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Y'ALL Co-Chair
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Y'ALL Co-Chair
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Archivist/Special Collections Chair
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Liaison Office
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Journal Co-Editor
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Journal Co-Editor
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Executive Director
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Membership Chair
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Awards Chair
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Appalink Editor /Communications Committee Chair
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Education Chair
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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair
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Office Manager
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International Connections Chair
Sophia M. Enríquez
President
Sophia M. Enríquez (she/her/ella) works at the intersections of Latinx, Appalachian, and Southern music, migration, and regional culture. She is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Music at Duke University where she also teaches in the Program for Latino/a Studies in the Global South. Sophia earned her PhD in ethnomusicology at Ohio State University as well as graduate certificates in folklore and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies . Her monograph in progress, tentatively titled Canciones de Los Apalaches: Latinx Music, Migration, and Belonging in Appalachia is the first full-length study of Latinx creative practices in the Appalachian region and shows how longstanding narratives of Appalachias as a monolith have obscured the movement of Latinx people to and through the region over the past century.
Sophia is passionate about community-engaged scholarship and has worked on several public folklore projects across the Appalachian region and the South. She is also a practitioner of both Mexican and Appalachian folk music. Sophia performs with the Lua Project, a Mexican-Appalachian fusion band in Charlottesville, Virginia, and recently cofounded Son de Carolina, a Durham, NC-based collective dedicated to the study of the Mexican folk music tradition son jarocho.
Travis A. Rountree
Immediate Past President
Travis A. Rountree is an assistant professor in the English Department at Western Carolina University. He earned his PhD from the University of Louisville, his MA in English from Appalachian State University with a certificate in Appalachian Studies, and his BA in English from James Madison University with a minor in American Studies. He teaches first year composition courses as well as graduate courses in composition and rhetoric. His research interests include queer archival research and pedagogy, Country Music, Appalachian rhetorics, place-based pedagogy, and public memory studies. He has been published in The North Carolina Folklore Journal, Journal of Southern History, and Appalachian Journal. University of Kentucky Press will publish his book Hillsville Remembered: Public Memory, Historical Silence, and Appalachia’s Most Notorious Shoot out in March 2023. He has been active with the Appalachian Studies Association since his first conference in 2008.
Since then, he has served as Treasurer as well as the chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Since his term as Treasurer, he has been a member of the Steering Committee. Additionally, he has served on the Weatherford Award and Wilma Dykeman Fellowship Award Committees. Impressed with the progressive, inclusive action of ASA he is excited to contribute more to this vision as it empowers BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized voices in his new role as President.
Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Travis has lived in Appalachia for most of his life and feels most at home there. He enjoys running, weightlifting, and gardening. He is an avid fan of old-time, bluegrass, and country music and lives in Sylva, NC with his two kitties. He serves as the chair of Sylva Pride and also is on the board of Blue Ridge Pride.
Emily Colleen Cobb
Secretary
From Walhalla, South Carolina, Emily Colleen Cobb is a doctoral student and graduate research assistant in the Literacy, Language, and Culture program at Clemson University. Emily's interests are in rural education and community literacies, place-based learning and writing, as well as, digital and social media literacies. As a former English teacher, she is dedicated to the work of public education and supporting young people across her community. With a deep reverence of her home in Southern Appalachia, she hopes to serve ASA and work in ways that further the organization's commitment to education and activism within Appalachia and beyond.
Stephanie Burdette
At Large
Stephanie Burdette is a lifelong resident of West Virginia, where she has worked as an elementary school teacher, middle school administrator, and university
professor. During her time in education, she has worked diligently to promote literacy education and enable her students to rise above the stereotypical perceptions most often associated with Appalachia. She is deeply involved in many state and national initiatives which aim to promote student growth and learning. She has worked for many years as the Co-Director of the Central WV Writing Project, which serves as the sponsor of the state’s largest student writing event (WV Young Writers Day). Additionally, she serves as a member of the WV Professional Teaching Standards Committee, WVPBS Steering Committee for the Above and Beyond Teacher Recognition Program, and Chair of the WVPTS Committee License Appeal Board.
Katherine E. Ledford
Vice President
Katherine E. Ledford is professor of Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University. She teaches courses in Appalachian literature, global mountain literature, comparative mountain studies, and higher education pedagogy. In spring 2023, as a Fulbright Scholar, she taught graduate classes in the English department at Al Ahliyya Amman University in Amman, Jordan. Her teaching project, From the Appalachian Mountains to the Jordanian Highlands: Appalachian Literature as Cross-cultural Text, fostered understanding through literature. From 2009 to 2016 Dr. Ledford served as program director of Appalachian studies, advising and mentoring both graduate and undergraduate students. In 2023, she was inducted into the Cratis D. Williams School of Graduate Studies' Academy of Outstanding Mentors. Dr. Ledford co-edited Writing Appalachia: An Anthology, a comprehensive anthology of Appalachian literature published by the University Press of Kentucky in March 2020. Dr. Ledford also co-edited Backtalk from Appalachia: Confronting Stereotypes (2000) and the media section of the Encyclopedia of Appalachia (2006). A past president of the Appalachian Studies Association (2011-2012), she is founding chair of the association’s International Connections Committee, which fosters communication between Appalachian studies scholars and mountain studies scholars worldwide.
Kenton Butcher
Conference Chair
Danielle Quales
Treasurer and Finance Chair
Danielle first became involved in Appalachian studies over 15 years ago when she attended Appalachian State University and earned her master’s in the field. She then furthered her studies in Folklore and American Studies at Indiana University, focusing her research on gravestones and remembrance practices in the Appalachian region. Danielle has attended and presented at multiple App Studies conferences over the years. She has also been involved in nonprofit work her whole life, currently serving as Treasurer and multi-event chairperson for her son’s elementary school PTO in Cincinnati.
Annalee Tull Lanier
At Large