Originally from Nashville, TN, Kristen R. Barrett is a Jefferson Scholar at the University of Virginia. An English distinguished major and drama minor, Kristen has dedicated her time to black theatre, Shakespeare, and filmmaking. The UVa Arts Council awarded her the Distinguished Artist Award in Drama, and her work has featured in the Poe and Virginia film festivals. She is one of UVa's top English students, having won the Wagenheim Prize for Best Literary Essay and the Wagenheim Scholarship for English majors. In the UK, Kristen will study nineteenth-century literature at Oxford and film aesthetics at the University of Edinburgh.