Tierney S. Powell is Assistant Professor of Literature in the Department of English. Her current book project argues that contemporary literature, television, and film theorize and imagine alternatives to logistics, the spatial practice and organizational logic undergirding intensifying global commodity chains and the fossil economies that fuel them. Some of this research appears in the American Book Review special issue on “Supply Chains” (2025). Powell’s scholarship on logistics extends from her research and teaching examining the afterlives of enslavement and colonial extraction in narratives of global cities. Her work on Joy Harjo’s poem “New Orleans” appears in Voices and Visions: Essays on New Orleans's Literary History (University Press of Mississippi 2025). Powell earned her PhD in English from University of Illinois Chicago. Wenxin Zhao is a graphic designer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist whose research and creative practice explore how visual communication can construct and communicate human narratives. Born and raised in China, Zhao investigates the intersection of design, lived experience, and cultural context, with particular interest in
how visual forms can make complex human experiences more visible and accessible. Her practice encompasses graphic design, data visualization, printmaking, photography, bookmaking, textile design, installation, and video. Zhao holds a BA in Visual Communication and an MFA in Graphic Design and Visual Experience from the Savannah College of Art and Design.