I am a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. history focusing on education, social policy, African American history and metropolitan history. My dissertation, "Schooling the Metropolis: Economic Growth and Educational Inequity, Nashville, Tennessee, 1945-1985," reveals how private and public agendas for economic growth and spatial transformations in the city made and maintained educational inequity by race and class despite the district's relative success at statistical desegregation. An article based on a portion of my dissertation research is forthcoming in the Journal of Urban History, June 2010.

My work has been supported by a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2007-2009), an ISERP/Mellon Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (2007-2009) and an Eisenhower Institute/Clifford Roberts Fellowship (2009-2010). I was also awarded a Mrs. Giles A. Whiting Dissertation Fellowship for 2009-2010.

Prior to graduate study at Columbia, I was a high school history teacher, ethnographic researcher in New York City schools, and project manager at two national school reform organizations. I have experience in historical documentary film and public history consulting.

Columbia Student Profile
You can contact me at ate11[at]columbia[dot]edu.