2025-2026 Leadership
Rebecca J. Johnston, president
Rebecca Johnston is a faculty member at Valencia College Downtown in Orlando, Florida. Rebecca’s interest in Hemingway began during one of many trips to Slovenia. Rebecca was the 2016 recipient of the Lewis-Reynolds-Smith Founder’s Fellowship and one of the 2017 recipients of the JFK Hemingway research grants. Her research interests center around World War One literature.
Massiel Valdez, Director of Cuban Affairs.
Massiel graduated with a BA in History from the University of Havana. She worked at the Ernest Hemingway House Museum, Finca Vigía, San Miguel del Padrón, Havana, Cuba between 2018 and 2022, where she served as a museologist specializing in the life and work of the American writer, Ernest Hemingway. She participated in the 18th International Colloquíum dedicated to Ernest Hemingway, in which she presented the paper: “The Female Representation of the New Woman in the Works Fiesta and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway”, which was published by the magazine “La Jiribilla” in June 2021. She currently lives in Miami, Florida where she works at Florida National University.
Nicole Musselman,
Vice-President
Nicole Musselman is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Florida in the Department of English. Her area of interest is nineteenth and early twentieth-century American literature, particularly depictions of mothers and how culture constructed motherhood during times of war. She was the editor of the 2022 edition of JourMS, Journal of Mother Studies. She was the editorial assistant for The Mailer Review for Volume 15. She received the Jim and Nancy Hinkle Travel Grant in 2022 and 2024 to present at the International Hemingway Society Conferences in Montana/Wyoming and Spain. She has taught first-year writing, Film and Culture, Introduction to Literature, Great Literature of the World, and British and American Literture by Women Writers courses. She lives in Florida with her husband and toddler, who inspire her research in American mother studies.