Isobel Boles is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Scandinavian Department, where she also completed her master’s degree. She earned dual Bachelor of the Arts degrees in Classics, and German and Scandinavian Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2015. While there, she studied Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Swedish, Icelandic, and Old Irish languages and literature. Her undergraduate thesis was titled “Courtly Romance in Cold Lands: Ívens saga, Parcevals saga, and Erex saga,” and explored how...
Love Carlshamre is a PhD candidate in the Scandinavian Department, where he is writing a dissertation about America in modern and contemporary Swedish literature. He holds a B.A. (2018) and M.A. (2020) in Comparative Literature from Stockholm University and has worked as an editorial coordinator at Albert Bonnier Publishing. At Berkeley, he has taught Swedish on both beginning and intermediate levels and is currently teaching a Reading & Composition course about the Scandinavian short story.
Victoria Häggblom is a current PhD student at UC Berkeley’s Department of Scandinavian. She has a BA in English from Humboldt State University, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and an MA in Scandinavian Languages and Literature from UC Berkeley. She is a writer and translator of Swedish; her translation of poet Bruno K. Öijer’s The Trilogy was published by Action Books in 2020 and won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s translation prize. She has also received artist fellowships, residencies, and awards for her published short fiction. Victoria’s current research...
B.A in Psychology, B.A in Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Olivia is a PhD student in the Department of Scandinavian at UC Berkeley. During her undergraduate studies at UW-Madison, she focused on Nynorsk literature and was the Lead Program Coordinator of the Norden House in the International Learning Community. Her current research interests center around Norwegian polar exploration, particularly explorers’ implementation of indigenous Inuit and Sámi knowledge on their expeditions, and how this knowledge allowed Norwegian...
Michael Lawson is a 4th-year PhD student in the Department of Scandinavian with a dual focus on Scandinavian Languages & Literatures and Medieval Studies.
Michael began his academic journey at East Tennessee State University, earning a B.A. in Education in 2017 and an M.A. in History in 2019. His thesis, “Children of a One-Eyed God: Impairment in the Myth and Memory of Medieval Scandinavia,” explored the body as a conceptual space in both the mythopoetic and literary spheres of medieval Iceland. Michael further pursued his passion for Scandinavian studies at Berkeley, where he...
Joshua Lee is a current PhD student at UC Berkeley’s Department of Scandinavian. He received his BA from the University of Edinburgh in History and Politics in 2020, an MLitt in Mediaeval History from the University of St Andrews in 2021, and an MA in Scandinavian Languages and Literature from UC Berkeley in 2024. His MLitt thesis was entitled ‘Friendship and Mistrust: characterising interactions between Scoto-Norse leaders and Norwegian kings c.1100-1260’.
He has been awarded the Fritz O. Fernström fellowship for studies in Norwegian at the University of Oslo. His interests in the...
M.A. in Scandinavian, University of California, Berkeley
B.A. in English and Scandinavian Studies, Brigham Young University
Natalya Nielsen is a Ph.D. student in the department of Scandinavian with a Designated Emphasis in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (GWS). Natalya’s primary Nordic language is Swedish, but her research moves across the boundaries of the Nordic countries. Her work centers on the intersection of literature, national identity, and political activism and how literary canons and literary culture can be mobilized for national identity formation in the face...
Minji Song pursues a Ph.D. in the Department of Scandinavian at UC Berkeley, with the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She holds a B.A. in Education and Cultural Anthropology from Yonsei University (South Korea) and an M.Phil. in Gender Studies from the University of Oslo (Norway). Her master’s thesis examined gendered tensions in liberal cosmopolitanism through narrative interviews with young Norwegian adults who completed the International Baccalaureate (IB) program and United World Colleges (UWC). Her doctoral research investigates transnational migration,...
Lejia Zhang, also known as Joy, is a PhD student in the Scandinavian Department with a concurrent PhD in Medieval Studies. She is originally from China. She received a B.A. with honours in English Literature from Durham University in 2021, an M.A. in Medieval and Early Modern Studies from Durham University in 2023, and an M.A. in Viking and Medieval Norse Studies from the University of Iceland in 2024. She also spent an exchange semester at the University of Copenhagen in 2023.
Coming from the background of literary studies, Joy currently has a passion for medieval Icelandic...
