Lydia began teaching at Rowland Hall in 2023 after 13 years as a professor in the Department of English and Literature at Utah Valley University. At UVU she developed and taught courses in literature, film, and philosophy; served as a coordinator for the writing program; and spearheaded several justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives related to curriculum and programming. Lydia’s teaching philosophy is indebted to thinkers like Paulo Freire and bell hooks, who believed that learning must be active and that big ideas should be accessible. In 2011 she received her PhD in comparative literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she studied 20th-century literature and literary theory. Lydia is a first-generation college student from a big Nuyorican family in Queens, NY, and Miami, FL. She lives in the 9th and 9th neighborhood with her partner Levi, their dog Sweetie Baby, their cat Djuna, and a goldfish named Mucho.