Travis earned a B.A. in Plan II and English at The University of Texas. After that, he completed his PhD in English at The University of North Carolina. His research specialties include post-1945 American literature and film, health humanities, black studies, and sexuality studies. Articles on these topics have appeared or are forthcoming in American Literature; boundary 2; Literature, Interpretation, Theory; The Quarterly Review of Film and Video; and symplokē. Travis's dissertation--"A Glamorous Nightmare: HIV/AIDS, American Literature, and the Viral Power of Whiteness"--integrates these interests through examinations of texts including Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. At Rice, Travis will begin converting this dissertation into a book manuscript and will be collaborating with Rice's Medical Futures Lab. He teaches undergraduate courses for the Medical Humanities Minor on health disparities and protest as well as the introductory course (MDHM 201). When not writing or teaching, Travis enjoys cycling, cooking, walking his mini dachshund, and reading detective novels.