Film Studies Program/Department of English
Current Doctoral Students In Film
Clint Bergeson
Clint's dissertation, entitled "Environmental Cinemas," considers the various aesthetic, cultural, and ecological impacts of cinema's encounters with natural environments, specifically in the films of Jean Painlevé, Werner Herzog, and Terrence Malick. He has spent much of his time as a graduate student learning Pittsburgh's complex topography on foot. cdb16@pitt.edu
Dan Chyutin
Dan Chyutin received his BFA in film production from Tel Aviv University’s Film & TV Departmentand his
MA in cinema studies from New York University before entering the PhD track in English/Film Studies at
the University of Pittsburgh. His doctoral work focuses on contemporary Israeli cinema’s attitude
towards Jewish religion and religious identity. (An excerpt from his dissertation has been published in
the recent UT Press anthology, "Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion.") In addition to his academic
activities, Dan is also an accomplished filmmaker, whose short fiction and avant-garde films have been
screened in various festivals worldwide. dsc24@pitt.edu
Katie Bird
PhD Film Studies
Katie Bird holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Film Production and English from Loyola Marymount
University. She earned her MA in Literary and Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University. Katie’s
current research interests focus on a historiography of American film industry and exhibition practices in
the postwar and contemporary periods.
Specifically, she is interested in how art house movie theaters work with and within institutional
frameworks (universities and museums) and how these institutions determine or define consumer
behavior, niche marketing, and community. In addition to Katie’s focus on film as a site of cultural
production, she also enjoys the genres of the women’s picture and televised detective series.
KEB133@pitt.edu
Veronica Fitzpatrick
Veronica Fitzpatrick holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with specialization in Women's Studies from Michigan State University and a Master of Arts degree in Poetry from the University of Notre Dame, where she taught in the Department of Film, Television & Theatre. She has also taught with the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop. Her current research interests include modern and contemporary horror film, monstrosity, trauma and memory, queer subjectivities, and theories of space. vaf11@pitt.edu
Kevin Flanagan
Kevin holds a Master of Arts degree in English/Film Studies from North Carolina State University. His main research interests include postwar British and Irish cinema, modes of film satire, genre, and "Birmingham School" cultural studies.
Kevin's edited anthology, Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist, was published by Scarecrow Press in August 2009. When not socializing, listening to podcasts, comparing microbrews, or rambling (in the sense of walking), Kevin is ruthlessly keen on book reviews and to this end edits The Modest Proposal. His book reviews have also appeared in Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television, Scope: An Online Journal of Film & TV Studies, and The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, among others. kmf50@pitt.edu
Usha Iyer
Usha Iyer is a PhD candidate, originally from Bombay, India, where she studied literature, and mass
communication, and then did a string of jobs in filmmaking, television, journalism, and instructional
design. Her research interests include cinematic intertextuality, the use of films to reflect and create
cultural memory, and specific cinematic idioms such as the song-and-dance sequence in popular Indian
film. Her dissertation focuses on the cinematic and cultural production of dance in popular Hindi film. usi1@pitt.edu
Colleen Jankovic
Colleen is pursuing certificates in Film Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She holds a bachelor's degree in Communication and Culture from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where she also co-founded a local film grant program and festival. Her current research explores Israeli and Palestinian film and visual culture through theories of national intelligibility and queer theory. Colleen served as a teaching mentor with the Committee for the Evaluation and Advancement of Teaching at the University of Pittsburgh and has organized panels and workshops on film pedagogy, with a particular focus on the teaching of writing and film.caj18@pitt.edu
Sara McCown
Sara is originally from Northampton, Massachusetts. She completed her undergraduate degree at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, during which time she also took classes at Smith College, Amherst College, and Mt. Holyoke College as part of a consortium program. Her academic interests at the University of Pittsburgh are primarily media, celebrity, and gender studies, and her social interests include drinking good beer, eating good food, and taking advantage of the numerous museums, galleries, music venues, and theaters that the city has to offer. sem54@pitt.edu
Julie Nakama
Julie Nakama holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Her current research interests include architectural design and theory, fashion theory, and issues related to time and space in cinema. jtn8@pitt.edu
Felipe Pruneda Sentíes
Felipe, born and raised in Mexico, has been an international student for nearly eight years, first in Singapore, then in Middlebury, Vermont (where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Film and Media Culture), and now in Pittsburgh, which he loves. Felipe's main and current research interests include script studies, Latin American cinema and film theory, and the experience of foreign languages through film art—a topic he's sure has a name, but which he hasn't found yet. He is a collector of fountain pens, a theater buff, a museum dweller, and a fairly competent cook of enchiladas. fep3@pitt.edu