About
Biography
I am honored to be the recipient of the Society for Historical Archaeology’s John L. Cotter Award, an official Commendation from the United States Senate, and the Francis Marion University African and African American Faculty and Staff Diversity Award (2024)—recognitions of my commitment to scholarship, inclusive pedagogy, and community-based preservation. A former U.S. Fulbright Scholar, I have sought to shape contemporary discourse through three volumes published with the University Press of Florida and Routledge: The Archaeology of Race and Class at Timbuctoo (2022), Trowels in the Trenches: Archaeology as Social Activism (2021), and Historical Racialized Toys in the United States (2016). Over an 18-year career spanning university professorships, federal environmental review, and executive cultural resource management, my work bridges critical theory with public historical practice, pioneering collaborative, descendant-centered methodologies to uncover how everyday material culture shapes structures of power.
Education
I earned my Ph.D. in Anthropology from Temple University. My dissertation thesis Identity and Improvisation: Archaeology at the African American Community of Timbuctoo, New Jersey focuses on the intersectionality of race and class.
Employment
Prior to returning home to New Jersey, I was a tenured Associate Professor of History at Francis Marion University, where I co-directed the Public History and Archaeology Track and established a descendant-community field schools at Jamestown, Mars Bluff, SC. Relocating back to the Mid-Atlantic to be near family, I continue my active academic trajectory—lecturing in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University, mentoring graduate thesis research, and leading regional cultural resource management projects as an Office Principal at Chronicle Heritage.
Outside the Classroom and Beyond the Archaeological Site
In my spare time I play soccer, watch movies with my wife, and eat way too much sugar with my son.
