Research
Projects
This selection of research projects explore innovative methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches across various fields. From digital media studies to disability advocacy, each project reflects a commitment to pushing boundaries and fostering new perspectives. These projects engage with contemporary issues, blending theory and practice to make meaningful contributions to both academic scholarship and real-world applications.
Risky Bodies, Public Narratives: Social Media and the Scrutiny of Reproductive Autonomy
This dissertation investigates how social media amplifies or challenges societal biases surrounding nontraditional parenthood, focusing on individuals with "risky bodies"—those whose identities, conditions, or histories deviate from societal norms. Using vignettes such as Trystan Reese (a transgender man), Alex Dacy (a disabled mother), and Gypsy Rose Blanchard (a formerly incarcerated individual), it examines the intersections of disability, gender, race, and legal histories in reproductive justice narratives.
Committee: Dr. Andrew Binder (chair), Dr. Kalyca Becktel, Dr. Fernanda Duarte, Dr. Stacey Pigg
Crip Joy, Misogynoir, and Digital Care Work: Disabled Content Creators Navigating Visibility, Desire, and Surveillance
This article explores how disabled content creators enact crip joy, desire, and collective care as resistant practices in the face of ableist and racialized digital infrastructures. Focusing on the TikTok and Instagram presences of Shelby Lynch, a Black disabled fashion influencer, and Alex Darcy, a white disabled writer and model, I analyze how these creators navigate the tensions between hypervisibility, surveillance, and self-representation. While grief and insidious trauma remain part of their narrative terrains, this article reframes such affective experiences not as endpoints but as catalysts for joy, relationality, and digital solidarity. Drawing on the work of Moya Bailey, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Alyson Spurgas, I argue that visibility itself is not neutral; it is structured through intersecting regimes of race, gender, ability, and desirability. By centering crip time, care work, and aesthetics of refusal, this article theorizes disabled digital storytelling as a form of grassroots activism and political imagination—one that insists on complex, joyful, and racially conscious forms of being.
Accepted with Revisions at Disability Studies Quarterly.
Framing Activism: DisCrit Perspectives on Whiteness, Futurity, and the 30th Anniversary of the Capitol Crawl Image
This article analyzes the widely circulated photograph of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins during the 1990 Capitol Crawl, which resurfaced in 2020 as the dominant visual commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Using Cara Finnegan’s visual rhetoric framework and Lawrence Prelli’s theory of public memory, I examine the image’s composition, production, reproduction, circulation, and reception. I argue that the photo’s rhetorical power lies in Jennifer’s white, youthful embodiment and demand gaze, which construct a narrative of hopeful futurity. Integrating Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), the analysis interrogates how race and dis/ability shape public memory and visual representation. Drawing on Erin Rand, Kendall Phillips, and Karma Chávez, I show how the image reinforces normative identities by centering whiteness and youth while marginalizing disabled people of color and older protestors. Ultimately, this article calls for more equitable commemorative practices that challenge erasure and reframe how resistance is remembered visually.
Under review.
Past Research
Systemic Trauma on Individuals Living with Long Covid: Resulting Impact on the Cultivation of Collective Care Spaces and Resource Mobilization for Grassroots Advocacy on Twitter
This study aims to provide an exploratory study on the relationship between individuals living with Long Covid who’ve experienced systematic trauma from medical officials and/or institutions and collective care spaces that are cultivated on Twitter. The study was conducted through a quantitative content analysis of Twitter threads that occur during three time periods: when Long Covid first emerged (May 2020) and was not institutionally recognized, a period in the height of the pandemic (November 2020-January 2021) when the US government and the CDC first publicly acknowledged Long Covid, and the past few months on Long Covid (January 2023-April 2023). The study suggests individuals living with Long Covid are finding homophily and receiving validation from others with similar lived experience in lieu of validation from medical and governmental institutions. Receiving homophily and validation influences the emergence of collective care spaces on Twitter. Further, the study concludes that the collective care spaces that are cultivated on Twitter engage in practices of grassroots mobilization. Therefore, using the resource mobilization theory, the study provides a comprehensive look into how collective care spaces for individuals living with Long Covid are being used to advocate for change that moves beyond Twitter to impact policy on the institutional level.
Disability Too White: Content Analysis on News Media Coverage 2016-2023
This study aimed to provide an exploratory study on the presence or absence of knowledge, coverage, and perception of disability and race as connected in news media articles. By analyzing news articles between 2016 and February 25, 2023 that were archived in NexisLexis through a quantitative content analysis, the study explores the extent to which news coverage connects racism and ableism together and disability and race to politics. Further, the study examines the presence or absence of anti-racist sentiment in news coverage and whether anti-racist sentiment within the news articles inspire activist movements. Lastly, the study looks at how news coverage's use of highlighting marginalized voices, storytelling, and disclosure cultivates collective care and/or care work spaces.
In preparation to submit.
Connecting Military Dependents to the Jeffrey Wright Military and Veteran Services: A Campaign Rooted in Support, Service, and Belonging
This campaign was designed to celebrate military dependents during the Month of the Military Child while also increasing the involvement of military-affiliated students on NC State's campus. Through research and strategic planning, the campaign focused on increasing awareness and engagement with the Jeffrey Wright Military and Veteran Services by hosting four key objectives—raising online and in-person engagement by 5% by April 14, 2023. The team developed strategies to increase visibility, foster engagement, and host impactful events, such as Tuff Cookie, the Tunnel Takeover, Spring into Service, and the GI Go Scavenger Hunt. The initiative was supported by social media campaigns, educational content, and direct outreach to military dependents, ensuring a sense of belonging while offering tailored services to help them thrive in their college experience. The campaign successfully raised awareness of the organization’s offerings, with a notable increase in both online engagement and in-person connections, achieving key objectives and further solidifying the organization as a welcoming space for military veterans, dependents, and allies at NC State.
Introducing the Uniconic Categorization Method
This paper introduces the Uniconic Categorization Method, a remixed qualitative research tool designed to explore subjects that resist viral circulation or are often ignored, downplayed, or taboo in nature. Drawing on Laurie Gries' iconographic tracking methodology, the Uniconic Categorization Method shifts focus from tracing the life of a singular image to analyzing groups of images to uncover how certain topics, such as chronic pain, engage with negative affective experiences. Using chronic pain as a case study, this paper exemplifies how this method can unearth the complex and often overlooked discourses surrounding difficult topics by categorizing iconography that circulates in spatio-temporal contexts. The Uniconic Categorization Method is particularly attuned to exploring “ugly feelings” and addresses the absence of representations of such emotions in mainstream media. This paper argues that the Uniconic Categorization Method offers valuable insights into how taboo subjects are communicated visually, providing a platform for marginalized voices and highlighting the importance of embracing discomfort and vulnerability in academic discourse.
Art Activism with 3D Scanners: Pain spots, productive sites, and why don’t you believe me?
This paper explores the potential of 3D scanning technology, specifically through the Polycam app and LiDAR sensors, in facilitating art activism. By intentionally embracing glitches and imperfections in the 3D scanning process, I investigate how these technological errors can be leveraged to challenge societal understandings of invisible disabilities. In particular, the video art piece "Pain spots, productive sites, and why don’t you believe me?" illustrates how embracing these glitches creates a visual representation of chronic pain and invisible disability, while interrogating the conflation of self-care with productivity. Drawing on the work of artists and activists who use 3D scanning for cultural preservation, the paper situates this investigation within a broader context of digital art activism. By leveraging the flaws inherent in 3D scanning, this project highlights the importance of alternative narratives that confront medical and societal expectations about disability and performance, ultimately advocating for a future where pain, care, and productivity are understood beyond traditional frameworks.
The Midnight Club: A Phenomenological Confrontation of Death and Grief
This paper explores how The Midnight Club, a Netflix series produced by Mike Flanagan, elicits visceral bodily responses from viewers by blending genres of horror, romance, and melodrama. Drawing on Linda Williams' phenomenological approach to genre and Vivian Sobchack's concept of the "somatic intelligence" of the spectator, this study examines how the series uses these genres to confront complex emotions such as death, grief, and loss. Through a materialist phenomenological lens, I analyze how the series manipulates bodily experiences to enhance the audience's engagement with themes of mortality, ultimately demonstrating how personal lived experiences influence one’s bodily responses to media. The paper focuses on several key scenes from the show that embody the genre's hybridity, from moments of horror-induced fear to the tender emotional realizations of terminal illness. I argue that while the series creates a shared affective space for viewers, individual experiences with grief and death shape how deeply the content resonates, suggesting that personal predispositions toward these topics influence the intensity of bodily reactions. By engaging with this material, the paper underscores the intersection of film, genre, and bodily experience, proposing a new way of understanding how media can prompt bodily and emotional transformation in the face of complex, often uncomfortable, truths.
