Her research focuses on representations of black Africans in early Atlantic literature, emphasizing the racial/cultural ideologies that helped shape English encounters with the early Americas and helped shape the literature produced about those encounters. Cassie completed her Ph.D. in early American literature at Purdue University in May 2010 and was a 2009-10 ACLS Mellon Fellow. She has work forthcoming in the journal Early American Literature and in two essay collections. Her current work in progress is a book manuscript titled 'No Rogue, No Rascal, No Thief': Black Africans and the Making of Early Atlantic Literature, which examines the narrative struggles that arose when 16th and 17th century European travel writers attempted to represent black Africans in the Americas in ways consistent with old world ideologies.