Her research and teaching interests include Renaissance literature and culture, the history of the English language, Victorian literature, genre theory, and the intersections of literature and art criticism. Dr. Starke has published articles on Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, and Abraham Cowley, while her book, The Heroines of English Pastoral Romance, was published in 2007 by Boydell and Brewer. She received her BA from Wellesley College and her PhD in English from Rutgers University.