I'm a lifelong athlete and lover of words; feminism came a bit later, but is all the more cherished for it. At Penn State, I juggled DI sports (springboard diving) with classes in the Honors College. I married those two loves in my first job as a sports reporter, before heading back first to Penn State and then to Virginia Tech for Master's degrees: Education followed by English. At Tech, I was lucky to be mentored by two Cherokee professors, who guided my research on Native American literatures. In my PhD, an all-female team of professors fostered my interest in Native women's rhetoric and led me to add a certification in Women and Gender Studies to my scholarship.
At UST, my love for sports writing has reemerged, along with my love for camaraderie and competition. I teach sports literature as a core and as an honors course; I teach Native literatures at the undergraduate and graduate level; and I teach women's literatures and women, gender & sexuality studies for both the English and the WGSS departments. I also compete, alongside other UST women, in the YWCA triathlon every August. My current area of research is on women and sports, and I am writing a book that combines elements of memoir with feminist theory and sports history.
Dr. Wilkinson’s teaching and research brings together seemingly divergent interests in indigenous literature, feminism and sports. A former college athlete herself, Dr. Wilkinson is writing an article about 19th and 20th century female athletes and women’s suffrage, and a book on sports and feminism.