Graduate Writing Center
Meet the Graduate Writing Consultants
Our writing consultants are graduate students who have extensive experience with graduate-level writing, as well as teaching and tutoring. Feel free to make an appointment with the writing consultant in the academic area most similar to yours, but all writing consultants have been trained to help graduate students with general writing issues in any field.
Netta Avineri
Netta Avineri is a fourth-year graduate student in the Department of Applied Linguistics/TESL. She focuses on discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and institutional talk and her current research interests include moral reasoning in religious schools and medical interaction. Netta earned her BA in Anthropology with a minor in French from UCLA in 2001. In addition to working at the Graduate Writing Center, she teaches ESL, Sociology, and Applied Linguistics classes, serves as the Coordinator for OID's TOP Program, works as the ESL Tutor Supervisor at Covel Tutorials, and is on the executive committee of the ASUCLA Board of Directors. In her free time, Netta enjoys salsa dancing, playing flute, and traveling. Netta's favorite punctuation mark is the ellipsis.
Jodie Katon
Jodie Katon grew up in Seattle, WA and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston University with a chemistry degree in 2002. Jodie worked for two summers as an analytic chemist culminating in her co-authorship on several publications. She also participated in undergraduate research in organic chemistry. After graduation Jodie was employed at Amgen, Inc. for four years before returning to school with the goal of obtaining a graduate degree in epidemiology. While working at Amgen, in Chemical Research and Discovery, Jodie was listed as an inventor on several patents. When not busy with school or work. Jodie enjoys traveling with her husband or backpacking in the mountains.
Jeannine Murray-Román
Jeannine Murray-Román, has recently graduated from the Comparative Literature department with a dissertation entitled "Writing Rehearsals: The Uses of Performance in Contemporary Caribbean Writing." Jeannine has been a Writing Assistant and Tutor since an undergraduate at Dartmouth College where she worked at the Composition Center. She has also taught writing for many years in the Comparative Literature department, developing courses around rhetoric in literature. One of her main goals in these courses is to drain some of the frightening mystique out of the writing process and help students develop concrete strategies for writing an academic, argumentative paper. She is also part of several writing groups on and off campus, and finds the peer review process invaluable to her own work. Jeannine's favorite punctuation mark is the exclamation point.
Libby O'Hare
Libby O'Hare is a Ph.D. candidate in the UCLA Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program. She received her A.B. in Psychology and Neuroscience from Bryn Mawr College in 2000. Her research interests are in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Specifically, she uses functional and structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to examine relationships between brain growth and improving cognitive capacities in typically developing children and adolescents and those with prenatal exposure to alcohol. In her free time she enjoys hiking and camping, traveling to local and exotic places, and watching an unnaturally large number of movies.
Andrea Olinger
Andrea Olinger is a master's student in the Department of Applied Linguistics and TESL. She received her BA in English with a minor in Linguistics from Dartmouth College, where she tutored for the Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology. Andrea spent two years at the American Institutes for Research, working on studies of adolescent literacy, adult ESL literacy, and adult numeracy, as well as on issues in high school reform. She has also taught adult ESL and English for Academic Purposes. In her spare time, she is compiling an (informal) list of the best pastry shops in LA. Her favorite punctuation mark is the em-dash.
Damola Osinulu
Damola Osinulu is a third-year graduate student in the Dept. of World Arts and Cultures. He is interested in the study of contemporary West African culture particularly in urban areas. His current work focuses on Pentecostal religious practices in Nigeria. He enjoys reading and writing and has being awarded the Harry Kurnitz Award for his short story "Something to Eat." Damola grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and has a degree in architecture from the University of Houston and an MA in Culture and Performance from UCLA. In his spare time, Damola watches The View with his wife and Lost by himself. His favorite punctuation is the semi colon—he finds it wonderfully liminal.
Jessica Preece
Jessica Preece is a sixth year PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science. Relying primarily on quantitative data, she analyzes the role that ideology plays in politicians' patterns of party switching in South Africa, New Zealand and Italy. She takes nerdy pleasure in bragging about her Italian dataset with 3 million observations and fifty variables. Jessica grew up in Hawaii and received a BA in political science from Brigham Young University with a minor in organic chemistry. In her spare time, Jessica enjoys skiing, reading, cooking and Appalachian basketry. Her favorite punctuation mark is the semicolon.
Bright Yuan
Bright Yuan is a PhD student in the history department. She specializes in U.S. history, with research interests in immigration, Asian American history, and women's history. Bright received a BA with a double major in English and history from Dartmouth College, where she tutored at the Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology. She also spent a term at Trinity College, Dublin, where she studied Irish literature. In her free time, Bright enjoys puns and photography. Her favorite punctuation mark is the ampersamp.
