Rylee Mahnesmith (she/her)
Rylee is the Founder and President of the Alpha Omega Psi Chapter. She is a Korean-American poet, senior English major, and aspiring Editor whose work has been published under the last names Mahnesmith and Park. Alongside being in Sigma Tau Delta, Rylee is the Editor-in-Chief of Her Campus at Temple and Lunar Journal. If you need to reach her, she’ll be re-reading Her Body and Other Parties on her West Philly fire escape, or cuddling her orange tabby cat in her hometown of Las Vegas, NV.
Dena Stiles-Lawson (she/her)
Dena is the Historian of the Alpha Omega Psi Chapter. A North Philly native, she has her hands in a little bit of everything—to poetry, short fiction, playwriting, songwriting, along with a trilogy of novels she hopes to publish one day soon. She loves writing fantasy and reading historical fiction, and her favorite books on her shelf today are A Mercy by Toni Morrison and Watership Down by Richard Adams.
Casarae Abdul-Ghani (she/her)
Dr. Abdul-Ghani is the inaugural faculty advisor of the Alpha Omega Psi chapter of Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society, chartered in 2025. She is a Sigma Tau Delta alumna, initiated into the Xi Lambda chapter at Johnson C. Smith University (HBCU). Thereafter, she received her graduate degrees in English from Purdue University. Prior to becoming part of the English faculty at Temple University she was an assistant professor of African American Studies at Syracuse University. She served as the inaugural Lender Center for Social Justice Faculty Fellow in the School of Education at Syracuse University from 2019 to 2021.
Dr. Casarae Abdul-Ghani is an associate professor of African American Literature and Studies at Temple University. She is the author of Start a Riot: Civil Unrest in Black Arts Movement Drama, Fiction, and Poetry (UP of Mississippi 2022). Currently, she is working on a co-edited anthology with Dr. Marlo D. David titled African American Literature in Transition1970-1980 with Cambridge UP and a scholarly essay examining Ryan Coogler’s recent film Sinners (2025) with TheLangston Hughes Review. At Temple, Abdul-Ghani teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in African American Literature and American Literary Cultural Studies. Her scholarly essays appear in Black Camera, The Midwest Quarterly, and Modern Language Studies.