I am a SOULISTA. I blend my passion for fashion, performance, and social justice activism to create my own innovative approach to studying the social/cultural movements of the 20th & 21st centuries. I earned my Ph.D. in U.S. & African Diaspora History at Indiana University-Bloomington.

I am an Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at UMass-Amherst where I design courses on "Feminism(s) and Fashion" and "Feminist Public History." I'm completing a book-length manuscript titled Liberated Threads: Black Women and the Politics of Adornment. The book reveals how and why activists, entertainers, and everyday women in the U.S., Britain, and South Africa used beauty culture and fashion to develop modern methods of resistance and cultural-political expression. In wearing African-inspired clothing, large hoop earrings, Afros, and cornrows, black women created the "soul style" look, which birthed new political strategies and new grooming rituals in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. My forthcoming article in the Journal of Southern History, "SNCC Women, Denim, and the Politics of Dress," uses interviews I conducted with SNCC field secretaries to reveal why SNCC women abandoned their “Sunday best” attire for denim overalls.

I continue to craft intellectual, cultural, and political projects that bring the often marginalized voices of young women of color to the forefront. Enter my intellectual atelier on Twitter: @SoulistaPhD.