About me

After attending Rutgers (undergraduate) and UCLA (graduate), I began my career at Georgetown University, where I helped to build curriculum, programming, and connections around feminist, African American, and African Studies, and in 2016 helped to establish the African American Studies department. In 2019, I joined the faculty in the English Department of The University of Texas at Austin, where I am also affiliated faculty in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and African & African Diaspora Studies. From 2022-2025, I served as Director of UT’s Humanities Institute, leading its transformation into a research institute to support faculty as well as graduate & undergraduate students. Collaboration and creating pathways for others to shine are the hallmarks of my professional life, including the Black Feminism on the Edge Book Series. In 2025, I launched a student-based research lab on mobile reproductive health, as well as a podcast dedicated to the stories and study of higher education access for first-generation and underrepresented college students. My third book, Inside the Body of Black Feminism (Duke UP, 2026), centers on African diaspora engagements with organs and biological systems in the body. I’m currently working on book-length projects on travel, leisure, & wellness cultures; faith & diversity in the contemporary university; feminist ambivalence; and divorce.