Screen Cultures Graduate Student Association (SCGSA)

The Screen Cultures Graduate Student Association (SCGSA) is a group of graduate students who are committed to creating and sustaining a productive, supportive, and rewarding graduate student experience in our program. We provide a discussion forum amongst PhD students and faculty in RTVF. We have established professional development opportunities, including organizing graduate student conferences and self-led pedagogical workshops. Our mission is to create and foster a community for academic and professional growth. We are dedicated to providing opportunities for organizing, leadership, and service—not only to Screen Cultures graduate students, but also to graduate students across the university, with events that appeal to the interdisciplinary nature of our field and department.

Graduate Students

Maddie Alan-Lee is a doctoral candidate in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University and the 2022-2023 Graduate Assistant for the Office of Fellowships. Her dissertation focuses on contemporary genres of networked video and imagery, including Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), slime videos, and #oddlysatisfying, placing them in conversation with digital media artworks that engage and critique these popular aesthetic forms. She holds an MA in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University and a BA in Media Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sofia Aklog is a PhD candidate focusing on black public intellectualism and visual cultures across film and communications mediums, particularly within frameworks of the Black Radical Tradition, Black feminisms, and knowledge production practices. Her dissertation asks how both traditional and developing images of the black public intellectual on screen might contribute to the larger project of Black Liberation within structures of capitalism. She holds a BA in English from Amherst College and an MSc in Film Exhibition and Curation from the University of Edinburgh. She has presented both written and audiovisual work at SCMS and Screen and participated in the Summer Institute for Audiovisual Criticism at Goethe University in Frankfurt.

Tatiana Anoushian is interested in the relationship between media production within the global Armenian diaspora and the politics of the everyday, particularly the ways in which this relationship might challenge more dominant ultranationalist discourses, both historically and in the present. She is also part of the editorial collective for Décalages: An Althusser Studies Journal. Her broader interests include Marxist theory, experimental/avant-garde media, and all things Cher. She received her MA in Cinema Studies from San Francisco State University. anoushian@u.northwestern.edu

Livia Maia Arantes is a PhD student in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University, having previously earned a PhD from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. Her research delves deep into the transformation of the Brazilian media landscape, investigating how digital distribution and streaming services are shaping storytelling and production in Latin America. Arantes is especially interested in how these platforms address glocalization in their stories, focusing on the dimensionality of female characters that challenge traditional gender and sexuality norms. Arantes’ background bridges academic inquiry with hands-on experience in media production―having worked extensively in television production and direction, including documentaries and newscasts, for a public TV station in Brazil. larantes@u.northwestern.edu

Arundhati Chauhan is a PhD student in Screen Cultures at the Department of Radio, Television and Film, Northwestern University. Their current research considers experimental film and independent documentary practices along with the intellectual histories of film and media studies in South Asia. Their other interests include Marxism, psychoanalysis and discourses on subjectivity in aesthetic practices. As a culture worker, Arundhati previously worked in research, editorial and programming for archives and independent publications on film, modern and contemporary art in India. They hold a BA in English Literature from Miranda House, University of Delhi, and an MA and MPhil from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Nicole Dixon’s research focuses on the intersection of African American literature, stage and screen adaptations, and casting within Black diaspora. Her interests extend to television screenwriting, Black women writers, podcasting, and storyboarding. She received a BA in Mass Communications with a minor in Creative Writing and an MA in English with a focus in African American Literature from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Alicia Echavarria is a doctoral student from Harlem, New York. As a filmmaker and theorist, she seeks to explore notions of race, gender and proprietorship through spirit possession tropes in U.S. and Dominican cinema. Her intersectional approach to the possession genre highlights how such tropes can be appropriated and reformulated to dismantle and problematize hegemonic Western categories of identity. She earned her BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Cinema Studies from Bowdoin College, as well as her MA in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University. Before coming to Northwestern, Alicia was a College Success Advisor for charter school alumni attending universities in NYC. As a first-generation college student and Afrolatina, she aims to make media literacy and production education accessible and engaging to underserved communities.

Kate Erskine’s research focuses on the politics and aesthetics of mental distress and trauma in visual culture. From 2021-2023, she was the graduate assistant for an interdisciplinary research group with the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, and she co-organized the 2023 international conference, “Media and Mental Health: Exploring Contemporary Representations of Madness, Melancholy, and Trauma in Film and Television.” Kate is a regular guest lecturer for the Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab, and she has presented her work at SCMS, Visible Evidence, and the European Network of Cinema and Media Studies, among other conferences. Kate is an alum of the Paris Program in Critical Theory and a Chateaubriand Fellow for 2025. Her article, “From Hysteria to Hashtags: Diagnostic Spectacles and Euphoria’s Algorithmic Afterlife,” will be published in The Velvet Light Trap in Spring 2026. Kate holds a BA from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University and an MSc from The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Diana Funez focuses on questions of media obsolescence, embodied spectatorship, home video nostalgia, and material cultures. Through her work on analog video collections and representations of spectatorship in streaming TV, she aims to rethink the legacy of obsolete or “useless” formats in contemporary digital spectatorship. Diana holds a dual B.A. in Cinema and Media Studies and French from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University.

Julia Peres Guimarães holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, an M.A. in International Relations from the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio, Brazil, and a BSc in International Relations & History from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Julia’s research investigates how cinematic texts address the fictional reproduction of patterns of normalcy, standards of deviant behavior and the medicalization/institutionalization or punishment of individuals. Her objective is to unsettle understandings of mental illnesses and their conceptual implications to the legitimization of notions of “normality” associated with local/global citizenship, and to explore the philosophical boundaries pushed by extended levels of consciousness experienced within manic episodes. Her additional research interests include feminist media, critical theory, affect studies and photography. juliapguimaraes@u.northwestern.edu, www.juliaguimaraes.com

Imani Harris studies black cultural production, specifically the dissolution of respectability politics and the cultivation of anarchistic black consciousness expressed in twenty-first-century music, television, film, and comics. Her research primarily examines how black women and queer hip-hop artists curate aesthetics, sound, spatial practices, and other aspects of performance to challenge hegemonic cultural narratives and generate alternative visions of minoritarian collectivity. Her broader research interests include queer of color critique, black digital feminisms, 20th-21st century speculative fiction, fan studies, internet studies, hip-hop literacy, DIY culture, mad studies, and the digital politics of black placemaking in the US South and Midwest. Imani graduated from The Ohio State University with a BA in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. She held dual minors in Film Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. In addition to her academic work, Imani is a poet and emcee with audio and visual production experience.

Kaiwen Huang explores how screens have become integral to the contemporary mediascape, not only as media objects but also as physical infrastructures, interactive environments, and cultural practices. He holds an MA in Film Studies with Distinction from University College London, UK, and a BA in Sociology from Nankai University, China. kaiwen.huang@u.northwestern.edu.

Anya Kisicki is a first year doctoral student studying maternal narratives in American cinema. They hail from Phoenix, Arizona, and bring their interdisciplinary background in the humanities, film, and civil liberties to their attempt to untangle cultural perceptions of whiteness, class, and womanhood by looking closely at moms in movies. Anya is particularly interested in studying sacrificial narratives characterized by absence: mothers who are celebrated for giving up an ongoing relationship with their children. Before beginning their doctoral studies, Anya earned their BA at Wesleyan University in the College of Letters, served as a Middle School English Teacher, and worked in University Communications on student-facing civic messaging.

Stephen Kuster’s research turns to documentary, experimental, and avant-garde cinemas to plumb the relationship between cinema and the “world.” He holds a BA in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University and an MA in North American Studies from Freie Universität Berlin. Outside of academia, he has worked in independent film production, film festival programming, and film criticism.

Nicola McCafferty is a PhD candidate in the Screen Cultures program at Northwestern University with an interest in race, gender, sexuality, and the intersections of these identity categories with the category of the human. Her research focuses on representations of nonhuman women in horror and science fiction film, tv, and music video, and aims to rethink the parameters of who (and what) comes to be included under the umbrella of humanity. At Northwestern, Nicola has served as a Writing Fellow in the Graduate Writing Place and the Graduate Assistant for Northwestern University Press. She is also the After Dark programmer for the 61st annual Chicago International Film Festival. Nicola holds a BA in Psychology from Boston College and an MA in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University.

Ziza Nshakira is a first year doctoral student from Uganda. His research takes a Marxist approach to the operation of the sublime and mystical in the media cultures of the black diaspora at the level of form, content, and filmmaking practice. He is particularly interested in the media cultures of anglophone and francophone East Africa, and hopes to employ this approach towards a radical apprehension of black subjectivity. He earned a BA in Film and Media Studies with a concentration in Race and Ethnic Studies from St. Olaf College. In addition to his academic career, Ziza has experience with teaching and counselling at the middle school, high school, and college levels.

Emmanuel Ramos-Barajas (he/him) is a doctoral student in Screen Cultures whose research traces lineages between visual technologies—from nineteenth-century painting and print culture to twentieth-century cinema—examining how cultural production across Mexico and the United States has shaped ideas of un/belonging, national identifications, and history. His broader academic interests span ecocritical media studies, cultural theory, and transnational media flows. Moreover, his creative practice bridges the realms of academia, remix culture, and the digital humanities. As a research-based image maker he explores the connections between cultural production and landscape representation, emphasizing the role of images in shaping collective perceptions of nature and history. Committed to collaborative and public-facing work, Ramos-Barajas curates projects that use art and film to foster dialogue and learning. He completed a BA in Theater, Film and Television at UCLA (2016), an MFA in Art at the University of Illinois Chicago (2023). His writing has appeared in Mediapolis: a journal of cities and culture and the New Review of Film and Television Studies (forthcoming Winter 2025). ramosbarajas@u.northwestern.edu // ramosbarajas.com

Ben Riggs writes about science on television. He has degrees from the University of New Mexico and Teachers College, Columbia University. benriggs@u.northwestern.edu

Rita Rongyi Lin researches transnational cinemas, new media aesthetics, spatial practices, affect, gender studies, and critical race theory. Her dissertation examines feminine spectatorship in/of cinema as dysfunctional elsewheres through tropes like the fallen woman and the sleepwalker with a focus on the Sinophone world. Since the start of the pandemic, she has also taken to watching and writing about K-pop. She is a teaching assistant in the Gender and Sexuality Studies program at Northwestern for academic year 2022-2023. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in tba: Journal of Art, Media, and Visual Culture and the Velvet Light Trap. Rita received her BA in English from Bryn Mawr College and MA in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University.

Sarah Sachar writes on experimental film. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature, Spanish, and the College Scholar Program from Cornell University and an MA in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University. sachar@u.northwestern.edu

Tayler Scriber is interested in the exploration of critical race theory and the rhetoric of televised violence.  Her previous research projects have touched on the history of Blackness and film in the United States as well as the critical engagement of black film audiences and the effects that their minoritarian position can have on their viewing experiences. She wants to continue this critical exploration by looking more deeply at the function of depictions of black trauma in the context of American storytelling in film. In addition to that, she is also interested in the historical exploration of public policies that have created the conditions of the relationship between media and race in the United States. While having a vested interest in these topics she is also interested in exploring horror, science fiction, film theory and criticism, and sexuality and gender studies. She received her Bachelors in Sociological Perspectives on Film from Whittier College.

Jennifer Smart is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Screen Cultures program. She works at the intersection of media studies, experimental music, and visual art. Her dissertation project, “Sound in Art: Museum Audio in the Age of Ubiquitous Sound,” examines the variety of ways in which sound and music have been exhibited in the visual art museum.

Emilia Tamayo (ella/she) is a doctoral student in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University, pursuing the certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She teaches for the Northwestern Prison Education Program and her research considers the visual culture of carceral filmmaking, place and displacement. Her filmmaking seeks to amplify public access to these themes. She holds an M.A. in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University, and a dual B.A. in Latin American Studies and Government from Smith College, where she was a Fulbright Scholar and Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. Prior to Northwestern, Emilia worked in museum communications, higher education, and nonprofits in Colombia and the United States.

Latina Vidolova is a PhD candidate in Screen Cultures interested in industry-fan relationships, transcultural streaming, and digital cultures. Her dissertation work examines the implications of US SVODs producing and distributing Japanese anime. She holds a Masters degree from University of Texas at Austin.

Kylie Walters is a fifth year doctoral candidate writing a dissertation on Mobil, media, and design in the postwar era. As a Franke Graduate Fellow in 2024-2025, she designed and taught a course on aquatic cinemas. Beyond environmental media studies, her interests include architecture, television history, experimental and avant-garde film, Marxisms, and psychoanalysis. She holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a BA from Colby College.

Ana Yoo is interested in questions of gender subjectivity in contemporary South Korean media forms like film, television, and across digital media platforms like webtoons and Internet forums. She received her BA in Film Studies from Emory University and MA in Cinema and Media Studies from The University of Chicago. anayoo@u.northwestern.edu