Our Other Programs
Team
Sarah Marsh
DIRECTOR
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Sarah Marsh is Associate Professor of English at Seton Hill University. Her book, Novel Constitutions and the Making of Race: A Literary and Legal History of Slavery in the Anglophone Atlantic, 1688 - 1818, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Sarah has been involved in JASP since its very first year and is delighted to welcome all of our JASP Janeites to Pennsylvania!
Eric Bontempo
DIRECTOR
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Eric Bontempo is an Assistant Professor of English at Abilene Christian University. He received a PhD in English & Comparative Literature in 2023 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he began volunteering with the Jane Austen Summer Program. His work has appeared in Essays in Romanticism and the Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Writing.
Breckyn Wood
DIRECTOR
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In addition to serving as a co-director of JASP, Breckyn is the host and producer of Austen Chat, the official podcast of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA). She has presented her research on Austen and linguistics at JASP 2023 and at JASNA's Annual General Meeting in 2024.
Emma Zuder
PROGRAM ASSISTANT
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​Emma is presently the assistant to the Setonian Education Research Program and an adjunct professor of English at Seton Hill University Emma's research is centered on mind and body, gender, and Romanticism in the long eighteenth century. Emma has previously presented at JASP, and currently assists with the blog and now––the JASP 2026 program. As a longtime Janeite and Seton Hill alum, Emma is thrilled for JASP to be hosted at her alma mater!
Maizie Ferguson
REGISTRAR
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Bio coming soon!
Heather King
ADAPTATIONS PANEL CHAIR
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Heather King is a professor of English at the University of Redlands in Southern California. Her courses include classes on both Austen and Shakespeare in Adaptation, as well as Eighteenth-Century Literature.
Sheila Gross
CONTEXT CORNER COORDINATOR
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Bio coming soon!
Delicia Johnson
HEAD OF PUBLICITY
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Delicia Johnson is a library assistant in Orlando, Florida. She has a general interest in the long-eighteenth century with a focus on women's writing, female education, and Romanticism. Besides her work with JASP, she is also the lead administrator for the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation.
Featured Presenters
PLENARY
Anne Fertig
Anne Fertig is a literary historian and a passionate public humanist specializing in eighteenth century women’s writing. Known best for her work with the Jane Austen Summer Program, Dr. Fertig co-founded the webseries Jane Austen & Co. in 2019. She is also the writer and host of Finding Jane Austen, a Goodpods Top 100 Books podcast. She currently works in the museum field in Washington, DC.​
PLENARY
Michael Kramp
Michael Kramp is Professor of English at Lehigh University. He is the author of Disciplining Love: Austen and the Modern Man (2007) and Patriarchy's Creative Resilience (2024), and editor of Jane Austen and Masculinity (2017) and Jane Austen and Critical Theory (2021). He is currently working on a long-term, public-facing project, Jane Austen and the Future of the Humanities.
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PLENARY
Juliette Wells
Juliette Wells, Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, was guest curator of the blockbuster 2025 exhibition A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250 for the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. She is the author of three histories of Austen’s readers and fans, all published by Bloomsbury Academic: A New Jane Austen: How Americans Brought Us the World’s Greatest Novelist (2023), Reading Austen in America (2017), and Everybody’s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination (2011). For Penguin Classics, she created reader-friendly annotated editions of Mansfield Park (2025), Emma (2015), and Persuasion (2017).
PLENARY
Maria Frawley
Maria Frawley is a Professor of English at the George Washington University, where she teaches courses on Jane Austen, nineteenth-century literature, and the history of the novel. She co-edited the Routledge Companion to Jane Austen and is the author most recently of Jane Austen in 50 Words (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025).
DANCE MASTER
Jeremy Gershman
Jeremy Gershman "Mr. Charles Steplively" has been providing his unique manner of Country Dance instruction, whilst delighting audiences with his scintillating humor, for over a dozen years. Engagements have included leading 18th and 19th century dancing at historic locations such as Battersea in Petersburg, VA, Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown and the Kershaw-Cornwallis House in Camden, SC. Mr. Steplively is the incumbent Dancemaster for the Regency Society of Virginia.
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MASTER OF THE KING'S MUSIC
Mark A. Boyle
Bio coming soon!
JASP TEACHER COORDINATOR
Juliet Highberger
Juliet Highberger is a high school English teacher at South Fayette High School, where she teaches English 10 World Literature and English 11 American Literature. Additionally, she serves as a Model United Nations moderator. With JASP, Juliet mediates information between the conference organizers and participating teachers. Her favorite author is Jane Austen, whose work inspires her love of classic literature and her appreciation for the conference.
JASP TEACHER COORDINATOR
Ashley Honaker
Ashley Honaker holds Bachelor’s degrees in English and History and a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has taught high school English in North Carolina’s public school system for thirteen years. A longtime admirer of Jane Austen, she is an active participant in the Jane Austen Summer Program and works with the program’s initiatives for teachers.
ADAPTATIONS PANELIST
Linda Troost
Bio coming soon!
ADAPTATIONS PANELIST
Sayre Greenfield
Bio coming soon!