Outside my academic work, I have over a decade of varied professional writing, library, and nonprofit experience. I am passionate about the role of libraries in creating a more socially just and liberated society, and have worked in public and university library systems in both Michigan and Virginia.
I have additionally done grants administration, membership coordination, and editorial work with nonprofits including:
Positions Held
- Shelving Support, Jefferson Madison Regional Library, 2025-present
- Doctoral Researcher and Graduate Teaching Assistant, U.S. History, University of Virginia, August 2019-2025
- Received over $90k in grant funding from UVA and other institutions to support research on my dissertation “Building Bohemia in Detroit's Cass Corridor, 1964-2017”
- Organized and processed hundreds of primary documents, many from private collections accessed through relationship-building
- Performed extensive research on Detroit history in local archives including the Walter Reuther Library, the Labadie Collection of Radical Ephemera, the Bentley Library, and the Ann Arbor Public Library
- Communicated nuanced ideas to diverse audiences in courses including Intro to African and African American Studies and Whiteness: The History of a Racial Category
- Project/Event Coordinator and Marketing-Communications Intern, Institute of the Humanities & Global Cultures, University of Virginia, August 2024-May 2025
- Create weekly email newsletter and maintain website
- Assist in coordinating and planning logistics for symposia, workshops, and other events
- Welcome Committee Chair, United Campus Workers Virginia, August 2020-April 2024
- Planned and facilitated biweekly committee meetings and monthly new member orientations
- Performed event promotion, outreach, and follow-up, maintained an inclusive and welcoming space for new union members
- Performed administrative and fiscal tasks including scheduling and leading meetings, monitoring email, maintaining data on membership, processing dues payments
- Grants Management Intern, Detroit Sound Conservancy, August 2022-May 2023
- Assisted in grant management throughout lifecycle
- Collaborated with a small team to help raise $2.2 million from local and national foundations
- Wrote successful grant proposals, LOIs, and grant applications to support nonprofit during a pivotal moment of growth
- Wrote copy for internal and external documents and communications
- Praxis Program Fellow, UVA Library Scholars' Lab, August 2021-May 2022
- Collaborated with an interdisciplinary cohort to create an open educational resource that teaches graduate students in the humanities how to code using HTML and CSS
- Published articles on the Scholars' Lab blog
- Editorial Assistant, Encyclopedia Virginia, May-August 2020
- Researched, wrote, and published an encyclopedia entry on Virginia's state song
- Assisted Virginia Humanities team to complete successful $350k NEH grant
- Graduate Student Assistant, University of Mississippi, 2016-2018
- Offered writing tutoring to students in introductory level Southern Studies courses, including many freshman entering college from the Mississippi public school system, through a fellowship with the Department of Writing and Rhetoric
- Won prizes for best MA thesis and best first-year paper in Southern Studies
- Editorial Assistant, Living Blues Magazine, 2017
- Pitched, researched, and wrote articles
- Represented and promoted Living Blues at events
- Freelance Writer, No Country for New Nashville, 2014-2016
- Features Writer, The Cheat Sheet, 2013-2015
Education
- Ph.D U.S. History, University of Virginia, expected 2025
- MA U.S. History, University of Virginia, 2021
- MA Southern Studies, University of Mississippi, 2018
- BA English/Creative Writing, University of Michigan, 2013
Skills
- Communication: translating nuanced ideas through writing, teaching, and public speaking to a variety of audiences
- Meeting facilitation, virtual and in-person
- Creativity and storytelling: have studied and practiced written, oral, and visual storytelling methods including podcasting, printmaking, oral history, zines, fiction, and poetry
- Project management: Trello, trained in agile methods
- Content management systems: Omeka, WordPress, Drupal
- Version control systems: Git, Github
- Web design: Canva, CSS, HTML
- Podcasting and audio editing: Audacity
- French: intermediate reading profiency, elementary speaking proficiency, passed graduate mastery exam 2021
Workshops
- Letterpress Core Fundamentals, Virginia Center for the Book, August 2024
- Identifying and Understanding 20th Century Duplicating Technologies, Rare Book School, June 2024
- National Humanities Center Podcasting for Humanities Graduate Students: Storytelling for a Modern Audience Winter Institute, January 2024
- Southern Foodways Alliance Oral History Workshop, July 2017
Service & Volunteer Work
- Volunteer, Content Creation, Detroit Sound Conservancy, 2023-2024
- Chair, Welcoming Committee, United Campus Workers, 2020-2024
- Volunteer, Web Scraping, Saving Ukranian Cultural Heritage Online, 2022
- Volunteer Docent, Burns Belfry Museum & Multicultural Center, 2016-2019
Grants & Awards
- Dawn and Stuart Houston Prize for Most Outstanding Project, Rare Book School, 2025
- RBS-UVA Fellowship, Rare Book School, 2024
- UVA Corcoran Department of History DGS Conference Travel Award, Fall 2023
- Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellowship, 2022-2025
- Elected to UVa's prestigious honor society The Raven Society, 2022
- Praxis Program Fellow, University of Virginia Scholar's Lab, 2021-2022
- Bordin-Gillette Researcher Travel Fellowship, for travel to the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library, 2022
- Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Research Grant, University of Virginia, 2021
- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Council Research Grant, University of Virginia, 2021
- Virginia Humanities South Atlantic Studies Fellow, 2020
- Lucille and Motee Daniels Prize for Best Thesis, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi, 2018
- Graduate Writing Fellowship, Department of Writing and Rhetoric, University of Mississippi, 2017-2018
- Lucille and Motee Daniels Prize for Best First-Year Paper, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi, 2017
- Southern Foodways Alliance Oral History Fellowship, 2017
- Hopwood Award in Undergraduate Creative Nonfiction, University of Michigan, 2013
- Hopwood Award in Undergraduate Fiction, University of Michigan, 2012
- Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry, University of Michigan, 2012