Erin Hackathorn is the Obermann Center Director for Operations. She served as the Administrative Services Coordinator for the English Department for seven years. Erin is an active reader and vegetarian cook. A graduate of the University of Iowa, she lives in Oxford and enjoys spoiling her nephew.
Jenna assists with Obermann's communications and publicity. Previously she served as Deputy Managing Editor of The Iowa Review and as a writer for the UI College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. She has an MFA in nonfiction writing and an MA in English literature, and she lives on a blueberry farm in rural Johnson County with her husband, daughter, and two llamas.
Jennifer oversees the Center's communications and plays a major role in facilitating the programs, community engagement, and event planning. An accomplished writer, she is the author of three books, Dan Eldon: Safari as a Way of Life (Chronicle Books, 2011) being the most recent. She has curated several exhibits and co-directed two short documentaries. Jennifer is a lifelong student of yoga and teaches locally.
A Professor in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, Mangum was appointed as Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies in 2010. She is the author of Married, Middle-brow, and Militant: Sarah Grand and the New Woman Novel (1998); editor of A Cultural History of Women: Volume 5: The Age of Empire, 1800–1920 (Berg 2013); and guest editor of special issues of Philological Quarterly, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Victorian Periodicals Review, and the Journal of Aging Studies. With Anne Valk of Brown University, she co-edits the book series Humanities and Public Life for the University of Iowa Press. A full bio appears at https://obermann.uiowa.edu/people/teresa-mangum.
Torie Burns is a PhD candidate studying American literature from 1900 to the present. Her interests include memoirs, food studies, and embodiment. Prior to attending Iowa's program, she earned a BA in English and Psychology at Duke University and worked at Vanderbilt University's business school. She teaches a food-focused Rhetoric course and previously worked as a TA for Foundations of the English Major.