About me

Micaela is a fourth-year PhD candidate at the University of Miami. Her research focuses on representations of disability and technology within literary and internet cultures. Prior to beginning her PhD, she spent three years working as a K-12 educator and received an M.A. in English from the University at Buffalo. Micaela served as the UGrow Writing Studies Fellow during academic year 2023-2024 and was formerly a Digital Humanities Graduate Fellow on “Mapping Imaginary Miami,” supervised by Dr. Allison Schifani. Micaela has presented papers at various conferences including the American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting and the Northeast Modern Language Annual Convention and has work forthcoming in Pulse: The Journal of Science and Culture. She is the current Vice President of UM’s English Graduate Organization.

Contact information

mxd4207@miami.edu

Education

University of Miami - Ph.D. Candidate/Graduate Assistant, English Literature
University at Buffalo - M.A., English Literature
SUNY Oswego - B.A., Sociology and Creative Writing

Instructional Experience

UGrow Fellow, Department of Writing Studies, University of Miami, 08/2023 – 05/2024

Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Miami, 08/2021 – present

High School English Teacher, Archimedean Upper Conservatory, 2019 – 2021

Fellowships and Awards

Summer Doctoral Micro-Grant, The Graduate School, Summer 2025

Graduate Activity Fee Allocation Committee (GAFAC) Travel Award, Spring 2024

Kriloff Travel Award, Spring 2023, Spring 2024

UGrow Fellow, Department of Writing Studies, AY 2023 - 2024

Digital Humanities Graduate Fellow, Mapping Imaginary Miami, 05/2023 – 09/2023

Conferences

5th Annual Digital IDEAS Summer Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, June 23-27, 2025

“Cyborgs, Robots, and Surplus Labor,” Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, March 6-9, 2025

“Disability at the End of the World: Where Speculative Fiction Misses,” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, Montréal, CA, March 14-17, 2024

“Cyborg Resistance to Technoableism, or Disabled Responses to Health Gimmicks,” Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Boston, MA, March 7-10, 2024

“Dreaming the Cyborg: Biohacking, Technoableism, & Disabled Futures,” The Humanities Center at Texas Tech Annual Conference 2023: “Health,” Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, April 28-29, 2023

“Reading Somatic Difference in the ECDA,” Digital Humanities Research Institute, University of Miami, Miami, FL, March 30-31, 2023

“Resistance Through Poiesis: Responding to Heidegger in the State of Software Ubiquity,” Symposium for English Graduate Students (SEGUE), College at Brockport, Brockport, NY, February 23, 2019