Hey Martel!

We are Gabriela, Liam, and Oscar, your #121 Resident Associates! We love being a part of the Martel community and look forward to spending time with you in the commons, in the quad, at Parliament, during study breaks, and around campus. 

We are an international family: Gabriela grew up in São Paulo, Brazil; Liam in Victoria, Canada; and our son Oscar was born in New Orleans. We’ve been at Rice since 2023 and joined Martel at the beginning of 2025.

At Rice, Gabriela is Director of Graduate Initiatives and Innovation in the School of Humanities and Arts and the Associate Director of the Humanities Research Center, where she teaches and drives public-facing humanities work—connecting research to real-world problems, communities, and careers beyond higher education. She's currently writing a book on how universities work, to help doctoral students and early-career scholars navigate their institutions. She's also a poet, with work in journals like AGNI and The Rumpus. She loves genre fiction, pop culture, and talking about higher education—feel free to ask her your burning questions about academia!

Liam is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Rice’s Media Studies Major and also teaches in the popular Politics, Law & Social Thought program. His current research is about the relationship between American right-wing politics and communication technologies like social media, AI, and podcasts. He is enthusiastic about old books and films, the Vancouver Canucks, running (slowly), electric guitars, baking sourdough, and hiking through all the state and national parks possible.

Oscar goes to a nearby Montessori, where he is working on his Spanish and learning to read and write. He loves playing UNO with his buddies, hosting study breaks, going to Hermann Park and the Children’s Museum, and baking chocolate chip-and-tahini cookies at home. Oscar is also a regular on the swing set in the quad.

Please don’t hesitate to pull up a chair and join us at mealtimes, stop by our suite to say hello, or challenge Oscar to a Mortal Kombat match in the game room!

Gabriela, Liam, and Oscar (GLO)