Meet Your EGSA 2025-2026 Executive Team

Lina Svadkovskaia (she/her) is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa. She holds a BA with a double Major in English and History and a Minor in Greek and Roman Studies from Carleton University. Her MA in Medieval Literature is also from Carleton. Drawing on affect and social imaginaries theories, her ongoing dissertation project examines how medieval military treatises construct and transmit ideas about warfare, heroism, embodiment, and power. Lina has served on the EGSA since 2023 and has helped plan and organize many social and academic events and graduate student conferences. Outside of academia, Lina rescues cats, rock climbs, and reads fantasy novels, hobbies that sustain her creativity and sense of adventure.

John (he/him) is a second-year PhD student and proud Medievalist, who earned his MA at the University of Ottawa and his BA at Queen’s University in Kingston. His research focuses on chivalric culture, because apparently knights, honour, and questionable decisions in armour weren’t already complicated enough. He also harbours a particular passion for Shakespeare—especially the history plays, where kings, battles, political intrigue, and an alarming amount of stabbing make for an excellent show.
Originally from Newfoundland, Jack brings a healthy dose of wit and East Coast charm to the medieval world. When he’s not contemplating chivalry or Shakespeare, he can usually be found enjoying a good pint, good company, and the questionable hospitality of his beloved cat, Joey—a magnificent feline who is, in technical terms, a chonk of the first degree.

Nafas Asgaritehrani (she/her) is a second-year PhD student in English at the University of Ottawa, specializing in nineteenth-century British literature. She holds an Honours BA in English Literature and Dramaturgy & Drama Studies and an MA in English from the University of Toronto. Her research explores how material culture shapes gendered visibility across Victorian literature and theatre, with particular attention to the ways objects, surfaces, and forms of exchange allow femininity to move across bodies, spaces, and cultural contexts. Her work brings Victorian Britain into conversation with Qajar Persia to examine the intersections of gender, aesthetics, performance, and material exchange. Beyond her academic work, Nafas writes fiction, poetry, and plays. A literature-loving Aries, she also enjoys creative projects and planning beautifully organized events.

Laura Gilron (they/them) is a second-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 (she/her) is a second-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.