The Staff
Dr. Susan Lawrence, Director
Susan Lawrence teaches in the Writing & Rhetoric program at Mason, focusing on writing center studies, academic writing, professional & technical writing, and research methods including discourse analysis. Susan is co-founder of the Lab for Writing and Communication, a collaboration between Mason's writing center and communication center. Her collection Re/Writing the Center: Approaches to Supporting Graduate Students in the Writing Center, co-edited with Terry Myers Zawacki (2018), makes the case for writing centers' intentional, tailored support for advanced graduate student writers. An article co-authored with Tetyana Bychkovska (2024), "Tutors' Perspectives on their Work with Multilingual Writers," describes the process by which tutor training in Mason's Writing Center is continually evaluated and revised in response to tutors' and writers' feedback. She has published on writing in the disciplines, examining how biology and history students use evidence in different ways, and developing the prototype for an on-line writing tutor for engineering students. Susan consults with professionals in government, business, and non-profit organizations about communicating with public and congressional audiences. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon and rows on the Occoquan Reservoir.
Dr. Courtney Massie, Assistant Director
Courtney manages the writing center's operations, supervises and mentors the center's staff, and teaches Advanced Composition at Mason. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin, where she worked as a writing center consultant and graduate student administrator for several years. Currently, with her colleagues, she is researching differences between written feedback composed by writing center consultants and written feedback generated by AI tools. In the other parts of her life, she's a violinist, songwriter, horse rescue volunteer, study group facilitator, and hiker.
Jessie Wiggins, Graduate Writing Coordinator
Jessie Wiggins is a PhD student in the Writing and Rhetoric program studying the rhetorics of health and medicine. Her dissertation research is on blood and vaccination, analyzing rhetorical practices of hesitancy and the resulting clinical implications. She holds an M.A. and B.A. in Writing, Rhetoric & Technical Communication from James Madison University. She is a qualitative researcher with experience as a survey methodologist for a community health non-profit. At the Writing Center, Jessie serves as the Graduate Writing Coordinator, consulting with graduate students on their theses, dissertations, and other academic projects. She has experience with writing proposals for funding, conducting surveys and interviews using qualitative methods, and preparing conference submissions and manuscripts.
Satori Good, Coordinator of Consultant Education and Development
Satori (they/them) is a second-year fiction MFA student, English 101 teacher, and Editor in Chief of the intersectional feminist literary magazine So to Speak. After being born in treacherous Floridian waters, they spent fifteen long years in Kansas and received their BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. Satori runs CED, which means they provide pedagogical tools and trainings throughout the year for consultants to use in consultations. Outside the Writing Center, they are a true crime researcher, stealth fanfic writer, double bass aficionado, and cat parent to Sam and Frodo.
Matti Ben-Lev, Coordinator of Technology and Accessibility
Matti (he/him) is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction. He also teaches English 101 and serves as the assistant nonfiction editor for the magazine So to Speak. He earned his bachelor’s in psychology from Towson University and spent the last decade living in Baltimore, which he loves dearly. As the Accessibility and Technology Coordinator, he works with the Office of Disability Services (ODS) to schedule and oversee the DS Opt-In program at the Writing Center. He believes that writers thrive when they keep agency over their work, and that the Writing Center’s role is to encourage that agency and guide rather than prescribe. While exiting Work Mode™, he loves kayaking, concerts (prog rock, anyone?), and reading.
Pari Sabti (پریا ثبتی), Coordinator of Outreach
Pari (پریا) is a second year poetry MFA candidate. They hold a BFA in Creative Writing with a minor in Linguistics. They were born and raised in Iran, and speak Persian as their first language, as well as some elementary Korean. As the Outreach Coordinator, they seek opportunities for our consultants to connect with students and faculty in and out of classrooms. They hope to make the Writing Center more known to students at George Mason, and to encourage everyone to take advantage of our services. If you're looking to have consultants speak about the Writing Center or deliver workshops on a number of topics, they are your go-to person! In their spare time, they enjoy cooking, rock and metal music, and video games.
Mark, Office Assistant
Mark is a junior currently majoring in Film and Video Studies. He is a resident of Southern Virginia, more specifically the Virginia Beach area. In his free time, he enjoys catching up on his movie watchlist, taking pictures, and playing games. If you have any questions, related to the Lab or not, don’t be afraid to ask!