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I am a recent graduate from the Department of Sociology at the University of Virginia. In August of 2009 I began work as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Mississippi State University. I am also an affiliated faculty member in the Program of African American Studies and in the Program of Gender Studies.

I study racial identity formation as a dynamic and ongoing process with special attention to how racial identity (re)produces and contests racism, inequality, and relations of power. I argue that a scholastic comprehension of race must move past that of seeing race as either static identity or ideology. Rather, it is necessary to understand the general processes and contexts which produce "race," give it meaning, and the social relationships and practices in which race and racial identity projects become embedded. Toward this end, my research agenda is maintained by three distinct, but mutually supportive, pillars:

(1) The "practice" of race; or the combination of structural and dramaturgical processes by which people socially construct racial identity, make meaning of "race," and negotiate that meaning with others within the context of objective social relations of power and inequality.
(2) The organization and cultural logic of raced associational activities (Black Fraternities and Sororities, the Black Panther Party, and White Identity groups).
(3) The representation of race in various mediated formats (from television and film to newsprint and internet).