Editorial Board

Cambray Smith, B.S.

Editor-in-Chief

Mindy Buchanan-King, M.A.

Editor-in-Chief

Mindy Buchanan-King is pursuing her Ph.D. in American literature at UNC Chapel Hill, with a graduate certificate in Literature, Medicine, and Culture. She is a teaching fellow, with courses taught in basic writing, rhetoric and composition, and writing in health and medicine. She also serves as a graduate research assistant for the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her graduate research is focused on the twined relationships of visual culture, medicine, science, industrialization, war, and slavery in late 19th-/early 20th-century U.S. literature, particularly as such realms affect the body and historically inform the conceptualization and visibility of disability. Mindy is originally from Virginia and received her B.A. from Emory & Henry College and her M.A. from the College of Charleston. Her master’s thesis focused on Edith Wharton’s use of Romanticism in conceptualizing the artistic self in Hudson River Bracketed.

Mindy was the recent recipient of the Robert Bain Award for Excellence Achieved by a Second-Year Student in Pre-1900 American Literature and was awarded a Latina/o Studies Teaching Award in Fall 2021. She has published in the Quarterly Review of Film and Video and has a journal article forthcoming in Edith Wharton Review. She also serves as a graduate senator and volunteers as a transcriber on the original manuscript of Edith Wharton’s Hudson River Bracketed, for The Complete Works of Edith Wharton to be published by Oxford University Press.

Jessica Gingles, B.S.

Executive Editor

Grace Fuller, B.A.

Executive Editor

Grace is a member of the UNC SOM Class of 2026. She attended undergraduate at UNC, graduating in May 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and minors in Chemistry, Spanish for the Medical Professions, and Medical Anthropology. She is currently on her research year, participating in projects on direct cardiac fibroblast reprogramming, narcotic and sedative use in mechanically ventilated neonates, and abnormal fetal heart tones in asphyxiated animal models. Grace’s primary research focus, however, is on Native American health disparity. She is a part of the Hopi Tribe of Arizona, and her heritage has been a driving factor in her pursuit of a medical career and establishing equitable health care as a fundamental right for all.

Grace notes that her love for the written word stems from an admiration for her father and grandmother, both esteemed writers and editors. She goes on to say, “There are few things quite as powerful as words. Instilled with intent and laced with emotion, their significance is inescapable.”

Alleigh Wiggs

Executive Editor

Maria Fonseca, B.S.

Art director

Maria Fonseca is a member of the UNC School of Medicine Class of 2026. She was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and immigrated to Miami, FL, at the age of four. She began her educational journey by earning an associate degree from Miami-Dade Honors College, supported by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. She later transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 2020. Currently, Maria is in her research year at UNC and is an active participant in the Comprehensive Advanced Medical Program of Spanish (CAMPOS). She is passionate about improving healthcare accessibility and communication, with a particular focus on medical illustration. Maria believes art can bridge language and literacy gaps in healthcare and is dedicated to using it as a tool for meaningful change. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her cat, Jack.

Scott Giberson Jr., B.S.

Poetry Editor

Scott is a member of the UNC School of Medicine Class of 2025. He grew up in Austin, TX before attending Texas Christian University where he received a B.S. in Psychology. While in college, he conducted research on the mental health of young adult cancer patients and found a passion for mentorship through working with refugee children at a local nonprofit. After college, he spent time working at a cancer center in Fort Worth, TX while helping to start a new professional organization for physicians and medical trainees where he currently sits as a board member. Scott has long seen poetry as one of his main outlets for creativity and emotional wellness and is excited to assist fellow writers in bringing their work to life. His academic interests include working in underserved settings, medical education, and cost-effective care. Outside of medicine, he enjoys spending time with his wife and dog, exercising, trying his best at golf, and finding new coffee shops.

Raj Telhan, M.D., M.F.A.

Advisor Editor

Raj Telhan is a physician and writer who works at the intersection of literature, medicine, and culture. He is the author of essays, longform journalism, and criticism bridging science and the humanities. His writing appears in the Virginia Quarterly Review and The American Scholar. His VQR essay, “Begin Cutting,” was published in the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. Other honors include the Smith-Shanubi Scholarship at the New York State Writers Institute, the Longreads Editors’ Pick, and the Staige D. Blackford Prize for Nonfiction for his VQR cover story, “Foreign Bodies.” Raj studied Literature and Medicine at the University of Virginia, where he was a Crispell Scholar. He completed his residency in rehabilitation medicine at NYPH/Columbia-Cornell University Medical Center, graduating as Chief Resident. After completing an interventional spine fellowship at the University of Virginia, he began clinical practice as an academic attending and teacher of medical humanities. Raj is currently an Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.