I am a historian, cultural critic, and public scholar whose work asks a single question in many registers: who controls the story?

My research sits at the intersection of visual culture, public memory, and feminist historiography. I hold a PhD in American history from the University of Connecticut and a certificate in museum studies from Northwestern University, and I have spent more than a decade examining how communities use public art, monuments, and collective memory to contest power, reclaim erased histories, and imagine different futures.

My current co-authored book project examines political murals in Belfast, Buenos Aires, and Chicago as sites of ongoing struggle over whose narratives are legible in public space. My Belfast chapter — drawn from original fieldwork, mural photography, and interviews with artists including Rita Duffy, Wee Nuls, Holly Pereira, and Emmalene Blake — traces how women and non-binary artists have transformed a tradition historically dominated by paramilitary imagery into something more capacious, more contested, and more honest.

My public writing extends this scholarship into a wider conversation. The Lioness Archive, my Substack, is a space for anti-imperialist historical writing, cultural criticism, and the kind of analysis that connects past patterns to present erasures. My essay on Michael Jackson, Palestine, and the suppression of Black solidarity reached tens of thousands of readers and sparked conversation about whose politics we are permitted to mourn.

Before turning to full-time research and writing, I directed a Women's Studies program and taught history at the university level. I bring that background in curriculum design and pedagogy to my consulting work, helping organizations, publishers, and educators develop learning experiences grounded in rigorous scholarship and honest storytelling.

I am based in the Chicago area and available for editorial consulting, curriculum development, public lectures, and media commentary.