Sarah Downey, PhD

Dr. Sarah Downey is an Associate Professor of English at PennWest California. She studied Latin and Greek as an undergraduate at Sewanee (The University of the South), then completed a Ph.D. in Old English and Anglo-Latin at the University of Toronto's Centre for Medieval Studies. While in Toronto, she worked as a Research Assistant at the Dictionary of Old English and as an Editorial Assistant at the University of Toronto Press. After teaching Medieval Literature and Latin language courses for four years at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, she returned to her home state of Pennsylvania to teach English and Linguistics at California University. In addition to serving as a longtime reviewer of academic books for Choice magazine, Dr. Downey has published research articles in Traditio, Mythlore, Modern Philology, and The Journal of Medieval Latin; has written entries for Routledge’s J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia; and has given research presentations on medieval literature and languages at international and regional conferences. She led a grant-funded undergraduate research project in computational linguistics and has supervised many undergraduate Honors theses and English capstone projects in areas such as mythology, fantasy literature, constructed languages, and creative writing. At California University, Dr. Downey served as Assistant Chair and Assessment Coordinator for the General Education Committee, and later contributed to the development of PennWest’s General Education program. She currently teaches courses in College Composition, Linguistics, Grammar, History of the English Language, Medieval Literature, and World Literature.

Education