I am a post-contact archaeologist doing community-engaged research in Appalachia and the American South. My work explores how labor exploitation, class struggle, and the politics of identity have shaped people’s lives, past and present. I defended my dissertation and graduated with my PhD in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina in May 2026. My dissertation research focused on the incarcerated laborers who built the Western North Carolina Railroad (WNCRR) from 1875-1891. I was awarded the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant in 2024 to support archaeological survey and excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp in Jackson County, North Carolina. I partnered with community research partners in Jackson County and the surrounding area to address the local community’s interests and concerns and to share the results in accessible formats. I worked with the North Carolina Historical Publications Office, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, to create an online exhibit about incarcerated labor on the WNCRR. For the 2026-27 academic year, I am working as a post-doctoral research fellow with the UGA Laboratory of Archaeology on an NPS-funded grant to relocate Fort Henderson, a site associated with the Second Creek War (1836), and to reconstruct the surrounding landscape of military outposts and Muscogee (Creek) Tribal Towns.

 

You can learn more about my work on my website and follow the Western NC Railroad Incarcerated Labor Project on Instagram @wncrr_archaeology