Meet the team

Carrie Hall is the Writing Center Director, the Director of First Year Writing and an Associate Professor at City Tech. She writes fiction and creative non-fiction and also researches the boredom and inattention as starting points for engagement with literacy learning. She has a PhD in Composition from the University of Pittsburgh and has been teaching since 2009.  She would not have accomplished any of her research (and probably very little of her creative writing) without the inspiration of her students. Their directness, innovative voices and perseverance keep her ideas on attention, learning and language fresh.

Meredith Gallo is a writer and editor who supports the Writing Center in an administrative capacity. She received her master’s degree in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and her bachelor’s degree in History and Global Studies from the University of Virginia.

Addy is a poet and educator from Southeast Michigan who now calls Brooklyn their home. They are a PhD student in English at the CUNY Graduate Center and have an MA in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. In addition to working at the writing center, Addy teaches writing and literature at Brooklyn College.

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!

Charles Colwell is an interdisciplinary scholar and ethnographer originally from Storrs, Connecticut. He holds a PhD in Music Composition from the CUNY Graduate Center. He has taught Music courses at the City College of New York and worked this past year as a writing consultant in The Graduate Center’s Writing Center. His research explores how Costa Rican naturalists employ vocal imitation as way of knowing birds and understanding their singing. He looks forward to supporting City Tech students from all disciplines in achieving their writing goals.

Cora Frazier is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at City Tech, where she has taught literature, composition, and journalism. She’s taught creative writing at Rutgers University and New York University, including in NYU’s publishing master’s program. She is also a tutor at Teachers Who Tutor NYC, where she has helped students from sixth to twelfth grade in reading comprehension, research, analytical writing, and poetry. She graduated with honors from Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in English, and from Rutgers with a master’s degree in creative writing. 

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.

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.

Kate Peters is a writer, educator, and editor living in New York City. She received her MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College in 2024. In her free time, she loves dancing, reading love poems, and looking at art.

Naila Butt (she/her) is a Digital Media Specialist, tutor, and City Tech Alumna with a BS in Professional and Technical Writing. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Digital Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she explores her research interests in play theory, game studies, and pedagogy. She’s passionate about multi-modal projects and encourages students to bring in their digital writing projects, where she can offer support and guidance in her areas of expertise.

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. 

Thomas Gibbins is the Writing Center Program Assistant in the English department at City Tech. He received his B.S. in Computer Engineering from Lehigh University. Thomas likes to play Ultimate Frisbee and DND in his free time. He even makes his own dice for fun!