Zarif is a PhD candidate from Chicago whose research focuses on animality, beastification, and prosopopoeia in 20th- and 21st-century poetry. His reading languages include Spanish, Old English, Latin, and Ancient Greek.

His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, Image, Bennington Review, The Offing, Washington Square Review, The Margins, Salt Hill, Chicago Review, and elsewhere. He has received support from the Kenyon Writers Workshop and Sewanee Writers' Conference, and his work has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets and the National Poetry Series.

Before coming to UVA, he worked as a consultant to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, a curriculum designer for Chicago middle schools, and a farmhand on the Bellarine Peninsula of Australia.

In addition to serving as Treasurer and Writing & Composition Representative for the Graduate English Students Association (GESA), Zarif is a mentor in the Writing and Rhetoric Program and a 2025–26 Praxis Fellow. He currently serves as Assistant Director of the Center for Poetry & Poetics.

Education

2019. MFA, Literary Arts (Poetry), Brown University
2017. BA, English & American Literature, New York University