About me...
I grew up in Tontitown, Arkansas - a close-knit Italian community founded in the 1890s. However, my own family was of mixed heritage combinging the strong Norwegian influence of my mother's family with the French Indian background of my father.
I entered theUniversity of Arkansas as a non-traditional student and completed a BA in Anthropology (2004 - Cum Laude). I spent 13 months in New Zealand exploring the use of GPS, GIS, and community engagement within historical archaeology by mapping, comparing, and digitally reconstructing several European and Chinese mining settlements. I then attended Michigan Technological University earning an MS in Industrial Archaeology (2005) by exploring an ethics-based approach to managing archaeological data with a case study from the high arctic islands of Spitzbergen. I have been a graduate student at the University of Florida since 2005.
I advanced to PhD candidacy in 2007 earning an MA in anthropology for preliminary research on the application of new information technologies to historic sites of shame. I frame my current work as engaged visual archaeology and draw on theoretical trends in critical race theory (CRT), diaspora studies, and current discussions of violence in anthropology and philosophy. I am also interested in academic storytelling as a form of engaged pedagogy.
I situate myself methodological within historical anthropology and archaeology, especially as they engage with trends in participatory GIS (PGIS), critical cartography, and digital media. I am interested in using visual anthropology and virtual world environments to create emotive spaces for connecting present audiences with the past in ways that tease out modern-day correlates to historic instances of intolerance.
I currently serve on the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) Student Committee as Communications Coordinator.
I live with my partner Diana and a cat named Chester Houdini.
