Meet the current Officers of the OWCA Executive Board. You can contact the Board at board@onlinewritingcenters.org.
Oluwayinka Arawomo, President
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2026, followed by 1-year term as Immediate Past President
Oluwayinka Arawomo is the President of the OWCA. In August 2024, she began her professional career at Millikin University as an Assistant Professor of Writing and Director of the Writing Center, following the completion of her PhD in English (Composition and Rhetoric) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in July 2024. Currently at Millikin, she teaches first-year writing and advanced writing courses. Both in her roles as instructor and director, she is passionate about excellent teaching and enhancing a vibrant writing culture through collaborations and meaningful dialogues. 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. Dr. Arawomo’s approach to writing is holistic, combining writing theory and practice with wellness, time management, and strategic productivity. She pays attention to the whole writer, recognizing the importance of both skills and personal well-being in the writing process. She offers writing support to individuals, groups, and at the institutional level.
Vacant, Vice President
Length of term: 2 years, followed by 2 years as President
Megan Boeshart Burelle, Immediate Past President
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025
Megan Boeshart Burelle is the Immediate Past 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.
Lisa Chou, Secretary
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025
Lisa Chou is the Secretary of the OWCA. She has been the Online Writing Lab Coordinator at Academy of Art University for the past 12 years. With over 20 years of English language teaching and tutoring experience, Lisa has worked in university, intensive pre-university, community college, business, social service, and online settings. She has a B.A. in Psychology from UC Berkeley and an M.A. in English (TESOL) from San Francisco State University, where she also earned a Graduate Certificate in Teaching Composition. Lisa is bicultural and bilingual in Chinese and has taught English in China. She is a contributing author to the revised anthology, The Content-Based Classroom: Perspectives on Integrating Language and Content.
Madeline Crozier Sutton, Assistant Secretary
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025, followed by 1-year term as Secretary
Madeline Crozier Sutton is Assistant Secretary of the OWCA. In July 2025, she joined Duke University as Assistant Professor of the Practice of Writing Studies and Assistant Director of the Thompson Writing Program Writing Studio. She earned her PhD in English (Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics) from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) in May 2025. At UTK, Madeline worked as an Assistant Director of First-Year Composition and a Graduate Assistant Director of the Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center. Her research interests include composition pedagogy, equitable assessment, writing center administration, and writing pedagogy education. She began working in writing centers as an undergraduate writing consultant at DePaul University in 2017.
Elle Tyson, Treasurer
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025
Nicholas Valley, Assistant Treasurer
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025, followed by 1-year term as Treasurer
Pallavi Mittra, Diversity & Social Justice Chair
Length of term: 1 year
Pallavi is an Academic Coach at the Academic Success Center at National University. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Calcutta (India), a M.S. in Management, a M.Res. in Research Methodology, and a Ph.D. in Organization Behavior from the University of Strathclyde (U.K.). Pallavi has presented her research at several international conferences and received a best paper award from the British Academy of Management. For the past 12 years, she has taught undergraduate students and taken an inquiry-based approach to coaching school students in writing skills and extensively developed multimodal learning content across diverse topics for varied audiences. In her current role, she assists unconventional learners pursuing graduate studies to understand the intricacies of academic writing and find their unique critical voice as scholars-in-making.
Whitney Jordan Adams, Diversity & Social Justice Co-Chair
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025, followed by 1-year term as Diversity & Social Justice Chair
Dr. Whitney Jordan Adams is an Assistant Professor of English, Rhetoric, and Writing at Berry College. She studies the rhetorical construction of white supremacy, focusing on the rhetorics of the alt-right, far-right, accelerationism, and techno-authoritarianism. She also researches violence in digital spaces. Additionally, she is interested in discourse production and teaching students the importance of critical
thinking and community building. Her interests and expertise also span writing centers, writing across the curriculum, and communication across the curriculum.
Her work has appeared in numerous edited collections, including the recent Confronting Toxic Rhetoric: Writing Teachers’ Experiences of Rupture, Resistance, and Resilience and the forthcoming Rhetorics of Southern Place: Contemporary Memoirs and Analyses. She has also been published in The Journal of the Kenneth Burke Society, Papers in Arts and Humanities, and Govor.
Dr. Adams is also a member of the advisory board for the International Rhetoric Workshop and serves as an associate editor for CompPile, part of the WAC Clearinghouse. She recently earned her MBA from Berry College and aspires to open a local business one day.
Jillian Custodi, Accessibility Chair
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025
Vacant, Accessibility Co-Chair
Length of term: 1 year, followed by 1-year as Accessibility Chair
Jarrett Taylor, Student Representative
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025 (term can be renewed)
Jarrett Taylor is a student representative for the OWCA. For many years, he has presented at various writing and tutoring conferences, where he mainly discusses on the correlations between tutoring and technology.Vacant, Student Representative
Length of term: 1 year (term can be renewed)
Jennifer Torres, Conference Chair
Length of term: January 2025 to May 2026
Jennifer (Jenny) Torres is the OWCA 2025 Conference Chair. Jenny is currently a third year PhD Rhetoric and Composition student at the University of Illinois Chicago. She primarily teaches in the first year writing program and is a supervisor at the UIC Writing Center. Her research interests focus on methods of argumentation stemming from the sophistic practice of antilogic from Ancient Greece. She’s currently a teaching assistant for UIC’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence and assists in designing, promoting, and facilitating training workshops and webinars on teaching strategies and techniques for UIC instructors. Jenny received her Bachelor’s degree in English and Psychology and her Master’s degree in English with a focus on Rhetoric and Composition, both from UIC.
Vacant, Conference Co-Chair
Length of term: January 2025 to May 2026, followed by 1-year term as Conference Chair
Elizabeth Taylor, Virtual Events Chair
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025
Dr. Taylor is an Academic Advising Dean at the University of Virginia, she was formerly the Director of Academic Success and Assistant History Professor at Miles College, a HBCU located within the Birmingham metropolitan area. In this position she oversaw the Center for Teaching and Learning, Academic Recovery Program. Early Alert Program, Peer Tutoring and Academic Support Services across campus. She was previously employed at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA as the Supplemental Instruction Coordinator, where she also received her doctorate in History. Her current research focuses on the retention of high-risk populations, with a particular focus on academic recovery and success at HBCUs.
Alanna Bitzel, Virtual Events Co-Chair
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2025, followed by 1-year term as Virtual Events Chair
Alanna Bitzel has worked in writing centers since 2003. She currently serves as the Assistant Director of the Writing Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Prior to joining UNLV in summer 2024, she oversaw the writing program in Athletics Student Services at The University of Texas at Austin for 13 years. Alanna is the Tutor Talks Representative for the South Central Writing Centers Association and Secretary of the Rocky Mountain Writing Centers Association. She is also a member of the Editorial Review Board for Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, and she has served on both OWCA’s Virtual Events Committee as well as the Accessibility Committee. Alanna’s writing center areas of interests include outreach initiatives, campus and community collaborations, and tutor professional development.
Amanda Tomanek, Website Coordinator
Length of term: January 2024 to December 2025
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. After returning from Japan, she worked as support staff in the California State University San Marcos Writing Center, which has provided online writing support since fall 2019, and later held the position of Associate Director of Learning and Tutoring Services for Writing Support. She is currently an ESOL instructor in the Portland Community College system and an academic coach for high school and college students with executive function challenges. Her research interests include equitable practices for multilingual, undocumented, and first-generation college students.
Heather Touet, Website Coordinator
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2026 (term can be renewed)
Heather Touet (she/her) is a Learning Services instructor on Treaty 4 Territory in Regina, Saskatchewan. She teaches supplemental writing, computer, and study skills to Saskatchewan Polytechnic (Sask Polytech) students across the world. Her introduction to writing support work began as a grad student at the University of Saskatchewan where she completed her MA in English. Prior to working with Learning Services, she taught a variety of subjects as an Arts & Sciences instructor for seven years at Sask Polytech. Currently, in addition to her day-to-day work, she is a member of the Saskatchewan Academic Integrity Community of Practice and chairs the Sask Polytech Universal Design for Learning committee.
Meredith Fedewa, Website Coordinator
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2026 (term can be renewed)
Meredith Fedewa (she/her) is a Website Coordinator for OWCA. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and Secondary Education and master’s degree in English both from Grand Valley State University. Her current research topics include graduate writing methods and support services, and unique online consultation practices. Meredith is currently the Assistant Director at the Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors, where she develops graduate writing support programming, promotes and facilitates staff professional development, as well as maintains the writing center’s online presence.
Sarah Ceja, Grant Coordinator
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2026 (term can be renewed)
Sarah serves as the Grant Coordinator for the Online Writing Centers Association (OWCA) and the Graduate Writing Tutor Coordinator at UC San Diego’s Teaching and Learning Commons. She is committed to fostering accessibility and equity in writing support spaces, empowering graduate tutors, and securing funding for writing center initiatives. Sarah has worked extensively with university students to develop their writing skills both in the United States and in Mexico and hopes to continue this work in the future. As a first-generation Latina and Fulbright alumna, her experiences in writing centers and international education have shaped her dedication to inclusive learning environments. Some of her research interests include Writing Studies, Graduate Writing Support, Asset-Based Theoretical Frameworks, and Critical Literacies.
Brian Harrell, Outreach Coordinator
Length of term: January 2025 to December 2026 (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.