Meet Our Editorial Board
Maija Brown
Maija Brown, Ph.D. is the Associate Director of Transition and Retention in the Graduate School Diversity Office (GSDO). In that capacity, she has the privilege of leading the Community of Scholars Program (COSP) and the First Year Institute, both signature programs of the GSDO. She is proud to work alongside the SPARK Editorial Board, SPARK contributors, and Graduate School staff who are committed to bringing to life the mission of SPARK by amplifying the research, experiences, and voices of COSP scholars.
John Dieck
John Dieck (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Minnesota. His research examines the onset, experience, and legacies of European colonialism in the modern Maghrib. John’s dissertation project centers Moroccan tobacco and cannabis–two economically, socially, and politically important commodities–within the history of the country’s colonization by France and Spain in the 20th century. He draws from a source base spanning the Arabic, English, French, and Spanish languages collected in Morocco, France, Spain, and the United States. Financial and logistical support come from various organizations, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, and the Centre Jacques Berque in Morocco. John has taught history courses covering the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. He actively encourages his students, particularly those that identify as BIPOC, to study, research, and participate in language immersion abroad. He is originally from Miami, Florida and is of Colombian descent.
Hannah Jo King
Hannah Jo King (they/she) is Ph.D. scholar in the Natural Resources Science and Management program at the University of Minnesota. They are committed to Black and BIPOC liberation and believe that healing our relations to both human and non-human relatives is essential to that liberation. Hannah Jo conducts social science research with Kawe Gidaa-naanaagadawendaamin Manoomin, a tribal-university collaborative to protect Manoomin/Psiŋ (Wild Rice) in the Great Lakes. They also practice and theorize in the space of Black-Native land solidarities with dissertation research on the history of all-Black townships in Oklahoma as formed through the interweavings of enslavement, Native allotments, and Black homesteading. Hannah Jo is a plant medicine nerd and farmer in training. She is a recipient of the UMN Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2024-2025) and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (2021-2024).
Risa Lama-Luther
Risa L. Lama-Luther (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate in Biological Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, specializing in the dietary ecology of both living and fossil non-human primates. Her research examines how dietary behaviors are reflected in tooth shape, with a particular focus on tooth wear patterns and their implications for understanding climatic and evolutionary adaptations of apes. Risa’s passion for fieldwork often leads her to rainforests and excavation sites, where she thrives in the hands-on aspects of her research. She is a strong advocate for inclusive science communication, striving to make anthropological and scientific knowledge more accessible to diverse communities. Risa has been honored with several awards, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, The Leakey Foundation Research Grant, and the NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant. When not conducting research or teaching, Risa is obsessed with her pup, Juniper, and loves to draw and dive into a good sci-fi novel or movie.
Zainab Thompson
Zainab Thompson (she/her) is a master’s student in the Clinical Counseling Psychology program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Her current research focuses on the utilization of horror media exposure in the treatment of anxiety. More broadly, her research interests include clinical anxiety, the use of gamification and/or fiction in behavioral intervention, Nigerian mental health and herbal medicine, the psychological mechanisms of horror, novel therapeutic interventions, and the failings of the mental health “industry.” Outside of the ivory tower of academia, Zainab is a horror author, a one-page zinester, and a surrealist pen-and-ink artist. She enjoys Nerf games and bad scary movies.
