Professor Chrusciel joined the faculty in 2006. She studied English, Polish and world literature at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, and earned her Ph.D. in literary studies and contemporary poetry from Illinois State. With a background in American contemporary poetry and cognitive poetics, Professor Chrusciel takes an interdisciplinary and international approach to her teaching and research. She is an award-winning bilingual poet with three books written in Polish and three books of poems in English. Her poetry has been translated and published internationally.

Professor Chrusciel's teaching and scholarly interests lies in pre-modern, modern and postmodern world poetry, comparative literature, creative writing, translation, and cognitive poetics, including neurological theories of aesthetic experience. She teaches creative writing, world literature, composition, poetry and contemporary prose.