Meet the team

Joseph Franklin is the Writing Center Director and an Assistant Professor in the English department at City Tech. Previously, he started up and directed a writing center at the University of Southampton in England and completed a PhD in Composition and Rhetoric at the University of Louisville. His primary research is part of the global turn for writing studies, looking specifically at transnational writing program administration as a source for new knowledge. He loves the collaborative, multilingual, cross-disciplinary writing center at City Tech and continues to learn Portuguese, Arabic, and Japanese.

Annie Wang is the Writing Center Associate Director and an Adjunct Lecturer in the English department at City Tech. She is currently wrapping up a master’s degree in International Migration Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, where her research is focused on second generation Chinese American engagement in New York City’s Chinatowns. As a former undergraduate Writing Fellow and management consultant, she is excited to combine her strategic and operational background with her love for spaces centered around student thinking and writing. While English is her native language, she grew up surrounded by Mandarin Chinese and is actively trying to improve her conversational skills.

Amelia Christmas Gramling teaches composition at City Tech and Hunter College. She started tutoring at the University of Iowa Writing Center while completing her MFA in Nonfiction Writing, and is excited to work one-on-one with the students at City Tech. While at Iowa she taught courses in literature, creative writing, and writing for podcasts/radio, and has particular experience demystifying admissions essays and helping students come up with knock-out personal statements.

Anna Falvey (she/her/hers) is a Lead Writing Tutor at CUNY CityTech. She comes to CityTech from Voyages Preparatory High School in Queens, where she was the Teaching Artist in Residence. She has taught courses in everything from English literature to creative writing to the history of arts activism. Anna has also tutored undergraduate writing at Bard College, where she earned her BA in Classics and Written Arts. She particularly enjoys working with students on storytelling — narrative essays and personal statements — but in her time at CityTech so far, she’s discovered a (kind of silly) fondness for science writing as well. She’s excited to see you in the Writing Center!

Jessica Goldschmidt is an adjunct in the City Tech English department. She’s worked in writing pedagogy as both an undergraduate and a graduate student, at Brown University and CalArts respectively. She particularly gravitates towards working with students on personal writing, from artist statements to narrative essays. Jess is a writer and choreographer working in various spaces around New York City. Her favorite punctuation marks are the semicolon and the em dash.

Joshua Belknap teaches English composition for multilingual student writers at City Tech, and also serves as ESL Lab Coordinator at Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY. Joshua relishes working with and learning from CUNY students, discussing writing strategies and processes to communicate most effectively in different contexts for different audiences. In addition to overseeing a language lab and a staff of writing tutors who support multilingual students at BMCC, Joshua is also a doctoral candidate in the English program at the CUNY Graduate Center.  

Julia Ait-Ziane is a life-long New Yorker with over 20 years of experience helping students reach their full reading and writing potential in various venues throughout the five boroughs. She has taught in various non-profits and colleges in the area, ranging from the Brooklyn Public Library to St. Francis College. She currently teaches composition courses and tutors for the ESOL program here at City Tech.  She enjoys teaching students how to use new ideas and approaches to their own writing processes. She has both a BA and an MFA in Creative Writing.

Sa’ada Muntasser is an Adjunct Lecturer in the English Department at City Tech. Sa’ada has an MA in Applied Linguistics from Teachers College, Columbia University in NYC; and plans to pursue a PhD in Special Education. She was an English Language Fellow with the U.S. Department of State in the Kingdom of Bahrain 2017-2019. In addition, Sa’ada has experience teaching ESL in New York City at public and private universities, community colleges, and language centers. Sa’ada is also a native speaker of Arabic, standard and dialectal. 

Izzy Casey is a Writing Tutor at CUNY CityTech. She received her MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she worked as a Creative Writing Instructor at the University of Iowa. She has also tutored graduate writing at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. 

Naila Butt (she/her/hers) is a Digital Media Specialist, tutor, and City Tech Alumna with a BS in Professional and Technical Writing. She is passionate about making the City Tech Writing Center accessible to students through digital initiatives that promote diversity and engagement across various digital mediums. She believes digital storytelling has a powerful impact on how the Writing Center presents itself to its community—as a space that listens and adapts to students’ needs. In addition to her role as a digital media specialist, she has recently joined the tutor team and enjoys working directly with students. She hopes more students feel encouraged to bring in their digital writing projects, where she can offer support and guidance in her areas of expertise.