Faculty Directory
M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Texas State University; M.A. in English, Kansas State University; B.S. in English, Emporia State University Cecily Brunelli, a native Wyomingite, teaches primarily composition and technical writing. She feels fortunate to have a position where she gets to interact with first-generation college students every day as her grandparents came through Ellis Island from Italy, with nothing but a suitcase, a baby, and the determination to start a new life working in the tent cities of Colorado’s coal and silver mines. Because of this, she was raised with phrases like, “You can be stripped of everything you own, but an education can never be taken away.” In addition to her degrees, she has done graduate coursework in Technical & Professional Communication at East Carolina University and studied Institutional Research at Penn State. She enjoys reading adventure nonfiction and traveling with her family.
M.A. in English, Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English; B.S. in Financial Management, Clemson University Jessica Dean spent most of her life making mud pies and chasing fireflies across the southeastern United States. The morning of September 11, 2001, she arrived to Speech class at Clemson University, where the students watched the towers smolder. The instructor walked in, turned off the television, and made everyone give speeches for a grade. She doesn’t remember if she walked out of class, but she definitely dropped the class the next day and enrolled at the local community college, which is how she came to discover that she wanted to teach at one someday. She began her career in corporate banking and non-profit development, then learned how to farm though apprenticeships. Her interest areas are Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry, Food Literacy, and Postcolonial studies. She enjoys cooking with wild foods and rambling through countryside by train, foot, or bike. Jessica teaches Composition and Literature courses. To her, the best part of teaching is remaining a student—the classroom is a place we learn together.
Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing, Bowling Green State University; M.A. in English, St. Cloud State University; B.A. in English, St. Cloud State University Christine Garbett grew up in Minnesota. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from St. Cloud State University in MN and after working in industry for fifteen years received her Master of Arts also from St. Cloud State. She then went to Bowling Green State University in Ohio to receive her Doctoral degree in Rhetoric and Writing. She teaches composition and literature courses. In her free time, she likes to binge watch shows on Netflix and Prime as well as do a variety of crafts.
M.A. in English, Simmons College B.A. in English, University of Massachusetts Josh hails from Boston, Massachusetts. He arrived at Western Wyoming Community College in the Fall of 2012. He earned his bachelor’s degree from University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he spent many afternoons sitting in front of Emily Dickenson’s grave, contemplating her labyrinthine verses. He then retreated to graduate school after a few aimless years in the workplace and earned his M.A. from Simmons College in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. Josh teaches composition and literature classes. Josh has taught English at many levels; from second grade to the college level and all sorts of places in between. He likes staring off at White Mountain and swimming in Flaming Gorge.
Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing with Women's Studies Certificate, Bowling Green State University; M.A. in English, Writing Track, University of Dayton; B.A. in English with Creative Writing Certificate, Kent State University Heather is a native Ohioan who has been in Rock Springs since 2010. While she’s fallen in love with the wide-open spaces and blue skies of the West, she still sometimes misses the color green. She teaches a number of classes at Western Wyoming Community College, including English Composition I and II, Women in Literature, Film Appreciation, and assorted special topics. Her research interests include multimodal composition and rhetoric, rhetorical needlework and other rhetorical craft, the use of intuition in writing, visual rhetoric, the rhetoric of popular culture, and women's rhetorical practices. All work she does in her office is accompanied by a growing collection of Funko POPs; all work she does at home is carefully supervised by two very inquisitive cats. When not teaching or researching, she enjoys video games, knitting, comic books, graphic novels, fantasy, science fiction, various fandoms, good films, and bad movies.
M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Fiction), Texas State University; M.A. in English, Kansas State University; B.A. in English with Education Certification in Secondary Schools, Colorado College Chris Propst grew up in Alaska and taught English overseas in Japan. He’s the faculty advisor for Western Wyoming Community College’s literary journal, Boars Tusk, and is also on the Visiting Writer’s committee, working to bring interesting writers and speakers to campus, such as Tobias Wolff in 2018. He enjoys writing stories, essays, poems, and sometimes publishes his work. (See his article about Rock Springs during its last boom: https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/rock-springs-wyoming.) He teaches composition, literature, and creative writing classes. When he teaches English Composition II, he often has students focus on writing and researching about “The Hero’s Journey.”
M.F.A. in Creative Writing, (Fiction), Bowling Green State University; B.A. in English, Cornell University Michelle Zuppa has been teaching college English since 2009 and is originally from Western New York. Before beginning her teaching career, she worked at the University at Buffalo as a media production specialist for the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research.