Student Collaborations
SCU Peer Educators
SCU’s Peer Educator Courses (2015, 2020, 2024, 2025) Maria met weekly with undergraduate Peer Educators so they could lead parts of class discussions and hold additional offices hours Samuel Cao (English, History, and Theology Major) in CTW1 and CTW2 courses (2024-25) Alex Varni (Environmental Studies Major) in ENVS 95 (2020) Kayle Sinnot and Allison Carmody (Environmental Studies Majors) in ENVS 2A course (2015)
SJSU Lucas Graduate School Business Writing Consultant (2018-2020)
Maria served as a consultant to SJSU’S Lucas Graduate School of Business. She created and hosted workshops or extra office hours for graduate students based on their writing needs and collaborated with directors / faculty on potential new assignments, rubrics, and other pedagogy needs for Silicon Valley Experience course. She also trained and supervised graduate student graders for “Silicon Valley Experience” course, a networking class required for all MBA students with multiple reflections and varied writing projects. English Graduate Students: Ryan Smith (2019-2020) and Edwin Lee (2018-2019) scored and commented on the weekly reflections for 100+ students and met with Maria to go through an overview of their questions on their suggestions to students before she published their scores.
Intern and Research Supervision
SCU’s REAL Internships (Summer 2022, Summer 2025) Duties: Recruit and supervise a student in SCU’s School of Arts and Sciences interested in participating in an experiential learning project spanning up to 6 weeks in the summer. Samuel Cao will be studying historical California immigration stories and connecting them to the previous NEH Institute guest speakers’ workers and a SCU/Heyday Books literary collaboration known as “The California Legacy Project”; additional research assistance for 5 year anniversary archive creation of CZU fires with Dr. Jackie Hendricks and Matt Driscoll; researching history of UC Master Gardener Program of Santa Clara County for web publication (Summer 2025). Francesca D’Urzo served as an intern for the 2022 NEH institute and helped coordinate paperwork, speaker honorariums, and technology needs during the two-week institute. She also participated in the field trips and guest speaker discussions. (Summer 2022). SCU’s Center for Sustainability Student Staff Supervisor (2022-2024) Duties: Hire all students, host weekly 30 minute 1:1 meeting with each student assistant, edit/supervise their work completed over their 10 hour+ workweek, and offer quarterly reviews of their work. For the Cristo Rey High School student intern, I also applied for SCU’s internal grant to participate in the program and attended quarterly meetings with the high school professional staff. Cristo Rey High School intern Isabella Marrufo (2023-2024) . Communications Student Coordinators: Hannah Trillo (2022-2023 as a student, 2024 as an outside consultant) Jennah El-Ashmawi (2023) Hannah Hagan (2022-2023) Bella Luhr (2023-2024) Maddy Sofer (2022-2024) Abigail Haggerty (2022-2024) SJSU’s Writing Center Assistants (2016-2021) Associate Editors to the Blog (Spring 2017-2021) Duties: Supervise Graduate Student Tutors as they copyedit and schedule their own and their fellow tutors’ articles for the blog. Encourage them to create their own themed series to run on the blog and meet weekly to discuss updates to the blog. Seher Vora (now Editor-in-Chief); McKenna Miller; Jack Brady also assisted with the migration of the blog to a new platform; Brooke Blankenship; and Ines Marjanovic. Assistants for Special Projects Social Media Student Coordinators (2016-2021): Angelica Cornejo, Aya Abdelhadi, Alejandra Galindo posted daily on Instagram and helped plan contests along with workshops for faculty. Video Workshop Series (2020-2021): Andrew Cormier assisted with online video workshops started during the pandemic. Online Tutoring Pilot Researcher (2017-2018): Masako Kamato helped conduct research for the initial decision to implement Zoom as our host platform and assisted in the training documents for tutors.
Student Writing Projects
“Liminal Valley: A Life Off Map,” creative nonfiction essay currently being pitched to publications. By Samuel Cao. (Essay started during his independent study course in Spring 2025.) Role: Developmental editor for initial drafts and pitch email. “Dorm Therapy” article for national internet magazine Apartment Therapy. (2024) “Lo Struscio Is the Slow Italian Lifestyle I’m Trying (and You Should, Too!)” By Abigail Haggerty (Center for Sustainability student coordinator) Role: Developmental editor for initial pitch and drafts. “Farm-to-Fork: Where dirt meets the tablecloth.” Op-Ed published in the Sacramento-area newspaper VCN. (March 2018) By Ally Jeffers. (essay started in my 2017-2018 “Composing a Sustainable World” CTW course). Role: Developmental editor for initial drafts. “In terms of refugees, history should repeat itself.” Op-Ed published on SCU main page. (February 2017) By Edward Obasi Lewis (essay started in my 2016-2017 CA Dreams and Reality CTW course). Role: Developmental editor for initial pitch and drafts. “Voices: No one is immune to sexual assault. I should know.” Op-Ed published in the USA Today College Edition. (February 16, 2017). By Winter Valent (essay started in my 2016-2017 CA Dreams and Reality CTW course). Role: Developmental editor for initial pitch and drafts. “How Much Should a Mistake Last?” Op-Ed bumped by breaking news timing by San Diego Union-Tribune. (2016). By Alex Kramer (essay started in my 2015-2016 CA Dreams and Reality CTW course). Role: Developmental editor for initial pitch and drafts.
Master's Thesis & Creative Projects
SJSU “The Book of the Sky.” English Department MFA Thesis by Seher Vora. (2022) Role: 2nd reader for this YA fantasy novel focused on mythical Middle Eastern stories. “When the Black Sea Gleams.” Novel-In-Progress By Communications Graduate Student Aleksandra Bulatskaya. (2022) Role: Paid developmental editing for novel focused on semi-autobiographical Ukrainian childhood begun in a graduate course Georgetown University “Migration of people and financial impact on a development project as a result of Covid-19.” By San Jose State Graduate and Realtor Nick Goddard for the Georgetown Professional Studies Program. (2020) Role: Paid organizational edits and formatting support