About Us

Professional Staff

Daniel M. Gross

Faculty Director

Rhetoric PhD, UC Berkeley, 1998

Daniel M. Gross is Professor of English and Affiliate Faculty in the Critical Theory Emphasis. At UC Irvine, he also serves as the Campus Writing & Communication Coordinator, which is the office responsible for UCI Writing across the Curriculum, and Writing in the Disciplines (WAC/WID). His research in rhetoric runs along three tracks: writing and communication, history of the disciplines, and medical humanities.

Evin Groundwater

Director

English PhD with concentration in Writing Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2020

Evin (he/him) directs UCI Center for Excellence and Communication and is focused on elevating writing and communication support for all undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars on the UCI campus. He believes that an effective writing center meets writers where they are, is attentive to creating an inclusive and accessible set of spaces and services, and values the knowledge and experiences that writers bring with them into the center. Having worked in writing centers across multiple institutions since being a first-generation undergraduate student at the University of Oklahoma, running a writing center at UCI is his dream job. His current research interests include first-gen writers’ experiences with writing support and how masculinity impacts the rhetoric and writing of college-level writers. Evin believes that writing centers work best when they are a driver of campus collaboration, and he hopes that you’ll reach out with ideas and feedback about how the Graduate Writing Hub can best support you.

Hosna Sheikholeslami

Graduate and Postdoctoral Writing Coordinator

Anthropology PhD, Yale University, 2018

Hosna (she/her) focuses on supporting graduate students and postdoctoral researchers’ writing and communication skills. She recognizes the unique challenges faced by diverse writers in the demanding environment of graduate school, and is committed to supporting student writing across diverse disciplines. She is committed to fostering an inclusive environment where all writers can find joy and empowerment in their work, drawing on her background in writing instruction and anthropology. She previously served as a Writing Advisor at Yale’s Graduate Writing Laboratory and as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Denison University. Her research on the circulation of Western social science in Iran has been recognized with awards and supported by several major grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Social Science Research Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. Hosna is excited to collaborate with students, faculty, and staff at UCI to enhance writing support programs and resources. She invites the UCI community to connect with her for support, collaboration, and creative ideas on how to enrich writing and communication across campus.

Graduate Writing Consultants

Joanne DeCaro

Joanne DeCaro (she/her) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society. Joanne is a Ford Foundation and AAUW fellow, a founding member of the community archives PrisonPandemic and Mourning Our Losses, and she is a director at the non-profit Restorative Justice Fund. She has published five academic articles and book chapters, received multiple prestigious fellowships and grants, and designed and instructed her own course. Before attending UCI, Joanne was a writer and photographer for local and national publications, film festivals, and political offices. She is passionate about writing for academic and non-academic audiences, including translating research to diverse communities. She also taught ESL in the United States and abroad for over a decade and is excited to support multilingual scholars. Joanne has a master’s degree in English from Northeastern University. She is happy to be back in a space where the art and pleasure of writing is front and center! Joanne is a Ford Foundation and AAUW fellow, a founding member of the community archives PrisonPandemic and Mourning Our Losses, and she is a director at the non-profit Restorative Justice Fund. She has published five academic articles and book chapters, received multiple prestigious fellowships and grants, and designed and instructed her own course. Before attending UCI, Joanne was a writer and photographer for local and national publications, film festivals, and political offices. She is passionate about writing for academic and non-academic audiences, including translating research to diverse communities. She also taught ESL in the United States and abroad for over a decade and is excited to support multilingual scholars. Joanne has a master’s degree in English from Northeastern University. She is happy to be back in a space where the art and pleasure of writing is front and center!

Emily Parise

Emily Parise (MA, Ph.D. student, eparise@uci.edu) is a Ph.D. Candidate in Drama and Theatre. Her primary areas of research include Shakespeare studies, dramaturgy, theatre history, early modern politics and popularity, and stage properties. Her dissertation, “Visible Bullets: Subversive Stage Properties in Shakespeare’s English and Roman Histories,” asks: how do we make history visible, and what is the political and dramaturgical impact of those visual symbols? The project turns away from disembodied methods of reading Shakespeare, looking instead towards the drama’s live event, and Shakespeare’s stage, its props, performers, and audiences. She is committed to helping graduate students express themselves and their research across genres and disciplines. She loves helping writers through their writing process, and helping writers develop confidence in the writing!

Khirad Siddiqui

Khirad (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society. Her dissertation, “Islam Inside: A Long-Standing Abolitionist Tradition” explores the methods Muslims have used to resist state captivity to inform a durable theoretical framework of Islam and the movement for prison abolition. She is a Eugene Cota Robles Fellow as well as a Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Doctoral Fellow. Khirad is also passionate about mentorship and teaching for all students: she received the Mentoring Excellence Certificate from UCI, she was a UCI Pedagogical Fellow, and she has developed a book club for the UCI LIFTED Program, which is the first UC Bachelors program offered in prison. Khirad has also taught courses for the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at the undergraduate level and is currently helping facilitate a graduate course on the history of the university. She loves working with students on all kinds of writing, be it academic papers, fellowship applications, or public work like op-eds. She has peer-reviewed articles for Punishment and Society, served as a Ford Fellowship Reviewer for the School of Social Ecology, and was also one of the inaugural Narrative Power Fellows working on opinion pieces at the Muslim Counterpublics Lab. She’s excited to get to work with graduate students and postdocs this quarter!