Rylee Smith is a doctoral student in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her interests span 20th and 21st century American literatures and cultures, with particular emphasis on the intersection(s) of queerness, class, work, and place. She remains interested in Virginia Woolf and the environmental humanities, as well. In 2024, Rylee was awarded the Nancy Rafetto Leach Sweeten Prize for her essay entitled "Negativity, or, the Style of Butch Pragmatism," which explores questions of tone, narrativity, and the afterlives of Lee Edelman's insistence on social negativity in AK Summers's 2015 graphic memoir Pregnant Butch. She served as president of the Graduate English Assocation in 2024-2025 and will continue to serve in the cabinet as treasurer for '25-'26. This year, Rylee is also a co-coordinator of the working group Mod/Con. 

She holds a BA in English and the Study of Women and Gender from Smith College and is a proud first generation college graduate.