I am a cultural historian and museum curator based in Massachusetts. I am Associate Curator and Director of Exhibitions at the Concord Museum, where I work with an extensive collection of American material culture and decorative arts. As a curator, scholar, and teacher, I am committed to highlighting underrepresented histories and the lives of overlooked figures. I am especially invested in showcasing the people and stories behind individual objects and the distinctive histories of museum collections.

At the Concord Museum, I have curated the special exhibitions Portrait Mode (September 2024-February 2025), What Makes History? New Stories from the Collection (March 2024-February 2025), Interwoven: Women's Lives Written in Thread (September 2023-February 2024), and A Perpetual Invitation: 150 Years of Art at the Concord Free Public Library (March-September 2023). I am currently serving as Project Director for an NEH Public Humanities Exhibitions Planning Grant for Whose Revolution, a series of three special exhibitions commemorating the upcoming 250th anniversary of the American Revolution in 2025 and 2026. This project has also been generously supported by the Decorative Arts Trust Prize for Excellence and Innovation.

My research interests include early and nineteenth-century American culture, material culture, museum studies, and the history of science and technology. My book, Useful Objects: Museums, Science, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century America, a literary and cultural history of the development of American museums, was published by Oxford University Press in September 2021. My work has been published in academic journals, including New England Quarterly, J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists and Early American Literature, as well as Modelwork, an edited collection focusing on modeling and material culture. My writing has also appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, and Harvard Magazine.

My research has been supported by fellowships at the American Antiquarian Society, American Philosophical Society, Boston Athenaeum, Hagley Museum and Library, Huntington Library, Smithsonian Libraries, and Winterthur Museum, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at Amherst College. My article on the history of the American Philosophical Society cabinet received the 2019 Richard Beale Davis Prize for the best article published in Early American Literature.

I have taught in the Museum Studies program at Harvard Extension School since 2020, including courses on “Telling New Stories with Objects,” "Museums and Material Culture," the proseminar on graduate writing and research in museum studies, and capstone research projects. Prior to joining the Concord Museum, I taught for five years at Harvard University as a lecturer on History and Literature, where I also served as Assistant Director of Studies and oversaw the American Studies field. I guest curated two exhibits at the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, including an online exhibit focused on the early history of women at the museum, the collections they worked on, and their legacy for future researchers. My work on this project was featured on the HMSC Connects! podcast and WBUR: The Artery.

I received my PhD from Boston University and my AB from Harvard College. You can view my cv here.