About

I'm a cultural anthropologist whose ethnographic research uses sport to theorize race, kinship, care, gender, and the performing body. My work focuses on the lived experiences of Black football players.

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Currently, I'm an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, with secondary appointments in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and African & African American Studies. I'm also the founder and director of the Health, Ethnography, and Race through Sports (HEARTS) Lab, a team-based hub that brings together interdisciplinary undergrad and grad students to critically study the history, economics, and politics driving sport in the U.S. 

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My first book, Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football (University of California Press 2025), moves off the gridiron into the daily lives of Black college football players, the young athletes that sustain this American sport. While theorizing two types of care (corporeal concern and kindred care), I argue that Black college football players successfully move through their everyday lives by reimagining certain kinship relationships and relying on various geographies of care. My next project focuses on bodily injuries and head trauma in high school football to consider how race, medicine, injury, and sport intersect. 

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For my work, I've been awarded the 2026 Margaret Mead Award from SfAA & AAA; the 2026 Diversity Recognition for Emerging and Non-Traditional Scholars Award from NASSH; an Honorable Mention for the 2026 Emerging Scholar Award from ASA's Sports Studies Caucus; and an Honorable Mention for the 2025 New Directions Award from AAA’s General Anthropology Division.
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​I've long been invested in making my anthropological arguments accessible for multiple audiences. My writing has been published in outlets including Essence, Scientific American, and The Guardian, and featured in venues including MoMA, C-SPAN, ESPN’s Andscape, and NPR’s Code Switch. 

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​My research has been supported by various agencies, including the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. I'm also a NSF CAREER Award grantee.