Post-1960 US & World History • Race, Empire, Immigration

Abolition and Carceral Studies • Climate Migration

Public and Digital Humanities

I (she/her) am a public historian of race, empire, borders and immigration enforcement, and climate migration in the modern US and the World.

Trained in interdisciplinary archival, oral history, digital humanities, social science, and participatory research methods, I hold a PhD in History from UC Irvine, a Master’s in Humanities and Social Thought from NYU, and a BA in History from UCLA. My book, Detention Empire: Reagan's War on Immigrants and the Seeds of Resistance (UNC Press, 2022), received an honorable mention for the Immigration and Ethnic History Society's First Book Award. It explores the rise of migrant detention in the early 1980s as a form of counterinsurgency.

I am the creator of the digital history projects IMM Print, Climate Refugee Stories, and Climate Inequality CLT, and lead curator of the Climates of Inequality: Charlotte museum exhibit. In 2016, I was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship from the Open Society Foundations for my work in immigration detention storytelling. Climate Refugee Stories has been awarded grants from the Institute of International Education, NC Humanities, National Geographic Society, and the University of California Critical Refugee Studies Collective. In 2018-20, I was a post-doctoral fellow in Global American Studies at Harvard University where I taught in the Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights unit.  

Climate Refugee Stories is a multimedia narrative, archiving, and education project that uplifts the stories of people around the world who have been displaced by direct or indirect impacts of climate change, and documents the ways communities are resilient in the face of overlapping crises–including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Climate Inequality CLT is a public history and community mapping project led by students and professors at UNC Charlotte. We are dedicated to spreading awareness about climate change, historical social injustices, and honoring our city's proud history of environmental justice leadership. We collaborate with artists, educators, youth, and community leaders to share stories, data, and resources for building climate resilience.

In partnership with UNC Charlotte’s Public History program and the Charlotte Teachers Institute, Climates of Inequality visited the Levine Museum of the New South from May to September 2023. Within the traveling exhibit of multimedia stories from across North and South America, a featured exhibit, Climate Refugees in the City of Creeks, explores histories of environmental change, displacement, and migration in Charlotte. Showcasing voices and artwork of students, teachers, and community members, it highlights Charlotte’s contributions to the environmental justice movement, from the first Earth Day in 1970 to today.