Current Graduate Students
Temilade Adegoke
Temilade Adegoke began her PhD program in Fall 2024, following the completion of her MA in German in Summer 2024. She also holds a BA in German Studies from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Her master’s thesis, “Confronting Memory: Multi-directionality of 20th-Century Genocides in Namibia and Germany,” examined Germany’s colonial violence in German Southwest Africa – present day Namibia. She investigated the politics of memory and its contemporary discourses surrounding what historians identify as the “first genocide of the twentieth century.”
Her current research engages with questions of Heimat, Zugehörigkeit, and belonging within migration discourse, with a particular focus on the African diaspora in Germany. She is especially interested in how colonial histories are contested, remembered, and renegotiated in contemporary migration debates.
Charlene Coutteau
Charlene Coutteau is in her final year of the German MA program at Michigan State University. She completed a Bachelor of Science with a double-major in German and Defense and Strategic Studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Most recently, she attended a 7-week summer language immersion course at Middlebury University in Vermont. Her research focuses on designing a language teaching curriculum to help foster interoperability between US military German speakers and the German military.
Andrew Drumheller
Andrew Drumheller is a PhD student in German Studies. He received his Bachelor’s degree in both German and Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience (BCN) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and MS in Neuroscience from Central Michigan University. His interests are split between the history and philosophy of science, cultural memory, and the role that they play in the understanding of oneself and reality. Related interests include the linguistic register of science across time and applying critical theory to the philosophy of science and cultural memory.
Olivia Guy
Olivia Guy is in her first year of the German Studies PhD program at MSU. She has previously earned her MA in the same program in 2023 and has since been working as an academic advisor for exploratory students at MSU. Olivia earned her BA in German and Education at Albion College where she studied abroad in Heidelberg, Germany. She has taught German at MSU, Macomb Community College, and a children’s community language school. Olivia’s research interests include second language learning, education abroad, and creative writing pedagogies.
Jared Maul
Jared Maul started the Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2021. He currently has a Max Kade fellowship shadowing a German literature and culture course with professor Mittman. His current academic interests center around the people and products of the former German Democratic Republic. Additionally, Jared is studying digital humanities and their application in the classroom and for research. He is also exploring museum studies.
After his BA at Central Michigan University, Jared taught German and robotics to high school students for over eight years. During that time, he obtained his master’s degree in German studies at Middlebury College. Before coming to MSU he also worked as a language engineer, refining language data for German natural language processing models, and as a training consultant for a microchip manufacturer.
Johanna Morris
Johanna Morris is in her third year of the German Studies PhD program, also pursuing a certificate in Global Studies. She received her BA in Linguistics and English from the University of Stuttgart, Germany and her MA in German Studies from Portland State University in Oregon. She has been teaching German at the university level for five years. Her research focuses on the translation of violent memories across space, time, and generations in contemporary German literature. She explores the intersection of literature and history and the role of memory, literature, and the archive in keeping the past accessible as well as the contribution of literature in promoting understanding and creating connections between people across generations and beyond the nation-state.
Nolan Rachocki
Nolan Rachocki joined the German MA program in Spring 2023 as a BA-MA student after completing undergraduate degrees in German and International Relations at MSU. His academic interests center on international education and student mobility, with a particular focus on the role of German-speaking countries in shaping academic exchanges and joint-degree programs between Europe and the U.S.
He has participated in several transatlantic exchange programs, including the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX), the Academic Year in Freiburg (AYF), and the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. In addition, he brings professional experience from various on-campus positions as well as international education organizations, language education companies, and Swiss secondary schools.
Mary Ellen Rutemeyer
Mary Ellen Rutemeyer started the PhD program in German Studies in Fall 2020. She received her BA in History from East Tennessee State University and her MA in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Ohio State University. After receiving her MA, she taught German for 3 years in Madison, Wisconsin. She has taught German at the university level and to adults at a community language school. At MSU, her research, coursework, and projects focus on language teaching and learning. More specifically, her current research focuses on language learner agency as well as multilingualism in the language classroom.
Helena Stech
Helena Stech joined the German Studies PhD program in Spring 2022. She received her BA in Education at Humboldt University of Berlin, where she received a scholarship to study and teach German at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. After her return to Germany, Helena started teaching German as a second language to adult learners at language schools and companies in Germany for six years. At MSU, Helena’s work focuses second language and culture teaching, especially in the context of education abroad. Currently, she is developing preparatory online learning modules for students who are interested in going abroad to German-speaking communities.
Graduate Student Projects & Careers
Recent PhDs
Melissa Elliot (2020) is an Assistant Professor of German and German Studies at Wheaton College. While writing her dissertation, Melissa taught German language and culture at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. Her dissertation – “Forgotten Notes: Narrative Film Music in East German Cinema” – focused on the role of music in DEFA cinema as a means of expression in East Germany. She is more broadly interested in how music functions in film adaptations of novels to comment upon and further interpret the source text, which she addresses in her article, “No Need for Words: The Role of Music in Volker Schlöndorff’s Der junge Törleß” in Literature/Film Quarterly.
Carly M. Lesoski (2019) is the Learning Innovation Program Manager in the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning. She has also worked as a Subject Matter Expert in German at Michigan Virtual and as an E-Learning Specialist in the Office for Teaching & Learning at Wayne State University. (Diss: Identity and Capital During Telecollaborative Exchanges in the German Language Classroom)
Anne von Petersdorff (2018) completed her degree with a focus on film and Digital Humanities. Her hybrid dissertation project integrates a written dissertation – “Unexpected Journeys: At the Crossroads of Collaborative Filmmaking and Feminist Scholarship” – with Wanderlust: cuerpos en tránsito, a feature-length, collaborative documentary film with theoretical and historical treatment of German feminist filmmaking. She is currently traveling with the film to various borderlands and entering into new discussions about human mobility and the use of technology, and establishing a home base for her next creative and scholarly projects in Europe.
Susan Hojnacki (2018) teaches German, Language Acquisition/Teaching, and Educational Technology at Aquinas College. Her research interests revolve around the role of technology in second language acquisition, the effect of oral output on learner proficiency in second language learning, the influence of linguistic tendencies on online speech in German, and curriculum development in modern language programs. Her dissertation, “The Flipped Classroom in Introductory Foreign Language Learning,” was based on data collected in her own teaching practice.
Matthew Sikarskie (2014) has taught courses at Western Michigan University and at MSU; he is currently Adjunct Professor of German at Grand Rapids Community College. (Diss.: “Bored With Boredom: Engaging Modernity in Wilhelmine Wandervogel and West German Punk Subcultures”)
Magelone Bollen (2013) has worked as Research Associate at MSU and taught German courses at both Hillsdale College and MSU. (Diss.: “„Urtheil und ein schönes Lied”: Das Armesünderblatt (1750-1820)”)
Stephen Naumann (2012) is Associate Professor at Hillsdale College (Diss.: “In Sight but out of Mind: The Construction of Memory at Three Once Stigmatized Sites in Berlin and Poznan”)
Theresa Schenker (2012) is Senior Lector II and Language Program Director of German at Yale University. She has served as co-editor of Die Unterrichtspraxis, the leading journal of German language and culture pedagogy in the US. (Diss.: “The Effects of a Virtual Exchange on Language Skills and Intercultural Competence”)
Angelika Kraemer (2008) is Director of the Language Resource Center at Cornell University. She has served as co-editor of Die Unterrichtspraxis, the leading journal of German language and culture pedagogy in the US. (Diss: “Engaging the Foreign Language Learner: Using Hybrid Instruction to Bridge the Language-Literature Gap”)
Recent MA Graduates
Several of our recent MA students, including Dan Nemeth (2021), Abigail Schmid (2021), Leonie Hintze (2020), Amelia Stieren (2020), Christian Olias (2019), Kathryn Roche (2015), Adam Orange (2014), Scott Casey (2013), and Emily Thomas (2012), are teaching in a variety of school settings in Germany and in the US; others went on to pursue advanced degrees at other institutions: Kate Schaller (2015) is currently pursuing a PhD in German Studies at Vanderbilt University; Matt Sherman (2011) received his PhD in German at the University of Texas, Austin; Chad Bousley (2016) has completed an MA in TESOL at Michigan State and went on to teach in the Czech Republic; Dan Walter (2011) completed a PhD in Second Language Acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University and now a tenured professor at Emory University’s Oxford College.
Yet others are employed in non-teaching positions in institutions of higher ed: Kelsey Fedewa (2014) is International Student Coordinator in the Office of International Programs at Kettering University; Kathryn Klimczak (2013) is Administrative Coordinator at Fraunhofer USA at Michigan State University. Kylia Kelley (2011) works as a translator for the auto industry in the Greater Detroit area. Following a stint as manager of Moosejaw Mountaineering in Boulder, CO, where she enjoyed serving many German tourist clients, Hanna O’Neill (2013) currently works as a buyer for Moosejaw at the corporate level in Madison Heights, MI.
Recent MA Projects
- Christian Olias (2019) created teaching materials for an undergraduate German language and culture course that also provided a theoretical and practical framework for incorporating a graphic novel in the undergraduate curriculum.
- Kristen Naharodny (2019) developed a German Language Program for Teenage High School Refugees and Immigrants in Germany.
Recent MA Theses
- Amelia Stieren (2020), To Translate a Life: Understanding the Holocaust through Autobiographical Stories
- Jenny Gohlke-Wickey (2017), “Tell me about Auschwitz”: Changing Forms and Perceptions of Holocaust Testimony
- Krsna Santos (2016), From Ghetto to Goethe: German Rappers of Color Claiming their Space in the Nation
Abigail Schmid
Abigail Schmid is a second-year student in the MA program. During her first year, Abigail worked as a Teaching Assistant for the 101-102 German courses and enjoyed standing in front of the classroom for the first time. Abigail graduated from MSU in 2019 with BAs in Arts & Humanities and German, and a minor in Fiction Filmmaking. Throughout her undergraduate studies, Abigail enjoyed several study abroad opportunities including a semester at the Friedrich Schiller Universität in Jena, and a summer in London and Edinburgh with the MSU film program. She enjoys the creative freedom offered by the German program and looks for new opportunities to integrate her other artistic passions. She loves the communicative powers that the arts have and enjoys sharing them with others. Abigail is currently a Research Assistant with the Undergraduate German Program.
Dan Nemeth
Dan Nemeth is a second-year student in the MA program. He graduated from MSU in May 2019 with a BA in Political Science and German with a minor in Global Studies in Social Sciences. During his undergraduate studies, Dan had the opportunity to spend his junior year abroad in Freiburg, Germany and complete an internship at the independent research organization Arnold Bergstraesser Institute. After his year abroad, he applied to the dual BA/MA German program, which allows undergraduates to complete coursework towards a master’s degree before obtaining their bachelor’s and earned nine credits towards his MA in German Studies. In his time at MSU, he has also participated in several projects with the Graphic Narratives Network working on the digitization of works within the MSU Special Collections. His current academic interests lie in German political identity and expression, as well as graphic narratives and their intersections with the digital. In his free time, Dan enjoys camping, hiking, coffee, skateboarding, and photography. Dan is currently a Max Kade Fellow in a 400-level German course.
Christopher Fleming
Christopher Fleming is in the first year of his M.A. program in German Studies. He graduated with a B.A. in Arabic and German (dual major) from MSU in 2014 and has just recently rejoined the academic world. He is a passionate language learner and former teacher with several years of experience teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in his native Metro Detroit. His primary focus as a master’s student is enhancing his teaching skills, continuing to improve his language abilities, and finding new and innovative ways to accelerate students’ acquisition of target languages inside and outside of the classroom. Chris(topher) is currently serving as a graduate coordinator at the Writing Center @ MSU, where he helps students seeking to enhance their writing capabilities.
Leonie Hintze
Leonie Hintze completed her teaching degree (Staatsexamen) in Germany and has extensive experience in teaching at the elementary school level and school administration. She is finishing her MA while gaining theoretical and practical experience in teaching German as a foreign language with a special focus in the field of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Her primary interest is the intersection from Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Methods, with emphasis on task based or project based language learning as an alternative to using textbooks.