English Faculty

Michael Cornelius, Ph.D.
Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences
Contact via email
(717) 262-4841

Michael Cornelius, Ph.D., received his doctorate from the University of Rhode Island and specializes in early British literature. He teaches courses in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Arthurian literature. He is also a recognized authority on Nancy Drew and juvenile detective fiction.

Cornelius has published extensively in scholarly journals, including Fifteenth-Century Studies, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, CLUES, Journal of Children in Popular Culture, Journal of Girlhood Studies, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, EAPSU Journal, Journal of the Georgia Philological Association, and SCOTIA: A Journal of Scottish Studies.

He is the author or editor of 22 books, among them “Edward II and a Literature of Same-Sex Love: The Gay King in Fiction, 1590-1640” (2016); “Spartacus in the Television Arena: Essays on the Starz’ Series” (2014); “Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film” (2011); “The Boy Detectives: Essays on the Hardy Boys and Others” (2010); “Nancy Drew and Her Sister Sleuths: Essays on the Fiction of Girl Detectives” (co-editor, Melanie Gregg, 2008); and three volumes in Harold Bloom’s classical studies series: “John Donne and the Metaphysical Poets” (2008); “Geoffrey Chaucer” (2007); and “Shakespeare Through the Ages: Much Ado About Nothing” (2010).

Matthew Diltz McBride, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Contact via email
(717)709-6220

Matthew McBride, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in English and comparative literature from the University of Cincinnati. He also earned a B.A. in English from Capital University and an M.F.A. in poetry from Bowling Green State University. He was the recipient of a Divine Poetry Fellowship and a George Elliston Poetry Fellowship, as well as an Ohio Arts Council Grant.

McBride is the author of two full-length poetry collections, “City of Incandescent Light” (Black Lawrence Press, 2018), and the forthcoming “At the Mercy of the Flies” (Half Mystic, 2026), as well as four chapbooks.

His poetry and fiction have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, Carve, Conduit, The Cortland Review, Cream City Review, FENCE, Guernica, Heavy Feather Review, The Laurel Review, Rust & Moth, and Zone 3, among others. His most recent publication, “Prerecorded Weather” (SurVision Books, 2022) co-written with Noah Falck, won the 2022 James Tate Prize.

Laura Biesecker, MA
ESL Instructor
Contact via email
(717) 262-4834

Laura Biesecker, M.A. TESOL, teaches English as a Second Language at Wilson College. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Intellectual History from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (M.A. TESOL) from The American University.

Biesecker’s journey into language education began in the late 1980s, driven by a desire to help recent immigrants to the United States acclimate and gain confidence in their new communities. Her passion for cross-cultural communication later led her abroad, where she spent thirteen years living and working in Hungary. During that time, she taught at a Hungarian High School Military Academy—a unique opportunity that deepened her interest in post-Soviet history and education.

Her international experience includes serving as an ESL intern for the Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance, and as a fellow of the National Security Education Program. Most recently, she was Director of the Language Teaching Center at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, where she worked with students and faculty from more than 25 countries and launched CEU’s first intensive writing program in English for Academic Purposes.

Now back in her home region, Biesecker is thrilled to be working with Wilson’s international students. Her current academic interests include comparative rhetoric as it applies to the contrasts and similarities among various language groups. She is passionate about helping non-native English speakers develop their voice and confidence in a second language.

Hailey Haffey, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
Contact via email

Hailey Haffey, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in English literature at the University of Utah in 2018, with an emphasis on Irish, British, and American modernism through the lens of gender and religious studies. During her academic career, Haffey received numerous awards for research and teaching and was selected to study at the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University in 2012.

In addition to her graduate work, Haffey earned a Strategic Healthcare Leadership certificate through Cornell in 2018 and a Narrative Medicine certificate through Columbia University in 2023. Her scholarship explores the intersection of identity construction, language, religious traditions, and health. Recognizing the centrality of language and storytelling to identity and health, she is professionally active in both literary studies and healthcare education.
She is an affiliate of the Center for Health Ethics, Arts, and Humanities at the University of Utah’s Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, and she holds leadership positions in the Health Humanities Consortium, including chair of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Belonging (JEDIB) Committee and co-chair of the Arts and Health Equity Committee.

Her recent research projects, currently being prepared for publication, include work on reproductive health in modernist Irish and American Literature, narrative medicine and mindfulness, use of narrative medicine as an intervention for clinicians treating patients with substance use disorder (SUD), and the use of narrative methods in designing a rural curriculum for internal medicine-pediatrics residency programs.
At Wilson, Haffey teaches courses in English literature and healthcare and medical humanities. Her classes include Women Writers, American Literature, Global Health, Death and Dying, Narrative Medicine, and Empathy.

Sharon Kelly, Ph.D.
Lecturer in English
Contact via email

Sharon E. Kelly, Ph.D., received her doctorate from West Virginia University in 2018 and has been teaching composition, literature, and theory since 2011. At Wilson, she is a lecturer in English and typically teaches English 108 and 115. She has also taught at West Virginia University, the University of Pittsburgh main campus, Shippensburg University, and Mt. Aloysius College.

Kelly’s favorite literary era is late Victorian, and her scholarship generally investigates LGBTQ sex, relationships, and lived experiences, occult magic and mysticism, and early fantasy and science fiction. Kelly also loves contemporary speculative fiction, and her pleasure readings these days are almost exclusively fantasy and sci-fi. She likes tattoos, takes her coffee black, lives on a hobby farm in the woods, and has a lot of pets.