Campus Directory

Division Humanities Division

Department/College/Unit Literature Department

Title PhD Student, Teaching Assistant

Graduate Major Literature

Affiliation Graduate

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Graduate Studies Division

Primary Office Location Humanities Building 1
Zoom

Office Hours for Students/ Office Hours Appointment

Mail Stop Literature Department

Biography, Education and Training

Born in Garden Grove and raised in Riverside, Lena, whose first language was Vietnamese, was determined to fluently read and understand Shakespeare after years of shying away from it in high school. In university, she studied Shakespeare with Dr. Heidi Brayman and Dr. John Briggs while discovering a love for American literature and poetry with Dr. Steven Axelrod. After earning a B.A. a year early in 2021, she completed a M.Ed and taught a class of 12th graders in 2022 (she misses them so much). Although she initally applied to the PhD program at UCSC as a Shakespeare scholar, she has since become a utopian scholar with Carla Freccero's advisement and guidance. Today, Lena is working to further her utopian interests and research and aims to become a community college professor someday.

B.A. English, summa cum laude, UCR, 2021

M.Ed. Single Subject English, UCR, 2022

Summary of Expertise

Literature of the Early Modern Period

Poetry

American 19th Century Poetry

Dystopian Literature

Utopian Literature

Research Interests

American 19th Century Writers

Dystopia

Monstrosity and Otherness

Classical Texts

Paradise Lost

Shakespeare

Utopia

Teaching Interests

American 19th Century Literature

Poetry

Dystopian Literature

Utopian Literature

Awards, Honors and Grants

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award (2024)

QE Fellowship (Winter 2025)

Selected Presentations

“‘Sir–You think me ‘uncontrolled’–’: The Usage of Latin Conventions in Defiance of Gender Oppression in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Literatures Association 122th Annual Conference, San Francisco, California. 21 Nov 2025.

“‘A Song for Tituba: Conversation, Love, Marriage, and Strength in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Maryse Condé’s I, Tituba.” UC Santa Cruz Center of Monster Studies The Festival of Monsters, Santa Cruz, California. 15 Oct 2025.

“Simple Living, Loving, and Problem Solving in Frog and Toad.” Guest Lecture in LIT61N: Children’s Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz with Dr. Micah Perks.15 May 2025.