Hi! I'm Gabby, and I'm a PhD student originally from the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. My research focus is 20th century American literature with primary interests in medical humanities, narrative, and historiography. I am preparing for a dissertation on how madness materialized on the page during the first half of the 20th century — a period of rapid and unwieldy change in American psychiatry and mental healthcare. Some other areas of interest are postcritique, aesthetics, and translation.

I was co-chair of the 2025 English Department Graduate Symposium, themed “Space & Place." You can find my first foray into public-facing scholarship, “If the Slipper Doesn’t Fit,” on History News Network. Outside of Bryan Hall, I am a foodie, ambitious traveler, occasional short story writer (Susurrus, MudRoom), and cat mom to my sweet Spam.

I received my B.A. in English from the University of Richmond in 2021, where I wrote my honors thesis on Allen Ginsberg's (sometimes deceptive) representations of Naomi Ginsberg, Carl Solomon, and the psychiatric systems that governed them in "Howl" and "Kaddish." I received the 2021 Charles T. Norman Award, presented to the outstanding senior English major at U of R, and the 2020 Margaret Owen Finck Award for Creative Writing.