Amy Carrell is the current director of Graduate Studies in the English Department. She, a native of Indiana, came to UCO in August 1993 with a Ph.D. from Purdue University. Her doctoral dissertation combines linguistic theory with rhetorical theory and applies them to humor research. The end result is an audience-based theory of verbal humor. Her M.A. is in rhetoric and composition, also from Purdue.

Dr. Carrell is the current (1996-1997) president of the International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS) and chair of the 1997 ISHS conference (July 8-13), the first ISHS conference on North American soil since 1994.

She is also the organizer and director of the International Humor Studies Seminar. The second Seminar will immediately follow the ISHS conference. William F. Fry (Stanford University) and Rod Martin (University of Western Ontario) will serve as the primary faculty for the 1997 Seminar (July 14-25).

In addition, she is on the board of consulting editors of HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research. She has presented papers at regional, national, and international conferences, has collaborated on a psychological testing instrument (with Willibald Ruch, Gabriele Koehler, and Lambert Deckers), and has published in various journals and volumes.

On campus, Dr. Carrell teaches courses in linguistics, composition, technical writing, advanced grammar, English as a second language, British literature, and humor research. She is also a Fulbright and Rhodes Student Program advisor and a member of the International Studies Program committee.

Dr. Carrell and her husband, Dr. David Carrell, have three daughters, Sophie, Madeline, and Sylvia.