Marissa is working on a book of narrative nonfiction on Antarctic scientific and natural history, which has been supported by Harvard University's Center for the Environment and the American Association of University Women. Incognita: A Portrait of Antarctica will combine historical research with a synthesis of current ecological, atmospheric, and geophysical findings to offer a journey across the continent. Marissa’s goal is to produce a rigorously-researched book that will capture the imagination of curious readers, drawing them into the threatened world of the Antarctic and its power to transform our planet.
Marissa earned a PhD in English Literature from Harvard University in May 2019. Her academic research focuses on the visual arts and environmental thought in nineteenth-century American literature and transatlantic Romanticism. Her most recent panel talks at the ALA, ACLA, and MLA have discussed architectural tropes in Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Frost, and John Clare. Her essays for general audience, on these and other topics, can be found at Nautilus, Atlas Obscura, and The Paris Review Online among other places.
She holds a BA from Yale University in Comparative Literature (with certificates in Spanish and German).