Jana Evans Braziel, Taft Faculty Chair, is responsible for day-to-day operations of the Taft Research Center and for fulfilling the responsibilities of the Chair, which are delineated in the By-Laws of the Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund. Fund. Jana Evans Braziel is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Affiliate Faculty in African American Studies and Women’s Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Braziel’s scholarly and pedagogical interests are in American hemispheric literatures and cultures, Caribbean studies, Haitian studies, and the intersections of diaspora, transnational activism, and globalization. Braziel is the author of three books: Diaspora: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2008); Artists, Performers, and Black Masculinity in the Haitian Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2008); and “Caribbean Genesis”: Jamaica Kincaid and the Writing of New Worlds (SUNY, forthcoming January 2009) She can be contacted directly at jana.braziel@uc.edu.

Joy Dunn, Taft Secretary and Administrative Coordinator, is responsible for the daily financial operations of the Taft office and manages the administrative activity for the approximately 180 faculty members and 1500 students who are eligible to apply for Taft programming. In addition she provides administrative support to the Faculty Chair and is the Center's website editor. Joy can be contacted directly at taftcenter@uc.edu.

Sean Keating, Taft Center Graduate Assistant is liaison between the Center and the ten Taft departments and is responsible for assisting with the operation of the Taft Office, which includes coordinating the committee meetings and processing the proposals. Sean is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy with general interests in philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind with an emphasis on constraints given by the empirical sciences of psychology and psychiatry, and neurophilosophy. Sean is currently writing his dissertation under the direction of Professor John Bickle, Head of Philosophy, regarding a new integrative, multifield approach to the self, focusing specifically on the causal efficacy of narratives in constraining actions. You can reach Sean by email at keatins@email.uc.edu or by phone at the Taft office, most days after 2 PM.

Yan Cui, Taft Center Graduate Fellow is responsible for assisting with the operation of the Taft Research Center, which includes the research seminars, fellows’ seminars, and visiting lecture series. He is also a liaison between the residents in the Taft House (visiting faculty and students) and the Center. Yan is a PhD student at the Department of Sociology. His research interests focus on race, family and self-employment. He can be contacted directly at cuiyanchina@hotmail.com or 513-558-9758