Background

A native of Sugar Land, Texas, Maria is a second year doctoral student in Modern U.S. History. Her research interests include African American history and the history of religious culture in America. In 2008, she completed her MA thesis, "A World in Miniature," on the life of African American dollhouse builder James Butcher in Washington, D.C., during Jim Crow. Maria passed her comprehensive exams in March 2009 and is now working on her dissertation on the history of the evangelical family during the late twentieth century though an examination of the experience of children and youth. She received undergraduate degrees, Phi Beta Kappa, in history and classical civilization from Howard University in 2003, and an MDiv from Duke University in 2006. Maria's secondary interests include hiking, gardening, reading and teaching at her local parish.