Steve Siporin is Director of the Folklore Program.  He holds a PhD in Folklore from Indiana University and has worked as folk arts coordinator for public arts agencies in Idaho, Oregon, and Iowa.  He has taught at Utah State University since 1986 and is jointly appointed as full professor in the Departments of English and History.  His research interests include material culture, foodways, festival, and Jewish and Italian folklore.

Jan Roush is Associate Director of the Folklore Program and former Director of the American Studies program.  An Associate Professor of English, she teaches courses on family folklore, folklore and gender, Native American literature, folk narrative, and introduction to folklore. Dr. Roush has been a member of the USU faculty since 1983.

Lisa Gabbert is an Assistant Professor and holds a PhD from Indiana University Bloomington in Folklore and American Studies.  Her research interests include tradition, modernity, performance, region/place, festival, and medical folklore.  She has taught courses on youth culture, gender, region, conflict, folk narrative, fieldwork, folklore theory, and folk art.

Dr. Patricia M. Gantt focuses on diversity literature, especially writers of color and women.  She teaches courses in English education (pedagogy of literature) and multicultural American literature. Dr. Gantt also teaches in the Women and Gender Studies Program, which she co-directed from 2002-2005. She holds a PhD in English from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Jeannie Thomas holds a PhD in English and Folklore from the University of Oregon and served as the Director of the Folklore Program at Utah State University from 1998–2008.  She has published numerous books and articles, including Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms of Visible Gender (University of Illinois Press, 2003) and Featherless Chickens, Laughing Women, and Serious Stories (University Press of Virginia, 1997).  Her research interests include gender, urban legends, the supernatural, and material culture.  She is currently serves as interim Associate Dean of the Arts for the college of HASS.

Barre Toelken is professor emeritus.  He is known world-wide for his folklore research, which includes Navajo folklore and healing, ballads, and Japanese stories.  He has published numerous books and articles, including The Dynamics of Folklore, Morning Dew and Roses: Nuance, Metaphor and Meaning in Folksongs, Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends, and The Anguish of Snails: Native American Folklore in the West, among others.

Jay Anderson otherwise known as “Dr. J,” is professor emeritus and teaches in the department of History.  In addition to earning degrees from Hamilton College (B.A.) and the University of Pennsylvania (M.A., PhD), Dr. Anderson studied at both the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and the University of East Africa.  His interests include foodways, ethnic films, and cultural tourism.