Dr. Heather O. Petrocelli conducts multidisciplinary independent scholarship across film studies, queer theory, and public history. This academic foundation, combined with a life-long horror obsession and experience making, studying, programming, and marketing film, informs their debut book Queer for Fear: Horror Film and the Queer Spectator. A post-binary lesbian scholar, Heather centers their own queerness in their work as they reveal, theorize, and render visible stories and experiences from the queer community.
May Santiago is a cultural studies scholar and essay filmmaker. She is pursuing her Doctorate of Philosophy in the Cultural Studies program at George Mason University. Her work focuses on Puerto Rican cinema, as well as the intersection of horror, queer, and feminist studies. She has presented work at Final Girls Berlin Film Festival and Ax Wound Film Festival. She writes, edits, and hosts a horror studies podcast named Horrorspiria.
