If there were a degree program in online shopping, Marisa Ahmed would pass with flying colors. A passionate painter, sleep-lover, and binge-watcher of crime shows, Marisa is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Writing has always held a special place in her life, and she often finds herself coming back to it when life becomes a little too crazy to handle.
Alok Amatya went to Reed College in Portland, Oregon – of Portlandia fame – to get his BA in English. Having worked for several years at the Computer User Services there, he is an aficionado of The IT Crowd. He received his MA and PhD from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, where he studied global, ethnic and environmental literatures. His current research explores how travel narratives in prose and film are connected to stories of resistance from environmentalist and indigenous activists. He is an assistant editor for RAMBLE.
Elizabeth Balinao is an undergraduate Public Policy major at Georgia Tech, minoring in International Affairs with a certificate in French. She is from Savannah, Georgia, but considers Atlanta her home. She loves politics (she’s worked in Washington, DC), music (she almost went to a different school for piano accompaniment), and Star Trek (She paid $140 [!!!] at Dragon Con for a picture with two actors from Voyager). In her very little free time, she watches political dramas and comedies. She plans to work in public service after graduation.
SanSan Chen was born in Queens, New York. She currently lives in Duluth, Georgia, and is a Biochemistry major at Georgia Tech. She enjoys reading a wide variety of books, mainly fiction. She loves animals and writes occasionally.
Caroline Dowell-Esquivel is an undergraduate student studying Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. She was born into and grew up in a bilingual household in Miami, Florida.
Jeff Howard earned his PhD from Idaho State University in English and the Teaching of English. He hails from the Pacific Northwest, the land of the Snake and the Columbia. He worked for his father, an Idaho dairy farmer, for many years before becoming an academic. As a result, he possesses an inordinate amount of knowledge about cows, which makes him the person you want to talk to at parties. He is the managing editor for RAMBLE.
Wendy Lin is a math major from Suwanee, Georgia, a proud Chinese-American, and an English learner. She enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and exposing herself to vastly different cultures around the world.
Genevieve Onyiuke-Kennedy, also known as Adaeze Onyiuke in Nigeria, is a first-generation Nigerian-American. Her mother and father were born in Ihiala and Nimo, respectively. She grew up speaking Igbo and English, though she believes Igbo was her first language. She has been writing her whole life as a hobby, but she hopes to publish a novel one day.
Kendra Slayton is a native Michigander and an alumnus of Michigan State University, where she double-majored in English and Japanese. She lived in Yamanashi-ken, Japan, for three years, working as an English teacher with the JET program. She then earned her MA and PhD at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, specializing in medieval literature and gender studies. In her free time she is also an avid archer, shooting Olympic Recurve style, which describes the type of bow she shoots and not, alas, her skill level, although she does compete at state and national tournaments. She is an assistant editor for RAMBLE.
Ruiyang Zhao is a first-year Biomedical Engineering student at Georgia Tech. She was born in China, where she lived for 13 years before moving to the United States with her parents. She loves baking Chinese pastries and hopes to introduce Chinese culture to more people through her writing.