Meet our GIFCon 2026 Committee!
Sam Tegtmeyer
Accessibility Officer
Sam Tegtmeyer (he/him) is a third year PhD student at the University of Glasgow. His research is centred on the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, and Terry Pratchett and examines the way they respond to the existence and perpetuation of hierarchical ideological tropes in the Fantasy genre. He is a recipient of the 2025 Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowship from the University of Oregon and has recently had his work published in the journal Extrapolation (it’s his first publication, let him have this moment of self-promotion).
Mimi Markham
Administration
Mimi Markham is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow. She previously gained a BA in English and History, followed by an MA in Public History where she explored the potential of contemporary speculative fiction to further understandings of difficult histories, including war and conflict. Her current research focuses on fairy tales produced during the First and Second World Wars, and how such publications conveyed patriotic, pro-war effort messaging and/or functioned as propaganda. When she isn’t jovially pointing out historical inaccuracies in film and TV, she can be found wandering around the parks of Glasgow and London.
Anna McFarlane
Chair
Anna McFarlane is the James Murray Beattie Lecturer in Fantasy Literature at the University of Glasgow. She is currently working on a monograph for Liverpool University Press based on research conducted during her British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, ‘Products of Conception: Science Fiction and Traumatic Pregnancy, 1968-2015’. The monograph looks at fantastic literature (including science fiction, fantasy, and horror) and cinema alongside medical advice literature and women’s memoirs about pregnancy to argue that the fantastic constitutes a valuable way of approaching reproductive trauma. She is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture (2020), Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture (2022), and The Edinburgh Companion to Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities (2025). Her first monograph is a study of William Gibson’s novels, Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology: Seeing Through the Mirrorshades (Routledge 2021).
Mercury Natis
Communications and Programming
Mercury Natis (they/them) is a part-time PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow. Hailing originally from New York City, they hold a previous MA in Museum Education and a BA in Art History and draw on the methodologies of both disciplines for their literary-historical practice. Their PhD research focuses on the queer-historical contexts in which J.R.R. Tolkien lived and worked, and their influence on his writing practice. Their primary focus is on queer ambiguity in the fantastic prior to the 1960s identity politics movement, with special interests in camp aesthetics and performativity, the crossing of gender and sexuality taboos, gothic and historical horror, and interdisciplinary art-historical criticism. They would also really like to be Mad Bad Bilbo Baggins when they grow old.
Lea Warren
Deputy Chair
Lea Warren (she/her) is a second year PhD student at the University of Glasgow studying the archival works of Emily Bronte towards the curation and analysis of Emily’s imaginary world of Gondal as it exists in her surviving poetry. Lea has worked with the British Library and the Bronte Parsonage to review original Bronte Manuscripts, and will be presenting some of her findings this summer at the Fantasy’s Present Pasts Conference at the University of Glasgow. Originally from Orlando, Florida, Lea relocated to Glasgow to pursue her MLitt in Fantasy at the University of Glasgow in 2021. Previous to her move, she worked in publishing in London and Orlando, Internationalisation in HE at Rollins College, and marketing at Gray Fox Designs Co.. Currently, Lea works as a tutor and an administrator for the School of Critical Studies, and in her (limited) free time enjoys wandering the countryside with her husband and their collie mix, writing (and reading) fantasy novels, watching (arguably too many) movies, and painting.
Sarah Bresnahan
Member at Large
Sarah Bresnahan (she/they) is a part time PhD researcher at the University of Glasgow funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Her current research focus centres on the ecocritical implications of videogame mechanics and how they assert, subvert, or reimagine our relationship with environments and the more-than-human.
She has a MLitt in Fantasy Literature from the University of Glasgow, and a BA in English from the University of Liverpool. Her broader research interests include magic systems and their ecological entanglements, more-than-human fantasy depictions, and, of course, all things videogames and videogame culture. She also organises the Glasgow Games Research Reading Group, a community for fellow researchers interested in games of all types and their broader impacts and entanglements.
In her free time, Sarah crochets, draws, and, would you have guessed it, plays videogames.
Anna Salvaggio
MLitt Liaison
Anna Salvaggio (she/her) is a current Fantasy MLitt student at the University of Glasgow. Her master’s dissertation will examine the evolution of the medieval Italian fairy tale “Sun, Moon, and Talia” from its earliest versions to its twenty-first century presence in popular fiction. Prior to her studies in Glasgow, Anna earned her bachelors in Spanish language and literature at the University of North Florida. In her free time, she enjoys photographing Glasgow, wandering art markets, yapping with her MLitt cohort, and telling anyone who will listen about her fat calico.
Abigail Pinsent
Programming
Hailing from the West Coast of the island of Newfoundland, Canada, Abigail Pinsent is an aspiring Fantasy scholar and a first year PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow. Previously, Abigail completed her BA in English at Newfoundland and Labrador’s Memorial University. After which, she acquired her Master of Arts – specializing at last in Fantasy literature and film – at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, where she was nominated for the Outstanding Master’s Research Award. Now the Rothermere Fellow of 2025, Abigail is avidly perusing her PhD in English Literature with a focus on Fantasy. Her research explores entanglement and the inherent toxicity of the Fantasy genre, focusing on Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal franchise, and Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. In her (decidedly limited...) free time, Abigail can be found doodling in the margins of her notebooks and playing obscure hidden object games.
Eleanor Patterson
Social Media
Eleanor Patterson (she/they) is a part time PhD student at the University of Glasgow. She holds an MA in English Literature and History and an MLitt in English Literature, also from the University of Glasgow. Her current research examines the role of media adaptations in shaping representations of gender. When not working or studying, Eleanor enjoys going to the theatre, listening to horror fiction podcasts, (re)watching Doctor Who, and spending time with their tabby cat.
