Jennifer Morris joined the department of English as an assistant professor in 2022. She obtained a B.A. in English from Dillard University, an M.A. from Northwestern State University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her research focuses on the nuances and specifics of African American culture in American literary and cultural studies. Her current project examines how Black southern writers have articulated a cultural and geographic landscape, the Gulf South, in contemporary literature. Her work has appeared in the Louisiana Folklore Miscellany and Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-first Century. She currently serves as the Vice President of the Louisiana Folklore Society and the Advisory Board Member of the Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.