Yamashita. Her current research is on competing notions of community and identity in contemporary U.S. culture, from the 1960s to the present.
Clayton Rosati, Ph.D. 

Dr. Rosati's interested includes issues of social justice and the ways in which relations of cultural production, through technology and industry, often work against justice projects. He has served in leadership positions for several anti-racist organizations and am also a musician, having worked in many community arts projects in the Syracuse and Washington, DC areas.

  • Position: Associate Professor
  • Email: crosati@bgsu.edu
  • Address: 303 Kuhlin Center

Institute for the Study of Culture & Society

Dr. Valeria Grinberg Pla, Director

419-372-8058
211 Shatzel Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43403
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Updated: 09/03/2026 01:20PM