Erica Masserano

Erica Masserano is a PhD student of Creative Writing and Cultural Studies at the University of East London. She is from the first generation in her family to graduate from university. Her PhD research focuses on the relationship between place and identity in the context of community, austerity and the changing face of the city. It uses public engagement, creative practice and cultural studies to facilitate the production of knowledge about London by members of intersectionally marginalised communities.

The research takes place in collaboration with CityLife, a public engagement and research project in which writers from the Universities of East Anglia and East London process the life stories of London elders into creative non-fiction, currently funded by the British Academy. 

She teaches Creative Writing at the OLIve programme for refugees and asylum seekers, part of the Refugee Education Initiatives consortium of programmes in UK and EU universities. She has worked in translation, journalism and interactive media.

She has an MA in Writing: Imaginative Practice from UEL, funded by an AHRC scholarship, and has also earned an MA in Cultural Studies and an MA scholarship from Goldsmiths, University of London.