Meet the current Officers of the OWCA Executive Board. You can contact the Board at board@onlinewritingcenters.org.
Megan Boeshart Burelle, President
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2024, followed by 1-year term as Immediate Past President
Megan Boeshart Burelle is the President of the OWCA. She currently directs the Old Dominion University Writing Center. She began working in writing centers as an undergraduate writing consultant at Ohio State University-Newark in 2010. She is currently working on her PhD in English and working on a dissertation about tutor training for asynchronous screencast tutoring. Her research interests include online tutoring, tutor training, and graduate writing support.
Jenelle M. Dembsey, Immediate Past President
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023
Jenelle M. Dembsey is the Immediate Past President of the OWCA. She has been involved in online writing support and online learning since 2012. She currently works as the Manager for Online Learning at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). She has experience managing the day-to-day operations of online writing centers, leading online consultant training, and designing online writing support programs from scratch, including a program for an institutional review board.
Oluwayinka Arawomo, Vice President
Length of term: July 2023 to December 2024
Oluwayinka Arawomo is the Vice President of the OWCA. She is the past TA assistant director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center. She is currently a 6th year PhD candidate in the Department of English (Composition and Rhetoric program) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught first year composition for four years and supported her students in the writing classroom and one-to-one tutoring in the writing center. Her research interests include online writing support groups for female graduate students, digital writing and rhetoric, Nigerian women’s discourses in digital spaces, and African Feminism.
Beth Nastachowski, Founding Secretary
Length of term: October 2020 to December 2023
Beth Nastachowski was a co-founder of the Online Writing Centers Community and is now an Incorporator and Founding Secretary of OWCA. She has worked in writing centers since she began tutoring as an undergraduate student. She worked at the Walden University Writing Center for 12 years and is currently the Director of Training & Development for TIVC. She has particular experience and interest in how writing centers can support writers through webinars, videos, and interactive instruction; accessibility within the writing center; and how writing centers can engage in social issues.
Assistant Secretary
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023, followed by 1-year term as Secretary
Elle Tyson, Founding Treasurer
Length of term: October 2020 to December 2023
Elle Tyson became a Coordinator for the Online Writing Centers Community in 2020 and is now an Incorporator and Founding Treasurer of OWCA. She worked as both a graduate assistant tutor and a professional tutor while earning an MA in applied linguistics with an emphasis in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) at Old Dominion University (ODU). She is working on a PhD in English and is the Assistant Director for ePortfolio & Digital Initiatives at ODU, overseeing the daily operations and tutor training for a digital composition tutoring center, ODU’s ePortfolio Studio. Her current research focuses on best practices for online tutoring, specifically asynchronous video/screencast feedback. She is also interested in exploring XR for tutor training.
Jaclyn Henegar, Assistant Treasurer
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023, followed by 1-year term as Treasurer
Jaclyn Henegar is the current Assistant Treasurer of the OWCA. She began working in writing centers as an undergraduate tutor in 2015, and worked as a graduate assistant writing center tutor at the Old Dominion University (ODU) Writing Center from 2018-2020. She is currently working on her PhD in English at ODU, studying both Native American and Indigenous literatures and cultural studies, and writing center rhetoric and composition. Her current research interests include Native feminisms, community writing centers, and counterstory composition in the freshman writing classroom.
Kerry Brackett, Diversity & Social Justice Chair
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023
Kerry D. Brackett is the Diversity & Social Justice Chair for the Online Writing Center Association. A proud Navy veteran, Dr. Brackett is an Assistant Professor of English and the Writing Center Director at Miles College. He received his bachelors degree from Berea College and his Master of Arts degree from Southern New Hampshire University. He completed his doctorate degree in Higher Education Administration at Liberty University. He also serves as the advisor for the Golden Word Movement, the official poetry club of Miles College. He is the author of three poetry chapbooks and has won multiple awards as a performance poet. His research interests are the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and spoken word poetry. He is also proud to serve as the NCTE Liasion for the Association of College English Teachers in Alabama.
Colton Wansitler, Diversity & Social Justice Co-Chair
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023, followed by 1-year as Diversity & Social Justice Chair
Colton Wansitler (he/him) is the Diversity & Social Justice Co-Chair of the Online Writing Center Association (OWCA). He is currently the Writing Center Coordinator at the College of Lake County. He began his writing center career as a graduate consultant at the Michigan State University (MSU) Writing Center in 2014. In May 2021, he graduated from MSU with his Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance and a Master of Arts in Administration. His current research interests include Queer Theory/Time and DEI practices in the writing center. In addition to his role at OWCA, he also holds a board position for the East Central Writing Centers Association.
Madelyn Carroll, Accessibility Chair
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023
Madelyn Carroll (she/her) is the Chair of the Accessibility Committee. She taught Freshman English and worked as a tutor and tutor coordinator at Rowan University, where she also got her BA and MA in Writing. She is currently working towards her PhD in Composition and Applied Linguistics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she also currently tutors in the Jones White Writing Center, is a graduate assistant with the Writing Across the Curriculum program, and severs as the Social Events Coordinator for the Composition and TESOL Association. Her research focuses on equity in the composition classroom and the writing center.
Danette Bartelmay, Accessibility Co-Chair
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023, followed by 1-year as Accessibility Chair
Danette Bartelmay (she/her) is the Accessibility Committee Co-Chair. She is a professional writing consultant and tutor trainer for the Academic Support Center and Studio Writing Center at Illinois Central College. She primarily works in the online environment. She has developed training materials for working with ELL students and hosting conversation partners sessions with ELL students. She has a zest for working with neurodivergent students. Danette is currently seeking her BA in English at ASU. In her spare time, she enjoys writing poetry, knitting, and walking her dogs.
Priscilla Cruz, Student Representative
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023 (term can be renewed)
I am Priscilla Cruz, a student at California State University San Marcos. I am a Criminal and
Social Justice major and I’m in my sophomore year. I have been a tutor at the Writing Center at
California State University San Marcos for almost a year now and I enjoy helping others with
their writing needs. I find joy in helping others find joy in writing and helping them learn about
different components of writing. I decided I wanted to be the student representative for the
OWCA because I want to be able to speak from the student perspective to better help writing
centers and writing support. It can be difficult to help students when the concerns or needs are
not known, which is why I wanted to represent the students in order to help more students with
their writing needs.
Erika Maikish, Conference Chair
Length of term: June 2023 to June 2024
Erika Maikish is the Conference Co-Chair of the OWCA. She earned a M.A. in English alongside a graduate certificate in teaching writing and composition from SUNY Stony Brook. For over ten years, she has worked extensively within writing centers as a peer tutor, faculty specialist, and director in addition to teaching rhetoric and composition to undergraduate and graduate students. After over four years at New York Medical College expanding her repertoire to include STEM writing and tutoring programs, Erika has recently joined Drew University as their new Writing Center Director. In her free time, Erika snuggles with her rescue dog and teaches aerial hammock/hoop.
Spencer Harrison, Conference Co-Chair
Length of term: June 2023 to June 2024, followed by 1-year term as Conference Chair
Spencer Harrison is the Conference Co-Chair of the OWCA. For the 2023-2024 academic year, Spencer is serving as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Kazakhstan. From 2019-2020, he taught American literature and composition at Boricua College. Spencer served, from 2017-2019 as a New York City teaching fellow and received an MS in Secondary Mathematics Education from St. John’s University. At the University of Illinois at Chicago, he taught first year composition, worked in the Writing Center, and received an MA in English with a focus on creative writing. At Pitzer College, Spencer received a BA in English and is where he first started working as a peer writing tutor. Spencer has presented at the IWCA, EWCA, MENAWCA, IWCA Collaborative, and CCCC conferences. He also participated in the EWCA’s 2023 Summer Institute in Armenia. Spencer’s research interests include internationalizing the Writing Center, multimodal composition, translingualism, code-meshing, synthesizing national academic composition traditions, and working in international and multilingual contexts.
Bri Lafond, Virtual Events Chair
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023
Bri Lafond (she/her) is the Virtual Events Co-Chair of the OWCA. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she is affiliated with the Center for Writing Studies and the campus writing center, the Writers Workshop. Her research interests include online writing centers, social media platforms, video essays, and multimodality.
Xin Chen, Virtual Events Co-Chair
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2023, followed by 1-year term as Virtual Events Chair
Dr. Xin Chen is the Virtual Events Co-Chair of the OWCA. She received her Ph.D. in Literacy, Culture, and Language Education and holds a Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language & English as a Second Language. Currently, she teaches business writing and presentations at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University Bloomington (IUB). Before that, she taught writing courses in the English Department and served as the assistant coordinator of the Multilingual Writing program at IUB. Xin had studied and worked in diverse environments in different countries. Her research focuses on intercultural communication and multilingual students’ development of academic literacy.
Amanda Tomanek, Website Coordinator
Length of term: January 2022 to December 2023 (term can be renewed)
Amanda Tomanek (she/they) is a website coordinator for the OWCA. She began working as a student assistant in an ESL computer lab on her undergraduate campus, where her love for peer tutoring began. Amanda received a master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Teachers College, Columbia University, and spent nearly 5 years teaching EFL and academic literacy at universities in Japan. She is currently the Associate Director of Learning and Tutoring Services for Writing Support at California State University San Marcos, which has provided online writing support since fall 2019. Her research interests include equitable practices for multilingual, undocumented, and first-generation college students.
Daniel Scharf, Website Coordinator
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2024 (term can be renewed)
Daniel Scharf (he/him) is a website coordinator for the OWCA. He started his career in education teaching English for several years in Germany. He later obtained an MA in TESOL from Portland state University where he worked as an English tutor in the Intensive English Language Program (IELP) there. Daniel then taught at a university in Japan for several years where he was a co-founder of a peer writing center. He is now changing careers out of higher education and is moving on to programming. Daniel hopes to combine his programming skills with his experience in tutoring and education to help students and teachers alike.
Grant Coordinator
Length of term: March 2022 to December 2023 (term can be renewed)
Brian Harrell, Outreach Coordinator
Length of term: January 2023 to December 2024 (term can be renewed)
Brian Harrell is the Outreach Coordinator for OWCA and is the Writing Center Specialist at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED). Brian established the NEOMED Writing Center as a campus initiatives pilot program in February of 2022. Brian is active in IWCA, NCTE, CCCC, and TYCA. Brian has worked in online education as a FYC instructor at several universities, including the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay where he currently teaches asynchronous composition and professional writing courses. Brian has worked in higher education since 2011. Brian is interested in asynchronous, online writing center work as it pertains to medical, pharmacy, and dental students and the high stakes writing they must complete for residency, as well as supporting graduate students in writing their theses and dissertations.