Dissertation: This is What Solidarity Looks Like: Reimagining Afro-Asian Activism and Resistance

Research Interests: Black and transnational feminisms, social movements, Performance studies, African American and Asian American history and culture, Pan Africanism, and oral history.

Education

• M.A. Pan African Studies with a Certificate of Advanced study in Women and Gender Studies, Syracuse University, 2014
• B.A. History and Africana Studies, California State University, Long Beach, 2012
• A.A. African American Studies, Contra Costa College, 2009

Publications

• “Poetic Justice: Bay Area Afro-Asian Women’s Activism Through Verse” in The Racial Frontier: African Americans in the Urban West from Great Migration to the Twenty First Century, 1900-2015, University of Oklahoma Press, Eds. Herbert G. Ruffin II and Dwayne Mack (forthcoming).
• “Envisioning a Third Space: Coalescing Community Through Shared Knowledge and Innovative Thinking” Imagining America, September 2013 (published blog).

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships 

• Graduate Student Assistant to the Dean of Graduate Studies and the Chancellor (GSADC) (2017-2018)
• Feminist Research Institute Summer Grant (Summer 2017)
• Mellon Public Scholars Summer Grant (Summer 2017)
• Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (HArCs) Dean's List Summer Fellowship (Summer 2016)
• Social Justice Initiative Summer Grant (Summer 2016)
• UC Davis Cultural Studies Travel Grant (Spring 2015)
• Syracuse University MA Thesis Graduate Prize (Spring 2015)
• Cultural Studies Incentive Fellowship (Fall 2014-Summer 2015)
• Imagining America PAGE Fellowship (Fall 2013-Spring 2014)
• Central New York Humanities Corridor Visiting Scholar Research Grant (Spring 2013) 

Conference Presentations

• “Wreq it and Work it: Queering Afro-Asian Cultural Production” Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), Portland, OR, April 13-15, 2017 
• “Afro-Asian Philosophy” Association for the Study of African American Life History (ASALH), Richmond, VA, October 5- 9, 2016.
• “The Roar of the Dalit Panther: Black Power in India” Association for the Study of African American Life History (ASALH), Atlanta, GA, September 26-29, 2015.
• “Black Queer Activism: Testimonios, Herstory, and #BlackLivesMatter” Graduate Communication Society of Cal State East Bay: #BlackLivesMatter: Civil Rights & Social Justice in the 21st Century Conference. Hayward, CA, May 15-16, 2015.
• “Poetic Justice: Afro-Asian Women’s Voices through Verse,” Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS), Evanston, IL,

April 15-18, 2015.

• “Black Power and Debility: A Feminist-Crip Critique of the Black Panther Party,” National Council for Black Studies
• (NCBS), Los Angeles, CA, March 11-13, 2015.
• “Poetic Justice: Positioning Black Women and Black Male Queer Identifying Perspectives into the Black Power Historical
• Narrative Through Performance,” National Council for Black Studies (NCBS), Miami, FL, March 5-8. 2014.
• “Black Women in the Academy and the Feminization of Labor” roundtable presentation, Imagining America, October 2013.

Invited Papers, Keynotes, and Presentations

• “Perspectives in Higher Education” The California Council of Cultural Centers in Higher Education (CaCCCHE), February 4, 2017, invited speaker, February 4, 2017
• “From Slavery to ‘Freedom:’ the Evolution and Liberation of Black Women’s Hair and Beauty,” Nappy Roots Event, University of California, Davis, invited speaker, November 17, 2016
• Sacramento State University, Empowering Women of Color Conference, invited speaker, October 21, 2016
• University of California, Davis Black Leadership Conference, keynote speaker, October 5, 2016
• University of California, Davis Queer Leadership Retreat, keynote speaker, November 14, 2015
• "Seeking Poetic Justice: Positioning Black Women and Queer Identifying into the Black Power Historical Narrative, “
• Syracuse University, CNY Humanities Corridor Brown Bag guest speaker, February 7, 2014
• “Journeying to ‘Malcolmland:’ In Search of Black Identity and Masculinity” Syracuse University, Documenting Dissent Scholars Forum, November 2012