She teaches courses on African American and American literature, women’s literature, visual culture, and literature and social justice. Her first book studied the relationship between photography and African American modernism during the 1920s. Her project for the Digital Bridges Summer Institute is based on her archival research for her second book, a social and literary history of African American women and the American railroad in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her research has been supported by the Ford Foundation and the NEH.