Graduate Program Directors

Robin Danzak is a member of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in language and literacy. Robin’s research focuses on bilingual writing of adolescents and adults, examining connections between language, culture, and identity. Currently, she is also investigating the rich nature of the adoption experience through qualitative, arts-based methods.

Mako Yoshikawa is the author of the novels One Hundred and One Ways and Once Removed. Her work has been translated into six languages; awards for her writing include a Radcliffe Fellowship. Her essays have been published in the Missouri Review, Southern Indiana Review, Harvard Review, Story, LitHub, Best American Essays, and Longreads. Her memoir, Secrets of the Sun, is forthcoming from Ohio State University Press in February 2024.

Hanadi Elyan is a filmmaker whose work focuses on the social issues facing marginalized communities from a female perspective. She received her MFA in Film Production/Directing from UCLA on a full-ride scholarship from MSFF.

Azeta Hatef is a media researcher and award-winning instructor. Her scholarly interests focus on issues of social media as activism for underrepresented groups, gender and identity, and media systems in a global context. Dr. Hatef’s current work explores the representation of Afghans in American news media and popular culture.

Katie Williams is the author of the novels My Murder (Riverhead/Penguin 2023) and Tell the Machine Goodnight (Riverhead/Penguin 2018) and the young adult novels Absent and The Space Between Trees. Her short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Best American Fantasy, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, and elsewhere. Williams's fiction has been translated into eleven languages and has been listed as a New York Times Editors' Choice, NPR Best Books of the Year, Kirkus Prize for Literary Fiction, National Magazine Award for Short Fiction, and Dublin International Prize for Literary Fiction. Her most recent novel, My Murder, is a national bestseller.

Dr. Taylor joined Emerson College from the Department of Management at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). Dr. Taylor earned a Ph.D in Rhetoric and Language from the Moody College of Communication at UT Austin, and an MP.Aff. from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, also from UT Austin.

Before joining Emerson, Beuttler spent three years covering jazz for The Boston Globe, which he continues to do occasionally, and teaching journalism at Boston University. His magazine work includes stints as a senior editor at the Discovery Channel, Men's Journal, and Boston magazine, and as an associate editor at DownBeat and American Way. He has also been published in JazzTimes, Jazziz, The Atlantic, Esquire, Chicago magazine, The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Travel Holiday, Cooking Light, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The New York Times Book Review.

Carol Ferrara is a sociocultural anthropologist and assistant professor in the Marketing Communication Department at Emerson College. Drawing upon her diverse academic and professional expertise in anthropology, diversity, pluralism, religion, education, and business, her teaching in Marketing Communication encourages students to explore the ways that the social sciences can be leveraged to help make marketing and business better, smarter, and more socially and environmentally responsible.

Jim is both a media scholar and filmmaker with extensive publications and production experience. His publications have been featured in Wide Angle, Jump Cut, and more while his filmography has exhibited at major film festivals internationally, with his autobiography I am Not an Anthropologist premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

Jim is currently Senior Scholar-in-Residence for the department of Visual and Media Arts in LA and Graduate Program Director for the MFA Program in Film and TV Writing.