Meet Our Staff

Alex Hack is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California, where she received her Master’s in the same field. Having previously received her B.F.A. from Parsons School of Design, she has a background in communication and UI design. Her dissertation project takes up medicine and its software as fertile ground for humanistic analysis as they force us to consider that racial harm lies too in supposed benevolence, that it has become elemental and rhizomatic, and that its killer instinct doesn’t simply resolve with more training or better data. Alex loves teaching and has experience teaching in both Cinema and Media and Gender Studies, and her writing utilizes both these fields, as well as African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Sociology, Environmental Studies, History, and the Medical Humanities. She has experience with short and long-form personal and academic essays, research papers, resumes and C.V.s, script writing, cover letters, personal statements, and more. Alex is a potter in her free time and also enjoys a good period drama.

Amelia “Amy” Cruz (she/they) is a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at USC Dornsife. She earned her B.A. in English Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Amy’s work sits at the crossroads of literary, disability, neurodivergence, and queer studies. Her dissertation interrogates the “leaky” boundaries of the human/inhuman binary, and the subversive potential of the autistic way of being. Amy served as an Assistant Lecturer in the Writing Program, so she has lots of experience with the ins and outs of Writing 150. Feel free to ask for tips on how to thrive in college or graduate school while neurodivergent (i.e., a person with one or more learning and/or cognitive disabilities, such as autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc.)! Amy’s favorite part of teaching is working with students to find solutions that work with their brain, rather than against it. In her free time, Amy enjoys seeing Ghibli movies at the New Beverly Cinema, rewatching Criminal Minds for the fourteenth time, and cross stitching with a fuzzy orange cat on her lap.

Carolina Muñoz (she/her) is a second-year Ph.D. student studying English Literature at USC Dornsife. She earned her BA in English and minor in Education at the University of California, Riverside. Carolina has served as the Assistant Editor-in-Chief for the UC Riverside Undergraduate Research Journal, where she aided in publishing student research articles from various disciplines. Additionally, she has tutored community college students and taught undergraduate students, helping scholars’s develop reading and writing skills and providing mentorship on topics related to navigating higher education. Through her mentorship, she also has experience building and editing resumes. Carolina’s research lies in the field of Chicanx and Latinx studies. Her interests include hiking, cooking and baking, crocheting, and exploring taco trucks around Los Angeles.

Jane Kassavin (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in the Spanish and Latin American Studies track of USC’s program in Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture and a former Fulbright-Hays Fellow in Brazil. She holds an M.A. in Spanish Literature from Middlebury College, a B.A. in Media Studies from Pomona College, and has completed the Translation Studies Certificate at USC. She has served as a Teaching Assistant and Assistant Lecturer for USC’s Spanish and Comparative Literature departments, and has also spent many years teaching ESL and creative writing both in Los Angeles and Madrid, Spain. Her dissertation explores themes of sound, voice and performance in modern and contemporary Latin American poetry, with a specific focus on Argentina and Brazil. She has a wide variety of writing expertise and would love to help with literature and humanities papers, cover letters, graduate school applications, and writing in Spanish. In her free time she enjoys knitting, reading fantasy novels, and making perfumes.

Katrina “Kat” Tran (she/her) is a third-year EdD student at the Rossier School of Education, where she researches educational leaders’ development of critical consciousness in pursuit of creating and sustaining equitable learning environments. After earning an M.A. in Elementary Education from LMU and a B.A. in Communication Studies at UCLA, she taught elementary and middle school students for over a decade. Along with working at the Writing Center, she is also a Museum Educator at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. With nearly two decades of writing and editing for various travel and lifestyle publications, colleagues, and student populations, she supports Writing Center students in reviewing personal statements, creative pieces, and research papers. When not reading, watching YouTube, or planning future travels, Kat enjoys trying new restaurants, being outside in nature, and anything Ghibli-related.

Robert Waller (he/him) is Director of the Writing Center and an Associate Professor (Teaching) in the Writing Program. Professor Waller received his bachelor’s degree from Duke University, where he studied oral history and music, and has a degree in creative writing from USC.   Robert has over 20 years of experience teaching writing with a particular focus on using writing as a tool to explore and reveal the creative process. At USC, he developed the popular Special Topics WRIT 340 course, Writing for Visual and Performing Artists, that aims to help students articulate their own aesthetics and through this process expand their understanding both of writing and the meanings and purposes driving their work.  In addition to his work at USC, Waller is also an active performing songwriter and musician who has toured internationally and had his songs appear in TV and film. Robert lives in Highland Park with his wife, three children, and two cats.