MEET YOUR EGSA
Lina Svadkovskaia
EGSA President
Lina Svadkovskaia (she/her) is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa, where she researches the medieval military imaginary and its literary, cultural, and affective dimensions. Her dissertation examines how medieval texts construct and transmit ideas about warfare, heroism, embodiment, and power, drawing on affect theory, cultural studies, and analyses of military treatises and narrative literature. Her work traces how fantasies of violence and martial identity move between text and audience. Outside of academia, Lina rescues cats, rock climbs, and reads fantasy novels, hobbies that sustain her creativity and sense of adventure.
Liya Izmukhanova
EGSA VP
Liya Izmukhanova is a Master's student in the Department of English. She obtained an Honours BA at the University of Toronto St. George with a specialization in English and a minor in Russian Literature. Her research interests include postcolonial and feminist theory, modernism and post-modernism, transnational literature, and creative non-fiction. In her personal time, Liya enjoys bodybuilding, dancing, cooking, and spending time in nature.
Nafas Asgaritehrani
EGSA Secretary
Nafas Asgaritehrani (she/her) is a first year PhD student and in her dissertation, she focuses on 19th century Victorian Fiction and Theatre. Through her continuous academic research in the past years, she examines how Persian and British women’s bodies were depicted by British authors in nineteenth-century literature. Furthermore, she will bridge Britain’s and Persia’s literary cultures, reevaluate established readings, and contribute to scholarship on the global nineteenth century through a focus on transnational dynamics and marginalized voices. Besides her academic journey, Nafas focuses on fiction writing, poems and plays. A lit-loving Aries who thrives on planning beautiful things — from themed parties to polished lesson layouts. Obsessed with nails, fine-line tattoos, classic novels, and cozy TV nights. Balancing PhD dreams with self-care rituals, good food, and a life that’s organized but still full of heart.
Laura Gilron
EGSA MA Representative
Laura Gilron (they/them) is a first-year MA student in English with a specialization in Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. Their undergraduate Combined Honours degree in English and Creative Writing with a minor in Classics at the University of King’s College and Dalhousie University culminated in a thesis entitled “‘Size, and shape, and composition are merely options’: the Ineffable Queerness of Good Omens”. Queer and trans theories, asexuality and aromanticism studies, disability and neurodiversity studies, and reader-response theory are their main areas of interest. Laura enjoys fandom studies and also hopes to examine how classical myth and history appear in literature. During the brief moments when they are not thinking about literature, Laura enjoys playing music and tending to their many, many plants.
Natalie Cunderlik
EGSA CUPE Representative
Natalie Cunderlik (she/her) is a first-year MA student at the University of Ottawa, where she is doing the MRP with the CO-OP option. She is the CUPE Steward for EGSA and the Financial Officer on the EGSA’s 2026 Conference Committee. Her research interests entail Victorian literature, medieval literature, psychology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and anything involving Gothic elements or the uncanny. She loves reading fantasy, drawing and painting in her spare time, getting in a good workout, and going out for coffee or bubble tea.