She received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, where she focused on Afro-German autobiographical narratives. Her book manuscript: Irreconcilable Differences?: Memory, History, and the Echoes of Diaspora, focuses on autobiographical narratives by Afro-European and African American writers and performers to examine the ways in which black artists, in engaging sites of shared memory (both real and imagined), construct diasporic spaces outside of the nation paradigm. She is currently working on a digital humanities project, “Singing the Nation into Being: National Anthems and the Politics of Black Female Performance,” which examines the ways in which black women’s public performances of “nation” critique raced and gendered notions of belonging. Donaldson is a recent recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellowship for Junior Faculty (2016-2017).