Colleen Terrell holds an undergraduate degree in Values, Technology, Science, & Society from Stanford University and received her MA and PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. She was a postdoc at the University of California, Los Angeles, and served as Assistant Professor of Literature, Communication, & Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology for four years before deciding she did not want a tenured academic position. Prior to joining Drexel as a research administrator in spring 2022, she spent 15 years working in institutional giving at various Philadelphia educational and cultural organizations, as grant writer, manager of foundation giving, and director of foundation and government relations, and she acquired an MA in Decorative Arts and Design History from Bard Graduate Center. She has published several articles and reviews, received awards and fellowships for her work, and taught grant writing classes at the Fels Institute of Government at UPenn.