She completed an M.B.A. at Baruch College/CUNY, an M.A. in Creative Writing at City College of New York/CUNY, an M.A. in Literature at the University of Montana, and a Ph.D. in English at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research focuses on environmental justice, American wartime food security discourses, and gender studies. Recent scholarly work has appeared in Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies and ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. At Loyola, Dr. Ryan has taught Effective Writing (the first-year writing class), Writing about Science, Writing about the Environment, Professional Writing, and Travel Writing.