I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Economics at Morgan State University. I received my Ph.D. from Michigan State University in August 2023.
My research examines how Black Americans, and Black women in particular, pursue and exercise political power. One line of my work focuses on representation, especially how Black women decide to run for office and how candidate training programs shape their paths to winning. A second line examines political behavior among Black Americans, including how emotions and mental health shape participation and how young people bring political information back to their communities. Across both, I use mixed methods and community-engaged approaches that treat everyday people as experts on their own political lives.
My work has been published in PS: Political Science and Politics and Politics, Groups, and Identities, and is forthcoming in Oxford Intersections: Racism by Context. Another manuscript is under revise and resubmit at a subfield journal, and more are in the pipeline. In 2024, my coauthors and I received the Best Paper Award from the Civic Engagement Section of APSA.
I was a 2024-2026 Isom Fellow with the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi. I was also a 2025 National Institute on Scientific Teaching Mobile Institute (MoSI) Fellow and a2018-2019 APSA Minority Fellow. I hold a B.S. in Criminal Justice from Jackson State University and an M.A. in Political Science from Michigan State University.
