about our team
Katherine Brennan (she/her/hers), UVM Graduate (IRMF’s biggest fan/former student/advisee/employee), was our Digital Intern and Transcriber for 2020-2021.
Her position was fully funded by the 2020 NEHC Seed Grant. She graduated in May 2021 with an undergraduate degree in Religion and French and a minor in Political Science. She’s currently enrolled in law school and will continue sharing her killjoy knowledge of religion with and recommending the pod to anyone who might be willing to listen (but maybe especially those who aren’t).
She wants to remind you, dear nerds, that transcript work is not only important, it is necessary. Making tricky things accessible to everyone is at the heart of Keeping It 101, and providing a written transcript with each episode makes vital space for anyone to get involved with the joy-killing. Transcripts let you nerds choose how to consume the pod based on your own needs/preferences! Among other things they let you skip the audio altogether, double check to see if you heard something right, or copy-and-paste your favorite pod-quote moment. If you remember a Story Time that stood out to you but can’t remember which episode you heard it in- not to worry, transcripts make the episodes google-able too! Transcripts make pods better for everyone and are absolutely necessary.
Alex Castellano (she/her/hers) was Keeping It 101’s Digital Intern and Transcriber for 2021-2022. Her position was funded through a UVM Humanities Center Public Scholarship Fellowship.
Alex is a UVM alumna of who majored in Religion and minored in French. Her after-grad plans currently involve living on a boat, working, and eventually moving towards non-profit work in refugee resettlement in and around the DMV area, as well as (hopefully) internationally. Those plans are loose, as Alex plans to move around and find things as they come/are needed, but ultimately wants to help people live comfortably, safely, and happily.
Alex committed to working with IRMF and Goodwin because of her own goals to make religious literacy an accessible and attainable reality, too. She wholeheartedly believes in the importance of relaying crucial information about religion to a variety of communities. The only way to change the world is by making this valuable information available to all! (So let’s just say: Alex is a fan of the work done at Keeping It 101 and is happy to be part of it!)
Juliana Finch (she/her/hers) is our 2022-2023 audio designer and intern. Her position is funded through a UVM REACH Grant.
She is also a songwriter and performer whose touring career came to a screeching halt in the spring of 2020 (for some reason). She decided it was a great time to go back to school and finish her undergraduate degree in Religious Studies and History at UNC Greensboro. She is passionate about religious literacy and has been gleefully ranting at people about religious traditions and practices for years. She is thrilled to more constructively funnel that impulse through her work with KI101.
2022-2023
2021-2022
2020-2021
Evie Wolfe (she/her, they/them) is our 2022-2023 transcription, website, and digital research assistant and intern. Her position is funded through a UVM REACH Grant.
Evie is double major in Religion and Global Studies and a minor in Community and International Development at the University of Vermont (Class of ‘23). They are interested in all things surrounding gender, queerness, and religion. She is also interested in food justice and access to sacred and religious foods. Evie has worked at a non-profit for the past few years assisting at a community garden for resettled refugees, so the topic of food-systems and migration is also a huge interest of hers! Their post-grad plans include pursuing a graduate degree in religious studies and growing and cooking lots of good food!
Rachel Zieff (she/her) is our 2022-2023 social media research assistant. Her position is funded through a UVM REACH Grant.
Rachel Zieff is pursuing a dual-degree in Public Communication (B.S.) and Religion (B.A.) at the University of Vermont (Class of ‘23). Since taking Ilyse’s “Introducing Hinduism” class during her first year at UVM, Rachel has become passionate about religious literacy. This research assistant position is unique in that it allows her to apply her skills and knowledge from both disciplines she’s studying to spread the word that “religion is not done with you, even if you’re done with it.”
Working on this project is important to Rachel because she believes that religious literacy is painfully underrepresented in our education system. It is relevant to every job, activity, or interaction, and yet, almost completely ignored in our society. The podcast makes this crucial education accessible to anyone with internet access, and is fundamental to the mission of increasing religious literacy. It also makes it easier to explain why studying religion is important and relevant – something she finds herself doing quite often.
In her free time, she works for the UVM Program Board to plan the university’s FallFest and SpringFest concerts, interns at Higher Ground (a music venue in Burlington, VT), plays in a band, and trains new leaders for the UVM Outing Club Rock Climbing program.
