Gabrielle (Gabby) Avena is a doctoral student and Fontaine Fellow in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her focus is on applying a relational ethnic studies lens to minority American and post-colonial Filipino literature, with an emphasis on how oppressed peoples understand each other from the colonies to the metropole.

Gabby graduated summa cum laude with distinction from Amherst College with a B.A. in English and Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. Her honors thesis, Reading Relationality: The Potential of Racial Fungibility in Filipinx/American Literature, won the 2025 Franklin S. Odo Prize in Asian American Studies and the 2025 Stephen E. Whicher Prize for studies of American Literature.