Staff

Holly Tucker, Director

Holly Tucker is the Mellon Foundation Chair in the Humanities and Professor in French. She teaches a wide range of classes at Vanderbilt, from first-year seminars to graduate-level seminars on medicine, literature, and culture. Across her research, Professor Tucker focuses how literature and medicine intersect in the early-modern period. Her work has been reviewed in Nature, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Economist, among others, and has been featured as well on NPR, The Atlantic, Scientific American, in addition to journals specific to her field. Tucker is the recipient of VU Chancellor’s Award for Research and the Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching.

Professor Tucker’s publications include:

• City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris (W.W. Norton, 2017)
• Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine & Murder in the Scientific Revolution (W.W. Norton, 2011)
• Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth & the Fairy Tale in Early-Modern France (Wayne State UP, 2003)

Matt DiCintio, Associate Director

Matt DiCintio is associate director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, where he oversees general operations, graduate student programming, and the Collaborative Humanities Postdoctoral Program. He returned to academia after a career in professional theatre as a playwright, dramaturg, and producer. As a historian, DiCintio specializes in early American popular entertainments (freak shows and animal displays) and how performance regulated access to political and cultural citizenship. He holds an MA in Romance Languages from the University of North Carolina, an MFA in Pedagogy from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a PhD in Drama from Tufts University. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild.

Terry Tripp, Activities Coordinator

Terry Tripp joined the Warren Center in 2013. Before that, she worked as an administrative assistant in the A&S Dean’s Office. She also worked with the ACLU of Tennessee and did freelance writing and editing for CABLE, a professional women’s organization. She has a B.A. in communications and minors in journalism and French, however, she has forgotten all of her French – even the swear words. She has one husband, two sons, two cats and one dog. Her children have rebelled against her in the cruelest way possible, by refusing to watch the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV series. She hopes they see the error of their ways soon so she can say, “I told you so!” 

Cassie Kirchmeier, Program Specialist

Cassie Kirchmeier is new to Vanderbilt University- and Nashville! Hailing from Michigan, she moved to Nashville in 2023 and has been mostly focused on finding ways to integrate some southern charm into her midwestern attitude. With a BA in English Literature and a minor in Musical Theatre from Michigan State University, she has a deep appreciation for all storytelling mediums. When not at the Vaughn Home, you can find her welcoming you into a local music venue, writing at a coffee shop or waiting at the airport to board a flight somewhere new.