Emma Soberano, M.A., Ph.D.

Learning Experience Designer, CASCaDE, National Center for Institutional Diversity


Learning Design

I create equity-minded, engaging, and approachable resources for online adult learning. I love translating academic research into public-facing learning experiences.


Research

I bring an eco critical approach to the study of the nineteenth-century British Empire and its literary afterlives. At NCID, I help edit diversity research in preparation for publication.


Teaching

My student-centered, interdisciplinary approach recognizes differences in learning needs and pushes students to think creatively.


Writing

My academic writing and poetry have appeared in various publications, including Victorian Studies, and swamp pink.

About Emma

I serve as a Learning Experience Designer for the CASCaDE (Change Agents Shaping Campus Diversity and Equity) Project at the National Center for Institutional Diversity. In this role, I work with subject matter experts to create engaging, approachable resources for equity-minded leadership empowerment of higher education professionals. I use ideas and research from diversity scholarship to create digital learning experiences that will help change agents transform higher education.

I recently finished my doctoral studies at the department of English Language & Literature at the University of Michigan. My research is interdisciplinary, and focuses on race, colonialism, and ecological knowledge and management practices in nineteenth-century British literature, and in Neo-Victorian novels. Recently, I successfully defended my dissertation, titled “Racialized Ecologies and the Literary Afterlives of the British Empire.” I have designed and taught undergraduate courses ranging from first-year writing to an upper-level course on literature and the environment.

I am based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I live with my partner and our two cats. In my spare time I enjoy baking, hiking, rock climbing, and creative writing.

Selected Publications

Literary Studies

Detection and the Logics of Empire,” peer-reviewed lesson plan, Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom

“Heathcliff as Bog-Creature: Racialized Ecologies in Wuthering Heights,” Nineteenth-Century Contexts

“Eclectic Collaborations in Ana Tsing’s Friction and the Victorian Ecologies Classroom,” Victorian Studies

Diversity Scholarship

“THESIS Model of Change Agent Empowerment:”
Grim, J. K., Sánchez-Parkinson, L., Soberano, E.,
Williams, A., Gámez, R., Cole, E. R., Ting, M. P., Chavous, T. M.
(2023). Transforming higher education for equity, success, and inclusion of all stakeholders (THESIS): A model for change agent empowerment. University of Michigan: National Center for Institutional Diversity

Creative Writing

“Herida / Herencia,” swamp pink

Teaching

Courses designed and taught as instructor of record

English 320: Literature and the Environment: Ecological Empire
Winter 2022
Course site and syllabus HERE

English 124: Writing and Literature
Fall 2021

English 230: Introduction to the Short Story and Novel: Tracking the Detective Story
Winter 2021

English 125: Writing and Academic Inquiry
Fall 2019, Winter 2020