JASP Team
Eric Bontempo
Eric has been involved with JASP since 2018 when he began the PhD program in English & Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill. He has presented context corners, led group discussions, and helped to coordinate banquets, elevenses, and the Regency balls. He is thrilled to now be one of the associate directors, and he looks forward to continuing to make JASP an enriching and rewarding program. Beyond this role, Eric will be starting as Assistant Professor of English at Abilene Christian University in the fall.
Inger Brodey
Inger teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has published extensively on Jane Austen and the history of the novel. She serves as president of the JASP Board and director of JASP. She co-founded JASP with James Thompson. Her book Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness is forthcoming with Johns Hopkins, January 2024. Read more about Inger here.
Danielle Christmas
Danielle is an assistant professor of English & Comparative Literature and an Endowed Delta Delta Delta Fellow in the Humanities at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With affiliations in both Jewish Studies and American Studies, Danielle publishes and teaches on a variety of topics including slavery and the Holocaust in American fiction and film, lynching in American literature and discourse, and white nationalist culture and politics.
Caitlin Donovan
A former English literature and creative-writing teacher at Durham School of the Arts, Caitlin has attended JASP several times, including as a teacher scholarship winner. She continues to help us improve our K-12 teacher program and professional development for teachers.
Kathryn Edelstein
Kathryn Edelstein is a teacher of AP English Literature and World Literature at East Chapel Hill High School, where she serves as the Chair of the English Department. She was a teacher scholar at the AP Oxford Academy at Oxford University in 2018 and the Duke University Institute for Islamic Studies in 2019. She is chair of the teacher scholarship committee for the Jane Austen Summer Program.
Anne Fertig
Anne Fertig has a PhD from the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and works as a public historian. Her research interests include Scottish literature, women’s historiography and political philosophy in the 18th century. She has volunteered for JASP since 2016. She is the founder and co-director of JASP’s public humanities series, Jane Austen & Co. She is also treasurer of the JASP board.
Heather King
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. Heather has been coordinating the social media and blog content this year, and will be facilitating the Austen's Afterlives panel Sunday morning.
Anna Merz
Anna Merz, co-director of JASP+, is a PhD student in UNC’s English and Comparative Literature Department. In addition to her work for JASP and JASP+, Anna is a teaching fellow at UNC, a project assistant for the William Blake Archive, the co-director for the English Department’s Critical Speaker Series, and the co-founder and technical director for A19 (a UNC 19th-century studies organization).
Robert Morrison
JASP board member Robert Morrison is the British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University in Bath, England, and a Queen’s National Scholar at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He specializes in 19th-century British literature and culture. His 2009 book “The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey” was short-listed for the James Tait Black Prize for biography. In 2011, Morrison annotated an edition of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” for the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. His latest book is “The Regency Years, During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern.”
Kimiyo Ogawa
Kimiyo Ogawa is a professor in the Department of English Studies at Sophia University, Japan. She is interested in how advances in medical and physiological science informed representations of mind and human behavior in a range of 18th-century novels. She co-hosted Jane Austen & Co.’s 2021-2022 “Asia and the Regency” series with Inger Brodey and Anne Fertig. Ogawa is the editor of the upcoming volume, Austen and Asia, with Tristanne Connolly.
Na'dayah Pugh
Na’dayah Pugh is a second-year student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English and Comparative Literature, with minors in Screenwriting and Creative Writing. She contributed to Jane Austen’s Violent Affections: An edition of Henry & Eliza and Jack & Alice, and volunteered at the 2023 Jane Austen Summer Program. She is excited to continue exploring the world of Austen, especially regarding its relevancy to the modern day.
Celeste Seifert
Celeste, the ball and costume chair, is a graduate student at UNC and an assistant at the William Blake Archive. They are a graduate co-editor for a forthcoming edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's juvenilia through Juvenilia Press.
Susan Allen Ford
Recently retired as a professor of English from Delta State University, Susan has served as editor for Persuasions, the leading Austen journal, for more than a decade. She has also faithfully attended and contributed to JASP since its founding in 2012 as a presenter and a discussion leader. She is JASP's context corner coordinator and a member of the Board of Directors.
Marsha Huff
Marsha Huff is an attorney specializing in the law of tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations. She served as president of the Jane Austen Society of North America, 2006-2010. Her essays have been published in JASNA's journal Persuasions On-Line. She is vice president of the JASP board.
Sarah Hurley
Sarah Hurley is a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with University Honors and Honors in English literature. She composed her undergraduate thesis, "'Let Other Pens Dwell': On Austen, Authorship, and the Janeite-Centric Narrative," on a unique genre of fiction placing the quintessential "Austen-fan" herself into the role of heroine. Sarah's academic interests also include Shirley Jackson's fiction, young adult literature, and Emily Dickinson's herbarium. When she is not writing for JASP, Sarah enjoys drinking tea, playing her guitar, knitting, reading, and going for long strolls in the forest.
Katherine Stein
Katherine Stein is a doctoral student in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill. She specializes in Victorian literature, with a special focus on historiography and the figure of the child. Her research extends from the Victorian period into the early 20th century, with additional interests in historical fiction, national identity, and children’s literature. Katherine’s work is deeply invested in the public humanities, and, in addition to her work with JASP, she also works in various public-facing communications roles. Along with Anna Merz, Katherine serves as co-director for JASP+.
James Thompson
James is a prominent Austen scholar. He is a professor in the UNC English and Comparative Literature department and has written three books on Austen. He co-founded JASP with Inger Brodey.
Sarah Schaefer Walton
Sarah has been helping with JASP from its founding year, before she was a graduate student at UNC. Sarah has worked on many aspects of JASP, most recently co-directing JASP Plus, as well as helping to write grants for our digital humanities outreach programs. She served as project manager on a recent NEH grant, is associate director of JASP, and represents graduate students on the JASP board.