I am a History PhD student at George Mason University. I previously graduated from GMU with an MA degree in History with a Concentration in Applied History with a New Media and Information Technology Emphasis. As part of the my concentration, I earned the Smithsonian-Mason Graduate Certificate in Digital Public Humanities.
My research focus is 19th century United States gender history. Exploring intersections of gender with race and identity politics has fueled many of my projects. Pursuing intersectional histories has led me to write about themes including gender identity under enslavement, motherhood, gender and racial politics in the American South, reproductive autonomy, the experiences of enslaved and free African American women, freedom seeking, and kinship networks.
During my MA program I began a project, Finding Sarah Ann, in which I identified and uncovered a never before told story of an enslaved woman named Sarah Ann Brown who escaped on the Underground Railroad from Fairfax, Virginia to Warsaw, New York. This project has grown continuously since I began the research in the Spring of 2023. This project has had several iterations, and it will continue to as my research progresses. I presented it as a digital exhibit through the Center for Mason Legacies’ Black Lives Next Door project, wrote it as a broader academic piece, published it in the Fairfax County historical society yearbook, hosted a program with it for the Vienna historical society, and presented it at the 2024 Virginia Forum.
Also while in my MA program, I worked on a project called King Iron. I worked with the African American Community Research Group in my hometown Clarksville, Tennessee to create a digital archive and exhibits surrounding the lives of the enslaved people who powered the iron works industry of the Confederate South, particularly in Northern Tennessee and Southwest Kentucky.
As an MA student, I worked as a Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for Mason Legacies and interned on the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s HBCU History, Culture, and Access Consortium project.
