About Me

I am an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Colorado State University (CSU), specializing in teaching and research on Black queer and feminist studies, and Caribbean gender and sexuality studies with a particular interest in trans experience and cultural production. I teach courses in queer studies, Africa and the African Diaspora, ethnicity, class, and gender in the US, Black media and Cinema, and many more. I am also excited to develop courses on queer politics in the global south in the near future. 

At CSU, I manage the RaGE Collective, a collaborative research project that is keenly attentive to the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality, that informs a sense of belonging in varied political, cultural, social, economic, and historical contexts. Inspired by Black and transnational feminists, Black queer theory, and Caribbean feminist, queer, trans, and sexuality scholarship, it aims to foster an environment that is attentive to the issues affecting varied lives and communities that are refracted through shared experiences and differences. 

Since joining CSU in 2022 I have been working on many exciting projects, including The Academy for Undergraduate Feminist Scholars in collaboration with Dr. Caridad Souza and six undergraduate students from various programs here at CSU; and The Real Talk Academy in partnership with Duan Ruff and nine student members of the Black/ African American Cultural Center community. The academies were funded by the College of Liberal Arts and the Office of Inclusive Excellence and allowed these amazing students to engage in feminist and anti-oppression Participatory Action Research to document student experiences at the university. The lab has also begun a community-engaged project to curate The Cyrus Sylvester Archive of Queer Trinidad and Tobago, which consists of approximately 5000 images, videos, and other media depicting the country’s queer culture from the 1960s to the present. 

Alongside my teaching, I collaborate with LGBTIQ+ communities in Trinidad and Tobago, and particularly CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice as a volunteer on many different social justice projects attending to the deeply complicated needs of some of the most marginalized people in the country. 

My first book, titled Defiant Bodies: Making Queer Community in the Anglophone Caribbean was published by Rutgers University Press in June 2023. It problematizes the neocolonial and homoimperial nature of queer human rights activism in four Anglophone Caribbean nations – Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago – and thinks critically about the limits of human rights as a tool for seeking queer liberation. It also offers critical insight into the ways that queer people negotiate, resist, and disrupt homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination by mobilizing “on the ground” and creating transgressive communities within the region.