She holds a B.A. in Black Studies from The College of William and Mary, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in African American Studies from U.C. Berkeley. She specializes in early African Diaspora culture and archaeology, slavery, visual and material culture, and public history. Her new book Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine was named one of the top ten books on food of 2017 by the Smithsonian Magazine.