New Faces in the Department

As in past years, we welcome to the department our newest members. This year they include a new director of the Language Resource Center, Dr. Margaret Quesada, Associate Professor of Spanish, a new Assistant Professor of French, Dr. Rachel Gabara, a new IT Professional Specialist, Jeff Clippard, a new Administrative Assistant, Maryanna Axson, a new Instructor in French, Sam Osborne, four new Graduate Teaching Assistants in French: Liana Babyan, Marissa Brown, Jean Gay, and Hannah Heintz, and eight new Graduate Teaching Assistants in Spanish: Patrick Moore, Ninosca Perez-Minchola, Karen Pollard, Anne Rutter, Daniel Sanchez, Monica Wilinski-Hodel, Emily Wilmot, Donald Wood, and Brandon Woodworth. We have asked each of them to share some information about themselves with the department; and even though not all of them chose to do so, we hope that you will get to know them in good time.

Margaret Quesada’s mission for the LRC is to become one of the premier facilities in the Southeast U.S. for fostering the use of state-of-the-art technology in language learning, teaching and research. Dr. Quesada´s own research interests include the study of the acquisition of complex areas of Spanish morphosyntax. She is co-author of the book, Dimensiones del Aspecto en Español, published in November of 2005 by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and is currently working on a book on the subjunctive mood in Spanish. She also has numerous articles on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language and Hispanic linguistics in academic journals and conference proceedings. Margaret received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University and before coming to the University of Georgia in the fall of 2005, had been Professor of Linguistics at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro for 15 years. She has taught at the University of California Davis, Hope College, the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Michigan State University and the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. In her (limited) free time, Margaret enjoys cooking, reading, listening to music and walking through the beautiful Georgian woods.

Rachel Gabara joined the Department of Romance Languages this fall as Assistant Professor of French. Her research and teaching interests include French and Francophone African literature and film and postcolonial studies. Her first book, From Split to Screened Selves: French and Francophone Autobiography in the Third Person, will be published by Stanford University Press this summer, and she has articles published or forthcoming in New Literary History, French Cultural Studies, and Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Dr. Gabara recently spent time in Burkina Faso, Senegal, and France, attending FESPACO (the biannual pan-African film festival) and continuing work on a second book-length project, a history of documentary filmmaking in Sub-Sarahan Africa from the colonial period to the present entitled "Reclaiming Realism: From Colonial to Contemporary Documentary in West and Central Africa." She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan in 2000 and taught in the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton University before coming to UGA.

Jeff Clippard Information Technology Professional, Specialist.

Maryanna Axson (on the left in this photo) Administrative Assistant.

Marissa Brown grew up in Pennsylvania and received her B.A. in Romance languages from Pace University in New York City. She is pursuing an M.A. in French and Spanish Literature.

Hannah Heintz graduated in May of 2005 from North Georgia College and State University with a B.A. in French and a minor in Spanish. She is in the French M.A.T. program here at UGA, and is a Teaching Assistant in French in our department.

Karen J. Pollard was born in Honduras, the heart of Central America. She is a 1998 graduate of the University of Honduras in Foreign Languages and Pedagogy with a specialization in English and a minor in French. Her academic interests have brought her to pursue a Ph.D. in Spanish Literature at UGA. She is a former 1998 body-building champion for Honduras. She enjoys life, respecting and loving others unconditionally.

Patrick Moore is a new M.A. student majoring in Spanish Linguistics. A native of Wisconsin and a graduate of UW-Madison, he has lived in Athens since 2001 and most recently worked as a Spanish interpreter at a local hospital.

Brandon Woodworth is originally from Warner Robins, GA. He got my Bachelor's degree at the University of Georgia, a B.A. in Spanish and a B.S. in Psychology. During his undergraduate years, he studied in Valencia, Spain with the UGA en Espana program in summer 2002, and later he studied and "interned" at an orphanage in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. After graduation, he moved to Madrid, Spain for nine months to teach English, and is now back in Athens studying Spanish literature. In his spare time, which is sparse, he loves to play and watch sports. He loves UGA football, which he considers essential to the Athenian experience. He is a member of several soccer teams in Athens. He also likes to read, especially about Latin America, and have become somewhat of a book collector over the past couple of years. He also enjoys just spending time with his friends whenever he can. He loves the University, the campus, and the people. He considers it one of the best places to go to school, which is why came back to do his graduate studies.