material culture, domestic interiors, non-elite history
I am a first year PhD student in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge in an Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Museum of the Home in London. I am supervised by Dr. Matthew Walker, Marina Maniadaki, Aurelien Enjalbert, and Professor James Campbell.
My current thesis project, "Decorating Domestic Interiors of the British Poor, 1600-1800" is on interior decorative elements in the homes of the poor in Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Using a wide breadth of sources, I am concerned with how individuals personalized their homes, landlords regulated decoration, and how the elite represented poor domestic spaces in art and literature.
In the 2025-2026 academic year, I will be co-convening the Postgraduate Material Culture Workshop in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge.
I come from an interdisciplinary background. I earned my MA in 2024 from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware, where I wrote my thesis "Lint and North Carolina Cotton Mills, 1887-1939." While working on my master's degree, I also completed the MESDA Summer Institute in 2023. Additionally, I was Summa cum laude at William & Mary, where I received a BA in Anthropology and History.
After completing my PhD, I aim to continue to engage with material culture studies through curatorial work in a museum setting.
“Lint and North Carolina Cotton Mills, 1887-1939”. University of Delaware, 2024. (MA Thesis)
“Crafting Legacy with Broken Pieces: Lee Family Fragments at Winterthur,” The Coalition of Master’s Scholars on Material Culture, May 26, 2023.
"From Necessity to Novelty: Historic Trades in Colonial Williamsburg". William & Mary, 2022. (BA Thesis)
"Alternative Means of Decorating in Poor and Laboring Class British Homes, 1600-1800." University of Cambridge Faculty of History Material Culture Workshop, 2026.
“The Abeng, a history." Parson’s/Cooper Hewitt Graduate Student Symposium “Politics of Materiality,” April 19, 2024.
“Identifying the Carolina Lint-Head." North Carolina Association of Historians Annual Conference, April 5, 2024.
“Crossing the Atlantic: A Charleston Silver Dish Cross from the Shop of Charles Wittich." 76th Annual Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Michael McNamara Young Scholars Series, 2024.
“Crossing the Atlantic: A Charleston Silver Dish Cross from the Shop of Charles Wittich." MESDA Summer Institute Fellows Symposium 2023.
