As the 2025 fall term kicks off, the Fellowships & Writing Center (FWC) is excited to welcome new and returning students back to campus, as well as to introduce you to our cohort of postdoctoral fellows. This year’s team comprises three specialists from across the disciplinary landscapes of the University. All recent PhDs, our writing specialists bring a range of research and professional experiences to the FWC, and they are eager to share their expertise with students. The team is ready to lead writing groups, host workshops, read drafts, hold individual consultations, and critique practice presentations.
Jialu Bao
I’m Jialu (she/her) and I received my PhD from the molecules, cells, and organisms program at Harvard University. My dissertation examined the carbon dioxide system in the dengue mosquito brain, and my current work focuses on the biology behind interpersonal violence and the pedagogy of scientific and creative writing. I’ve also written several sci-fi novels, and I believe just as strongly in the power of storytelling for academic researchers. My favorite memories at the FWC so far have been the Three Minute Thesis competition, my workshop with the Academic Resource Center about neurodiverse writing strategies, and a fiction authors panel co-hosted with the Harvard Literary Fellows. In this uncertain environment, I’m excited to help graduate students communicate their science to any and all audiences, kicking off with a “Pitching Your Science” workshop at the end of September.
Josephine Reece-Stone
Hi! My name is Josephine and this is my third year at the Fellowships & Writing Center. I received my PhD from the English department at Harvard, where I wrote a dissertation on animal anecdotes in the eighteenth century. My research combines history of science, gender studies, and formal literary analysis to examine the representation of non-human animals. At the FWC, for the past two summers I have run the Article Writing Workshop, and I am excited to offer it in the fall for the first time this year. A highlight from last year was helping to put on our first Three Minute Thesis Competition. It was so wonderful to learn about all our competitors’ research and see their growth throughout the process. I’m looking forward to meeting new participants this spring! Another constant highlight for me is seeing the communities that build up around the Writing Oasis each semester. I love supporting students through their particular writing journey, whether that is keeping up with first-year coursework, writing a conference paper, or finishing the dissertation!
Stephen Shennan
I’m Steve Shennan, and I’m excited to be entering my second year at the Fellowships & Writing Center. In my scholarship, I am interested in all the ways that language, culture, and political forms intersect and diverge in ancient Rome, and particularly in the change from republic to empire. I received a PhD in ancient history from Harvard, where I wrote a dissertation examining the reign of the second emperor, Tiberius. Last year at the FWC, I loved having the opportunity to read across the incredible breadth of work that scholars at Harvard are pursuing, and it is one of the great pleasures of this job that I get to learn so much from the graduate students with whom I work. I look forward to even more discoveries in the year ahead! Among other initiatives, I also will be running a new and improved version of a workshop on abstracts that we gave last year. So much hinges on fitting the most important (and intriguing!) information into an abstract, and I want students’ work to shine in this short—and therefore difficult—format. Coming later this fall, and I hope to see some of you there!
Find our full staff bios and individual contact information on the Fellowships & Writing Center homepage.
