I am a trained social scientist and holder of a PhD in Sociology from Brandeis University. I have taught at Marlboro College, Emerson College, Bennington College, Wheaton College, Tufts University, and Brandeis.
I have published academic papers focused on issues of spatial inequality, collaborative racial silence, and affordable housing.
For weaving, I trained at Penland School of Craft and Vavstuga Weaving School. In addition to my weaving practice, my series Our Social Fabric uses the classic American sampler form to engage the public in our long history of spatial exclusion and segregation. These works, which were supported by arts-based research grants, produced a series of cross stitched samplers that reimagined historical motifs to represent racially restrictive housing covenants from the 1930s that limited housing to only white occupants.
I have presented this work most recently at the American Sociological Association Annual Conference. Other works in the series include knotted woven maps that represent, in tactile form, the destruction of working class and community of color neighborhoods through urban renewal. Side-by-side maps encourage viewers to feel the thick plush knots of the neighborhoods before they were razed to the ground, as represented in the second woven maps with shaved pile.
Selected Publications:
- 2023 “Getting Suburbs to Do Their Fair Share: Housing Exclusion and Local Response to State Interventions” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. 9(1): 126-144.
- 2023 “Webs of Connection: Dynamics of Ownership and Relationship Between Students and Faculty at a Small Innovative College.” in Beyond Innovation: Progressive Education. Edited by Ryan Derby-Talbot and Noah Coburn. Palgrave Publishers.
Selected Presentations:
- 2023 American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting. “Our Social Fabric: Using Textiles to Engage the Public on Spatial Inequality”
- 2020 ASA Annual Meeting “A Conceptual and Methodological Innovation to Study Racial Silences”
Selected Grants Received:
- 2022 Faculty Advancement Fund Grant for “Our Social Fabric” textiles project
- 2019 Faculty Professional Development Grant