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Mellon Mentors

Dr. Megan Carroll (she/her)

Megan Carroll is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, San Bernardino. She is the principal investigator for the Asexual Intimacies project, a community-based study of the families, relationships, and friendship patterns of people who experience little to no sexual attraction to any gender. She currently serves as the Secretary/Treasurer for the American Sociological Association’s Section on Sexualities, and she is the founder and organizer of the Ace/Aro Scholar Support Network, a mentorship organization that supports collaboration among scholars of asexualities and aromanticism.

MMUF Mentee: Erick Herrera 


Dr. Kaitlyn Creasy

Kaitlyn Creasy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, San Bernardino. She is the author of The Problem of Affective Nihilism in Nietzsche (Palgrave 2020). She also has articles published or forthcoming in The European Journal of Philosophy, The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Environmental Philosophy, and Philosophical Forum and has contributed to several anthologies, including the Cambridge Critical Guide to Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

MMUF Mentee: Serenity Chavez


Dr. Hareem Khan

Hareem’s current research examines the burgeoning South Asian beauty and wellness industries in Southern California, focusing on the entanglements of race, labor, authenticity, and the commodification of cultural aesthetic practices. A portion of this project appears in an edited volume on transnational migrant labor titled The Migrant’s Body published by Amsterdam University Press. Hareem has also been published in an anthology on global raciality organized by the UC Center for New Racial Studies, The Journal of Asian American Studies, Wear Your Voice digital magazine, and The New Ethnographer digital blog.

MMUF Mentee: Emma Larsen


Dr. Ryan W. Keating is a Professor of History at California State University, San Bernardino where he teaches and researches on the Civil War Era. He is the author of two books, Shades of Green: Irish Regiments, American Soldiers, and Local Communities in the Civil War Era and The Greatest Trials I Ever Had: The Civil War Letters of Margaret and Thomas Cahill as well as numerous articles on soldiers and families in the 19th century. He is currently working on two books on the experiences of Civil War veterans and war widows in the late 19th century.  Dr. Keating has held fellowships from the Illinois State Historical Society, the Libraries of the University of Wisconsin, the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War, and the United States Army Center for Military History.

MMUF Mentee Mariano Peinado


Dr. Kate Osana Simonian is an Armenian-Australian writer of essays and fiction. She hails from Sydney and completed her English PhD at Texas Tech in 2020. Her work has been published in Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Chicago Tribune, and Best Australian Stories. She has won various honors, including the Nelson Algren Award, a John Steinbeck Fellowship, and Pushcart prize. She's delighted to teach prose-writing to the students of California State University, San Bernardino.

MMUF Mentee Megan Haynes