I’m a scholar of material culture, focusing on histories of race and gender in the United States. I’m fascinated by the ways that objects hold history. And by the way they make history.

My forthcoming book, Crafting Womanhood: Needlework, Gender, and Politics in the United States, 1810-1920, uses decorative needlework as a lens onto women’s engagement with property rights, colonialism, race, the antislavery movement, labor, and the suffrage movement. It argues that women used their needles to participate in social movements and to construct public, political femininities. With needle and thread, they crafted womanhood.

I am Assistant Professor of American Studies & Public Heritage at Penn State Harrisburg, where I am also the Program Coordinator in our Graduate Certificate in Heritage and Museum Practice. I teach courses across the fields of art history, material culture, women’s history, public history, and museum studies. I was a 2024-2026 Teaching with Technology Fellow at Penn State and am particularly interested in incorporating digital humanities methods into the classroom.

I serve as co-chair of the Material Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association and welcome the opportunity to collaborate with fellow scholars in our allied fields.