Education
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY | Princeton, NJ
Ph.D., History (2019)
M.A., History (2014)

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA | Tuscaloosa, AL
B.A., History and American Studies (2012)
Summa cum laude with honors, McNair Scholars Program, Phi Beta Kappa
Work History
Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum | Skillman, NJ
  • Education and Exhibit Manager (March 2023 - Dec 2025)
  • Communications Manager (Oct 2021 - Feb 2023)

Radcliffe '75 Oral History Project | Radcliffe Harvard Class of 1975
  • Project Manager (Aug 2021 - July 2025)

​The Princeton & Slavery Project | Princeton University
  • Editor and Project Manager (Jan 2017 - Dec 2024)
  • Research Coordinator (Jan 2013 - Dec 2016)​​​
National September 11 Memorial & Museum | New York, NY
  • Manager of Exhibition Development (June 2019 - July 2021)​

Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton | Princeton University
  • Technical Lead - UNOW & Then Oral History Project (April 2018 - April 2019)​

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs | Princeton University
  • Researcher - Woodrow Wilson Marker Committee (Jan 2018 - June 2018)​
Honors & Awards
Book Awards

  • Winner - 2024 James F. Sulzby Book Award | Alabama Historical Association
  • Winner - 2023 Frederick Douglass Book Prize | Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University
  • ​Winner - 2023 Tom Watson Brown Book Award | Society of Civil War Historians
  • ​Winner - 2023 William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Early Scholar Book Prize​ | American Society for Legal History
  • Winner - 2023 Shapiro Book Prize | The Huntington Library
  • Finalist - 2023 Harriet Tubman Prize | Lapidus Center at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL

Professional Awards

  • 2025 Leadership in History Award of Excellence | American Association for State and Local History | ​For SSAAM's 1899 Camp Meeting Reenactment (Public Programs) and special exhibit "The Head that Wears the Crown: Black Women's Headwear from Slavery to the Present" (Exhibits)​
Professional Service & Memberships
Humanities Council | Princeton Public Library
  • Council Member (Oct 2021 - present)
Revolution NJ | New Jersey Historical Commission
  • Co-Chair, Scholarly and Public Programs Working Group (April 2021 - Jan 2024)
  • Advisory Council, 250th Anniversary Traveling Exhibition (Jan 2024 - May 2024)​​
Voices of Princeton | Princeton Public Library
  • Interview Facilitator (Jan 2018 - Aug 2018)
Select Publications
Books
​
Long-Form
Short Form
Museum Publications
  • “Mt. Zion AME Church: Celebrating 125 Years,” Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (Jan 2025)
  • “Stories of SSAAM,” Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (Jan 2025)
Exhibitions
​Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum

​Curator
  • "All Stars: Black Baseball in NJ and Beyond" | Mt. Zion AME Church (Aug 2025)
  • "Art of the Witness Stones Project" | Montgomery Public Library (June 2025); Princeton Public Library (Feb 2025); Mt. Zion AME Church (June 2024); Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Gallery (Feb 2024)
  • "William Stives: American Patriot" | Historic Reasoner/True House (May 2023)
  • "From Fiddlers to Jazz Bands: African American Music in the Sourlands" | Mt. Zion AME Church (April 2023)
  • "African American Women of the Sourlands" |  Mt. Zion AME Church (March 2023), Montgomery Public Library (June 2023)
  • "Love Letters of Garland H. Fields" | Montgomery Public Library (Feb 2023)
​
Director
Editor
  • "The Head that Wears the Crown: Black Women's Headwear from Slavery to Freedom" | Mt. Zion AME Church (Sept 2024)​

National September 11 Memorial & Museum
Select Conferences & Invited Talks
Invited Talks​​
  • Food for Thought Lecture, Alabama Department of Archives & History (June 2025)
  • Keynote, 2024 Annual Meeting, Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (June 2024)
  • ​Keynote, 2024 Annual Meeting, Alabama Historical Association (April 2024)​
  • ​2023 Tom Watson Brown Book Award Lecture, 2023 SHA Annual Meeting, Southern Historical Association (November 2023)
  • ​2023 Shapiro Book Prize Lecture, The Huntington Library (March 2023)
  • ​Keynote, Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society Quarterly Meeting (March 2023)
  • Book Breaks with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (February 2023)
  • Legal History Colloquium, Vanderbilt University (November 2022)
  • ​"Isabela Morales in conservation with Marni Sandweiss," Princeton Public Library, Princeton, NJ (May 2022)
  • Keynote, Historical Research Conference for Teens, Scarsdale Public Library (August 2021)​​​​​
  • "What I Found in the Archive," Department of History, Smith College (March 2021)
  • ​"Writing Family History with Legal Documents," Writing History Seminar, Columbia University (March 2020)​​​
  • "Stories from the Princeton & Slavery Project," Nassau Club of Princeton (January 2019)
  • "Race and Slavery in Our Community," Princeton Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (October 2018)​
  • "Princeton and Slavery: A Paradox of American History," Princeton Club of Northern California (April 2018)​
Conference Panels & Roundtables​​​​​​​
  • "The Plot Thickens: Writing and Selling Stories in a Shifting Marketplace," Princeton Reunions Alumni-Faculty Forum, Princeton University (May 2025)
  • "Legacy Projects: The Princeton & Slavery Project," Revolution to Reparations: The Black Experience in New Jersey, Rutgers University-Newark (May 2025)
  • "Slavery in New Jersey," Remembrance and Reconciliation Fall Symposium, Princeton GAASA (November 2024)
  • “Interpreting Race at Civil War Battlefields,” 2024 Civil War Institute Annual Meeting, Gettysburg College (June 2024)
  • "Writing Family History: Subjects, Sources, and Significance," 2022 SHEAR Annual Meeting, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (July 2022)
  • "Building a Place for History: Rediscovery & Renewal," 2022 New Jersey History and Historic Preservation Conference (June 2022)
  • ​"African American Heritage in New Jersey," Embracing Cross-Cultural Diversity, Lead New Jersey, Morven Museum & Garden (July 2021)​​
  • "Negotiating Racial Boundaries in the 19th-century American West," 2020 WHA Annual Meeting, Western History Association (October 2020)
  • “Monuments, Memory, and Memorialization in the Many Wests,” 2020 WHA Annual Meeting, Western History Association (October 2020)​​
  • ​"Sharing Untold Stories," Crossroads of the American Revolution and the New Jersey Historical Commission, Morven Museum & Garden (January 2020)​
  • "A 'Not So Entirely Northern' School: Princeton University and the Antebellum South," 2019 SHEAR Annual Meeting, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (July 2019)​
  • "The Civil War at Princeton," A Campus Divided: War at Princeton, Princeton University (June 2018)
  • "Fathers and Slaves: Social Experiences, Constitutional Conflicts, and Religious Legacies of Slavery in American Life," 2018 OAH Annual Meeting, Organization of American Historians (April 2018)​
  • "Landscapes of Race," Modern America Workshop, Princeton University (February 2018)
  • "Town and Gown: Race and Violence in Princeton, New Jersey," Princeton & Slavery Project Symposium, Princeton University (November 2017)​​
Community Events​​​​​
  • Author Talk, Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center (Mar 2025)
  • "Slavery in New Jersey," Maplewood Adult School (Feb 2025)
  • "Slavery in New Jersey," Mahwah Public Library (May 2024)
  • Author Talk, Morven Museum & Garden (July 2023)
  • "Who Gets to Live the American Dream?," Fridays with Friends, Morven Museum & Garden (February 2023)​
  • Author Talk, The University of Alabama (Sept 2022)
  • Author Talk, The University of Alabama-Huntsville (Sept 2022)​
  • Somereset County, NJ, 2nd Annual Juneteenth Celebration (June 2022)​​
  • "Historical Research as Anti-Racism," Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton Racial Justice Ministry (January 2022)
  • "Slavery and Freedom in Elizabeth, New Jersey," Siloam Hope First Presbyterian Church (February 2020)​​​
  • "Race and Slavery in a Northern Town," Princeton Evergreen Forum, Princeton Senior Resource Center (February 2018)​