Bio
Caroliena Cabada changed her major twice as an undergraduate: first from International Relations to Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, then from Engineering to Chemistry. Though she enjoyed the one creative writing class she took while studying abroad in Sydney, it was too late to change her major a third time and still graduate in four years. She stuck with Chemistry and earned a BA in 2014 from New York University.
She then worked a few years in academic and nonprofit communications in New York City before leaving to earn her MFA in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University. While at Iowa State, she was the 2018-2019 Pearl Hogrefe Fellow in Creative Writing, was the managing editor for Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment from 2019-2020, and won awards for her teaching and writing. Now at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, she is earning her PhD in English with specializations in Creative Writing (Fiction) and Ethnic Studies while teaching first-year composition and creative writing.
Her research interests lie in Asian and Asian American literature read through a queer ecofeminist and environmental justice lens. She is interested in how Asian American family stories can illuminate, and have always illuminated, the scalar problems of the Anthropocene. Her fiction and poetry often put to use the observations she’s gleaned from her scholarly work; she writes about extreme weather, tough women, and (dys)functional families.
Awards and Achievements
Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching, English Department, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, awarded Spring 2023
Research Excellence Award, Iowa State University, Spring 2021
Graduate Student Leadership Award, English Department, Iowa State University, Spring 2021
Graduate Student Teaching, COVID-19 Exceptional Effort Award, Iowa State University, Winter 2021
Teaching Excellence Award, Iowa State University, Fall 2020
“Star Count with Orion” selected for Best Small Fictions, 2021
Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing, Iowa State University, 2018-2019
Caroliena Cabada 