young man with longish brown hair wearing glasses and green shirt in front of gray wall

Jordan Barger

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, English
jordan-barger@uiowa.edu
woman with dark shoulder length hair standing in front of gray wall

Madison Beauchamp

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate TA in French
madison-beauchamp@uiowa.edu
 

Amy Benfer

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Rights and Permissions Manager, University of Iowa Press
amy-benfer@uiowa.edu
young woman with glasses and long blondish hair standing in front of gray wall

Elise Bickford

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, German
elise-bickford@uiowa.edu
 

Claire Breger-Belsky

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
claire-breger-belsky@uiowa.edu

Claire Breger-Belsky graduated from Stanford University in Spring 2020 with a BA in theater and performance studies—their undergraduate thesis focused on Yiddish theatre—and a minor in translation studies. They currently translate from Spanish and hope to eventually work in Yiddish and Ladino as well.

 

Reid Dempsey

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
reid-dempsey@uiowa.edu
 

Eylul Doganay

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Iowa Arts Fellow
eylul-doganay@uiowa.edu
Eirill Falck

Eirill Falck

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Iowa Arts Fellow
eirill-falck@uiowa.edu
 

Jacob (Jake) Goldwasser

Graduate Student, Certificate in Literary Translation
jake-goldwasser@uiowa.edu
young woman with long brown hair in front of gray wall

Emily Graham

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Rhetoric
emily-a-graham@uiowa.edu
woman with mid length brown hair in front of white wall

Abigail Haber

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, French
abigail-haber@uiowa.edu
 

Mirgul Isherwood

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
mirgul-isherwood@uiowa.edu

Mirgul Kali translates from her native Kazakh. Her translations of short stories by classic and contemporary Kazakh authors appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Electric Literature, Exchanges, The Massachusetts Review, and other publications. She is a recipient of the 2018-2019 American Literary Translators Association's Emerging Translator Mentorship and co-founder of Turkoslavia, a collective of translators working from Turkic and Slavic languages.

young woman with shoulder length brown hair and light gray shirt, wearing glasses,standing in front of gray wall

Ara Javaheri

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Iowa Arts Fellow
ara-javaheri@uiowa.edu
young woman with brown hair and glasses, wearing a pink shirt in front of gray wall

Ani Jilavyan

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Assistant, Center for Language and Culture Learning
ani-jilavyan@uiowa.edu
 

Hurmat Kazmi

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, English
Anna Magavern

Anna Magavern

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, French
anna-magavern@uiowa.edu

Anna Magavern graduated from Brown University with a BA with Honors in Comparative Literature, spending a semester studying literature at Université Paris 8. She translates poetry and prose from French. Currently, she is particularly interested in works associated with Surrealism.

Thomas Mira y Lopez

Thomas Mira y Lopez

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Rhetoric
thomas-miraylopez@uiowa.edu

Thomas Mira y Lopez is the author of The Book of Resting Places (Counterpoint Press, 2017). He holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Arizona and is an editor of Territory, a literary project about maps, as well as a fiction editor at DIAGRAM. He translates from Brazilian Portuguese and is originally from New York.

 

Grace Najmulski

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Iowa Arts Fellow
grace-najmulski@uiowa.edu

Grace translates from Mandarin (simplified and traditional characters) and Japanese. They obtained their BA in Chinese Language and Literature and Japanese Studies from Middlebury College in spring 2021. While there, Grace translated three short stories from the late Chinese-American author Yu Lihua for their thesis, and then a short story of Yoko Ogawa's under the instruction of Stephen Snyder. She's mostly interested in fiction. Hobbies include eating sweets, reading, sleeping, and taking pictures of their cat. 

young man with short brown hair standing in front of grey wall, wearing white shirt

Nikola (Nicky) Nenkov

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Rhetoric
nicky-nenkov@uiowa.edu
man in black shirt, sitting at desk, brown hair, smiling

Khaled Rajeh

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Arabic
khaled-rajeh@uiowa.edu
young man wearing red and yellow plaid button down shirt, short hair and glasses in front of gray wall

Jack Rockwell

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Rhetoric
jack-rockwell@uiowa.edu
Milena Sanabria Contreras

Milena Sanabria Contreras

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, German
milena-sanabriacontreras@uiowa.edu

I was born in Germany and grew up in Costa Rica and Berlin. I got my Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Sciences and Spanish Philology (2012), as well as a Master’s degree in Comparative Art and Literature (2016) at the University of Potsdam in Germany. For the past four years, I have been teaching German as a second language and working as a freelance translator in English, Spanish and German in Costa Rica, mostly academic work but also other projects like artists’ catalogs (Elia Arce, Valentina Murabito) and a documentary (Lifting the green Screen).

 

Nadhif Sanubari

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Assistant, World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
nadhif-sanubari@uiowa.edu
woman with short black hair wearing a green shirt in front of a gray wall

Ilie Shirin

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Translation
ilie-shirin@uiowa.edu
Vala Thoroddsdottir

Vala Thoroddsdottir

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Translation
vala-thorodds@uiowa.edu
Muhua Yang

Muhua Yang

Graduate Student, Masters of Fine Arts in Literary Translation
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Classics
muhua-yang@uiowa.edu

Muhua Yang studied Comparative Literature and Classical Languages at Harvard University, where they worked on experimental translations of exilic poetry from Ovid’s Tristia. They translate from Latin and Chinese. Their interests include film and media theory, science fiction and fantasy, the essay, Latin elegy, 21st century visual culture, and the poetics of time and space.