I am an Assistant Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at The University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. I received my Ph.D. from the Screen Cultures program at Northwestern University, with graduate certificates in African American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies. In conjunction with my graduate research, I spent five years as an instructor for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowships’ Summer Research Training Program at Bowdoin College and received two competitive internal fellowships through Northwestern’s Office of Fellowships and the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities. I also received two competitive external fellowships in 2022: the MMUF Dissertation Grant from the Institute of Citizens and Scholars and the Ford Dissertation Fellowship from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

My current book project, Digital Maids in Domestic Spaces: Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Assistants, and the Ghosts of Black Women’s Labor, examines how intelligent virtual assistants such as the Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, and ChatGPT evoke and are haunted by Black female slaves, servants, and houseworkers in the United States. My work explores both historical and contemporary film, television, new media, and advertisements, drawing methods and perspectives from Film and Media studies, Black studies, Critical Race Theory, Gender and Sexuality studies, Sound/Voice studies, and Science and Technology Studies.

Outside of academia, I am a 4th Dan Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. I enjoy practicing my martial art, singing, dancing, reading novels, and watching reality television.

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EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Screen Cultures, Northwestern University, 2023

M.A. in Screen Cultures, Northwestern University, 2018

B.A. in English Literature, Bowdoin College, 2015

RECENT FELLOWSHIPS

  • 2022 Ford Dissertation Fellowship

  • 2022 MMUF Dissertation Grant

  • Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (Awarded in 2013)

  • Graduate Assistantship with Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Northwestern University, 2021-22

  • Graduate Assistantship with Northwestern University Office of Fellowships, 2020-21