Biographies
Carley Becker is a junior English major at the University of Delaware. She loves all things wordy, be it reading, writing, or making puns. She first fell in love with Shakespeare in her ninth grade English class when she read Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare’s humor, depth, and command of poetry is something Carley can’t imagine her life without. While she loves many of the characters in Shakespeare’s cannon, her favorite couple is Henry Hotspur and Lady Percy because they have a beautifully volatile relationship with more hints of real love than anything found in the ‘romance’ between Romeo and Juliet. When not researching Shakespeare, Carley is working as a Peer Tutor at the University of Delaware’s Writing Center, writing creatively in the hopes of becoming a full-time author and publisher, and spending far too much time trying to remember how many c’s and how many s’s are in the word ‘occasionally.’
Eric Brown is a junior at the University of Delaware. He is pursuing a dual degree with a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Plant and Soil Science, with a minor in Economics. Eric has been interested in Shakespeare since watching his older sister act in Shakespeare productions when he was a kid. He was introduced to the Henriad in preparation for this project. He works in the University of Delaware's Writing Center as a Peer Tutor and has served as a teaching assistant for a British literature and poetry survey course.
Matthew Camacho is a junior at the University of Delaware with a dual major in History and English Literature. He was first introduced to Shakespeare in high school when he read Julius Caesar, and he has regularly pursued studies in anything related to Renaissance-era literature ever since. He was introduced to the Henriad in preparation for this website, yet now Henry IV, Part I is his favorite of Shakespeare's plays. In addition to studying English Literature, Matthew also occasionally writes poetry and short fiction, and he hopes to work as an editor and author of genre fiction.
Owen Davis is a junior English Literature major. He acted throughout high school and performed in multiple musicals. He was also part of the elite Delaware All-State Vocal Ensemble. He discovered his passion for Shakespeare later in high school and has developed his understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's literary techniques as his college years have progressed. His second passion is computers. He has been fixing computers part time for Staples for the past two years, and has been building computers for the past ten. His goal after graduation is to return back to the high school he graduated from to become an English teacher and give back to the school that gave him so much.
Zach Davis is an actor and writer at the University of Delaware. He has studied and performed Shakespeare for ten years. At UD, Zach created and hosts Our Brief Hour, a radio show dedicated to Shakespearean poetry and prose. You can find a recording of each show, along with his other voice projects, on YouTube. He apprenticed with the Delaware Shakespeare Festival and would be thrilled to make that his life’s work. He also works as an actor and facilitator in UD’s Healthcare Theater program, training performers to portray a wide variety of patients in clinical simulations with student nurses.
Hannah Epstein is a senior English Literature major at the University of Delaware. A bookworm from a young age, she will read anything she can. Hannah has loved to read and watch Shakespeare for as long as she can remember. She particularly enjoys the comedies, her favorite being Much Ado About Nothing, though one of her favorite memories of Shakespeare was watching one of the history plays performed in the rebuilt Globe Theater in London. In addition to her academic pursuits, Hannah also works as a professional ballet dancer with First State Ballet Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware. She hopes someday to dance the role of Juliet in the ballet of Romeo and Juliet, bringing her two greatest passions together.
Kathleen Ford is a junior English Literature major and a Japanese Language major. In high school, she
participated in several exchange programs with Japanese exchange students. In the summer of 2012, she and a group of students from her high school traveled abroad to Japan to one of the tsunami disaster areas, Minamisanriku-cho, and met with the locals to hear their stories and witness the destruction the earthquake of 2011 caused. Despite her involvement with Japanese culture and language, Kathleen’s interest in Shakespeare also persisted throughout high school and into college. By becoming a Literary Studies major, she learned a better appreciation for Shakespeare’s writing style and themes in literature. Her goal after college is to combine both of her very different majors, travelling abroad once again to Japan to teach English literature and Shakespeare to the students there.
participated in several exchange programs with Japanese exchange students. In the summer of 2012, she and a group of students from her high school traveled abroad to Japan to one of the tsunami disaster areas, Minamisanriku-cho, and met with the locals to hear their stories and witness the destruction the earthquake of 2011 caused. Despite her involvement with Japanese culture and language, Kathleen’s interest in Shakespeare also persisted throughout high school and into college. By becoming a Literary Studies major, she learned a better appreciation for Shakespeare’s writing style and themes in literature. Her goal after college is to combine both of her very different majors, travelling abroad once again to Japan to teach English literature and Shakespeare to the students there.
Matt Michalek is a senior at the University of Delaware pursuing a dual major in Literary Studies and Criminal Justice. He currently works as both a Peer Tutor in the University of Delaware's Writing Center and as a Writing Fellow for a capstone Animal-Food Science course. Post-graduation, he hopes to pursue both a career in criminal law and further education in English. He was first introduced to Shakespeare’s Hamlet as early as middle school, and was the only member of his graduating high school class to go on to study English in college. Though his academic future lies primarily in legal study, Matt’s fascination with English resonates in Shakespeare’s tragedies, and this project was his first introduction to the Henriad. Matt has been published in several literary magazines for his poetry, and hopes to maintain this hobby his entire life.
Kristen Poole fell into Shakespeare slowly. In high school, she did not like English. In college, she begrudgingly took a course on Renaissance literature to fulfill a distribution requirement. The course changed her life. Fascinated by seventeenth-century English culture, she spent her junior year doing independent research at the Newberry Library (Chicago) and the Bodleian Library (Oxford). She went to Harvard for her Ph.D., with a year as a visiting student at Keble College, Oxford. At the University of Delaware, she found herself teaching lots of Shakespeare, and it was through experiencing the plays in the classroom that she really got inside them. She has written two books on Shakespeare, as well as numerous scholarly articles. She is the Director/Editor of Romeo and Juliet for the Luminary Shakespeare iPad app (iTunes). She is currently editing two essay collections, and is writing another book on allegory as a scientific language in the seventeenth century. She is an avid baker and a fan of classical music, and is working towards a Master’s degree in theology. Her complete c.v. can be found here: http://www.english.udel.edu/people/Pages/bio.aspx?i=84
Mary Purnell is a senior at the University of Delaware, majoring in English and minoring in Spanish. She currently works as an English tutor in the University of Delaware's Writing Center and as a TA for four Spanish classes. Synthesizing her teaching skills in both languages with her passion for literature, Mary is pursuing a career in education with a focus on teaching English as a Second Language for native speakers of Spanish. At the University of Delaware, Mary developed a keen interest in 16th and 17th century drama, particularly for Shakespeare and his Spanish counterpart, Lope de Vega.
Kevin Seger is a senior at the University of Delaware. He is pursing a B.A. in English and plans to attend graduate school to pursue an M.A. in English Education. He has been a professional swim instructor for three years and spends his summers coaching his community’s swim team on Long Island. He was introduced to Shakespeare by his mother, a high school English teacher, and loved his work immediately. As his career in education progressed, Kevin developed a desire to know more about the historical figures that Shakespeare brings to life in the Henriad. The goal of his research is to examine who these figures truly were in order to expand people’s knowledge of the historical events that are portrayed in the Henriad.
Julia Snider is a junior at the University of Delaware pursuing a dual degree in Literary Studies and History with a minor in Irish Studies. Though her academic interests lay primarily with the Irish poets and novelists, she has a personal appreciation both for the works of William Shakespeare and early modern English history. Julia holds a student assistant position at the University's Special Collections department where she works directly with rare books and manuscripts.
Kristen Todd is a sophomore English Education major. Her first passion is literature and her second is sharing it both on stage and in the classroom. She has been reading Shakespeare since middle school but only began to love it when she played Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Since then, she has been working to get more experience researching to get closer to her goal of being a professor. She loves how very human all of Shakespeare's characters are, especially in the Henriad; they really bring parts of history to life. (Yes, we know much of it was fiction, let's pretend for a bit, shall we?)