My research clusters around three general areas, which often overlap: the history of religion and culture in the United States, African American studies, and the intersection of race and religion in American history. I am trained as a historian of American history and culture, with additional specialties in world history and African history. I often find rich interplay between my teaching and research, so I try to read widely in multiple fields: American history, American religious history, African American history, literary studies, and world history.
As a graduate student from 2000 to 2009, I received funding for and recognition of my research as an Academic Affairs Scholar and Arts and Sciences Scholar (at Sam Houston State University). At the University of Houston I received an Outstanding Graduate Student award and received a Murray Miller Dissertation Fellowship. In addition, I participated in a Colonial Society of Massachusetts Graduate Student Forum and won two writing awards: the Zeta Kappa Award, Phi Alpha Theta Graduate Essay Contest for “Islam in Africa: Intersections, Negotiations, and Mystical Spaces in Sufism” and the World History Association/Phi Alpha Theta Student Paper in World History Prize, “Navigating the Indian Ocean: Exploring the Textures of an African Diaspora.” I wrote both papers in graduate seminars on African history with the University of Houston's Kairn Klieman.
As a history professor, outside of annual travel funds, three Lily Endowment-funded seminars greatly enhanced my research. In 2010, I participated in a Calvin College Seminar titled “The Power of Race in American Religion” led by Michael Emerson, who was then affiliated with Rice University. In 2011, I participated in another Calvin College Seminar titled “Congregations and Social Change” led by Gerardo Marti of Davidson College. In addition, In 2016, I participated in "Bodies of Christ: Visualizing Jesus Then and Now," a Calvin College Seminar led by San Diego State University's Edward Blum. I also received a 2013 Scholar in Residence fellowship at the African American Library at Houston's Gregory School. In 2017 and 2018, I received a Mary Jo Small Fellowship from The Society for Values in Higher Education. I received a Conference Travel Grant from The Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline in 2018 to attend and speak at the Du Bois/King Symposium at Clark Atlanta University. In 2019, I received a Travel Award from Clark Atlanta University to work at the Archives Research Center. From 2018-2019, the Mellon Foundation funded my work as a W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow at UMass Amherst. I am currently a Scholar in Residence at the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
I have published articles and essays on religion and world history, American religion, race and religion in America, and teaching history. At present I am working on several projects related to W. E. B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois. I continue to actively research and prepare publications on American religious history and the history of Christianity in the United States, along with work on African American cultural, literary, and intellectual history.