Contact & Inquiries
Reach out regarding campus talks, Socratic Circles pedagogy workshops, manuscript peer reviews, or scholarly collaborations.
Academic Office & Direct Email
Gannon University
College of Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences
Palumbo Academic Center (PAC) 3231
109 University Square
Erie, PA 16541
Email: dimatteo001@gannon.edu
Primary Inquiries
- Campus Visits: Talks on academic protest literature, graduate student workshops.
- Faculty Workshops: Socratic Circles.
- Consulting: Academic program review and conference planning.
About Derek F. DiMatteo
Associate Professor of English and Program Director of the Environmental Studies Minor at Gannon University. Expand a section below to read his biography or review his curriculum vitae.
Biography
Academic Journey & Perspective
Derek F. DiMatteo is an Associate Professor of English (Tenure Track) in the Department of English at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. He also serves as the Program Director of the Environmental Studies Minor and the Associate Executive Director of the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA).
His academic journey reflects an interdisciplinary, globally grounded path. After completing his BA in English Literature at Wesleyan University and his MAT in Secondary Education at Tufts University, Derek spent nearly a decade in Tokyo, Japan (2003–2012), teaching at Lakeland University Japan and Nihon University, as well as working in editorial and technological production with O'Reilly Media. He then earned his MA and PhD in English (concentration in Literature, minor in American Studies) from Indiana University Bloomington. This extensive international experience deeply shapes his pedagogy, leading to innovative Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) partnerships and a globalized perspective on American literature and culture.
"By inviting collaboration in the classroom and in the learning process, I help students to see their education as an intellectual journey, not as a series of boxes to check."
Research & Public Humanities
Derek's research explores academic protest literature as a facet of critical university studies, 20th- and 21st-century American literary and cultural studies, the environmental humanities, and student-centered pedagogy. His forthcoming monograph with Bloomsbury Academic, Academic Protest Literature in the U.S., 1985–2015, provides a comprehensive literary and cultural history of how scholars, novelists, and artists contested the corporate transformation of higher education.
Beyond university halls, he is committed to the public humanities in the Rust Belt and Great Lakes region. In Erie, he facilitates the monthly Groundwork Erie Environmental Book Club—engaging community members in discussions of environmental justice, place-based literature, and ecological futures—and coordinates programs for the annual Lake Erie Literary Festival.