Education

PhD, Anthropology, Temple University, Dissertation: Life is Prickly: Narrating History, Belonging, and Common Place in Bor, South Sudan, degree completed 2013

Critical Language Scholarship for study of Arabic in Cairo, Egypt, awarded 2007

Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology/Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh, degree completed 2001

Archaeological Field School in Rantidi, Cyprus, University of Indianapolis, 1999

Employment

Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Specialist
The Solidarity Center
Washington DC, 10/2024 - present

Director, Research and Organizational Learning
HIAS
Silver Spring MD, 09/2022 – 04/2024

Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning Advisor
Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), USAID
Washington DC, 10/2020 – 09/2022

Research Director
Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Unit, Forcier
Juba, South Sudan, 05/2017 – 05/2020

Country Director (Sudan & South Sudan)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)
Juba, South Sudan, 12/2013 – 12/2015

Teaching
See below

Archaeologist
I worked for a number of years as an archaeologist before beginning research in South Sudan: Phase I, II, and III, Paleo- to 20th-century in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (Cultural Heritage Research Services, 2007), Phase II and III, Archaic to Historic, mainly Woodland to Mississippian (The Illinois State Archaeological Survey, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, American Bottom Field Station, 2004-2006), Phase I, II, and III, Paleo to 20th century in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey (Skelly & Loy, 2001-2002)

I've also worked as a Refugee Caseworker (Lutheran Children and Family Services, 2006) and an Ecological Restoration Technician (Munro Ecological Services, 2003)

Research

Research Associate, Center for Human Environments, Children's Environments Research Group, City University of New York (CUNY), January 2017 – present

Publications

    Chapters and articles
  1. ‘Cinema, Southern Sudan, and the End of Empire, 1943-1965,’ with Joseph Chol Duot, In Mahassin Abd al-Jaliil, Iris Seri-Hersch, Anael Poussier, Lucie Revilla, Elena Vezzadini, eds., Sudan, 1504-2019: From Social History to Politics from Below (De Gruyter, 2023)
  2. ‘Solomon Col Adol (1909–1971), game ranger and animal collector in Bor, South Sudan,’ Archives of Natural History 50, no. 1 (2023)
  3. ‘A trip to the zoo: colonial sightseeing and spectacle in Sudan (1901–1933),’ Journal of Tourism History 11, no. 3 (2019)
  4. ‘Play, Childhood, and Material Culture in Bor, South Sudan,’ International Journal of Play 7, no. 2 (2018), 161 – 187
  5. ‘Life is Prickly: Belonging and the Common Place in Bor, South Sudan,’ In Richard Lobban, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Abdullahi Gellab, Souad Ali, Stephanie Beswick and Jay Spaulding, eds., The Road to the Two Sudans (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014)
    6. Encyclopedia entries
  6. ‘South Sudan,’ In Thomas Riggs, ed., Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices: Religions and Denominations, 2nd ed., Vol. 4, pp. 225-232 (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2014).
    7. Reviews and web-based ephemera
  7. '[Annotations & Notes for] It is time to plant good words in people’s hearts ,' Juba in the Making, 2024
  8. 'Juba in Maps, 1938-1949 ,' Juba in the Making, 2024
  9. 'Review of Maciej Kurcz' Urban Now. A Human in the Face of Borderliness and Urbanisation in Juba, South Sudan (Bern, 2021),' Sudan Studies 66 (July), 2022
  10. 'A Night at the Movies,' Juba in the Making, 2022
  11. 'To The Juba Wharf ,' Juba in the Making, 2021
  12. 'Review of Lia Paradis' Imperial Culture and the Sudan. Authorship, Identity and the British Empire,' Sudan Studies, 2021
  13. 'Mind the Gap,' Anthropology News (Book Forum, 2019)
  14. 'Pioneering the Archaeology of Sudan (Intisar Soghayroun el-Zein انتصار الزين صغيرون),' Trowelblazers, 2020
  15. 'Stratigraphically Superlative in Sudan (Margaret B.E. Shinnie),' Trowelblazers, 2020
  16. “As imposing a show as possible”: Aviation in colonial Sudan and South Sudan, 1916-1936, Juba in the making (2019)
  17. 'Heritage-making,' Anthropology News (Book Forum, 2019)
  18. ‘Disasters, Tugg’d with Fortune,’ Anthropology News (Book Forum, 2018)
  19. ‘The Social Life of Data,’ Anthropology News (Book Forum, 2018)
  20. 'Illustrating the Maya (M. Louise Baker),' Trowelblazers, 2018
  21. Review: W.J. Berridge, Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan (Bloomsbury, 2015), Bulletin of the Sudan Studies Association 35, no. 1 (2017), 42
  22. Engaged anthropology project: New Histories for a New South Sudan (blog post),' Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research blog (2017)
  23. Review: Jok Madut Jok, Breaking Sudan: The Search for Peace (Oneworld, 2017), Bulletin of the Sudan Studies Association 34, no. 1 (2016), 28-30
  24. ‘Placing the City and the State in South Sudan’ (review), Bulletin of the Sudan Studies Association 34, no. 1 (2016), 46-49

Teaching

  1. UNICEF South Sudan Country Course (Rift Valley Institute, Juba), taught 2018

  2. Contemporary Perspectives , Jefferson University (Philadelphia University & Thomas Jefferson University), taught 2017

  3. Comparative Studies in Cultures and Transformation , Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY), taught 2016

  4. The American Urban Experience: Anthropological Perspectives , Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY), taught 2016

  5. Critical Approaches to Race and Ethnicity Lafayette College (Easton, PA), taught 2012

  6. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (four field) , Temple University, Montgomery County Community College, & Mercer County Community College, taught 2011, 2008

  7. World Cultures and Regions , Temple University, teaching assistant, 2007

  8. Beginning and Intermediate English for Speakers of Other Languages , International Institute (St. Louis, MO), taught 2002, 2003

Grants, Fellowships, Awards

  • Arts and Humanities Research Council, ‘Exploring Resilience in South Sudan through an Arts Based Curriculum’ (co-PIs: Brendan Tuttle, Elfatih Atem, and Tamsin Bradley), awarded 2019

  • British Academy Sustainable Development Programme, ‘Art Heritage, Resilience and Humanitarianism in South Sudan’ (co-author), awarded 2018

  • Wenner-Gren Foundation, Engaged Anthropology Grant, ‘New Histories for a New South Sudan: A Public Anthropology Project,’ awarded 2014

  • Center for the Humanities at Temple Advanced Graduate Scholar Fellowship, awarded 2013

  • Sudan Studies Association, Graduate Student Travel Grant, awarded 2012

  • Temple University, Graduate Student Travel Grant, awarded 2012

  • Wenner-Gren Foundation, Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, awarded 2009

Paper Presentations

  • “Memories across generations.” Mediations of the Past: Discussions on Memory and Memorialisation Practices in South Sudan. Catholic University of South Sudan, Institute for Justice and Peace Studies. (April, 2018, Juba, Catholic University)

  • “Themes in the New Ethnography of South Sudan.” Insider/Outsider: Anthropological Reflections on the Continued Relevance of Rainmakers in South Sudan. Catholic University of South Sudan, Institute for Justice and Peace Studies. (November, 2017, Juba, Catholic University)

  • “A Trip to the Zoo: Nuer Tourists in Khartoum, August 1933.” Sudan Studies Association annual meeting. (May 2015, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis)

  • “The Giraffe, the Star, and the Contradictions of Everyday Life.” African Studies Association annual meeting. (November, 2013, Baltimore)

  • “Heavy Words: ‘Tying Speech’ and Jokes in Bor, South Sudan.” Sudan Studies Association annual meeting. (May 2013, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia)

  • “History and Shifting Political Space in Bor Country, South Sudan.” Annual Mid-Atlantic Division Conference of the American Association of Geographers. (November 2012, Salisbury University)

  • “Everyday Places of Security: Place, Marriage, and Negotiation in Bor, South Sudan.” Sudan Studies Association meetings. (May 2012, Arizona State University)

  • “Where is the Southern Sudanese Diaspora? The Political Economy of Ideologies of Return and Achieved Indigenousness in South Sudan and Philadelphia.” Co-authored with Mandela A.P. Mel. Global Temple Conference. (November 2008, Temple University)

  • “The Perils of Maturity: Suspicion and Moral Complexity among South Sudanese in Philadelphia.” Emerging Perspectives on Children in Migratory Circumstances, organized by Rachel Reynolds and Cati Coe. (Drexel University, June 20-22, 2008)

Professional Memberships & Participation

  • Society for the Study of the Sudans UK
  • Sudan Studies Association