She earned her doctorate at Indiana University, Bloomington, with a dual specialization in Spanish American and Comparative Literature. Dr. Paulk's areas of research interest are nineteenth-century antislavery literature, Inter-American literary studies, and women's studies. Her scholarly articles include "A New Look at the Strains of Allegory in Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda's Sab," published in Revista Hispanica Moderna, and "(Re)Writing Patriarchy and Motherhood in Jose de Alencar's Allegorical Antislavery Plays, O Demonio Familiar and Mae," which appeared in The Luso-Brazilian Review. Dr. Paulk is currently working on a book-length study of antislavery literature entitled, Mixed Messages: Antislavery Allegories of the Americas.