I am an archaeologist working in Barbados with a broader interest in the Caribbean since the time of European and African contact in the region.  I received my Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 2014, with distinction, for my dissertation entitled At the Margins of the Plantation: Alternative Modernities and an Archaeology of the “Poor Whites” of Barbados.  I also hold a B.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park (’07) and an M.A. from the University of Chicago (’09). 

With the support of the Fulbright IIE, my dissertation research was an anthropological and archaeological analysis of an abandoned “poor white” or “Redleg” tenantry along the east coast of Barbados.  Primarily concerned with issues of race and class, my research seeks to illustrate how local Caribbean residents define their relations to processes of capitalism and their racial identities on their own terms.  Through excavations of house sites within the once inhabited and now densely forested area, as well as interactions with the neighboring community, I argue that residents developed alternatives to overarching narratives of modernity.

My broader research interests speak directly to processes and phenomena that have significantly impacted the Caribbean region including colonialism, capitalism, race/racism, the plantation system, and their persistence and impact in the present.  Speaking to the latter, I am committed to public engagement and take seriously the role of archaeological research in the (re)production of history for local residents and communities.  Methodologically, I employ archaeological, anthropological, historical, and geographical techniques to locally situate and contextualize my research interests. 

I have participated in archaeological excavations in urban contexts such as New Orleans, Chicago, and the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as rural and plantation sites in Wisconsin, Maryland, Ireland, and Barbados.  My publications (including those forthcoming) include contributions to local publications such as The Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, international journals such as Slavery and Abolition, interdisciplinary edited volumes, and regionally focused and theoretically oriented archaeological volumes. My current research project is an investigation of an abandoned freehold village in Barbados known as Irish Town.