Advisor: Dr. Melissa Stuckey

Bio: 

Mashayla Billups is a first year PhD student in the Department of History and a Presidential Fellow of the Graduate School. Her research focuses on 19th & 20th century African American communities and institutions, place and space in the Southeast, and generational practices of placekeeping, commemoration, and celebration. Her proposed dissertation research looks at formation, sense of place, and placemaking/keeping in southern Black towns. As a historian in training, Mashayla is deeply invested in creating public-facing work that brings the histories she tells to life as tangible remnants. When she is not working, she enjoys watching gamers on YouTube/Twitch, home renovation shows, and spending time with her Cane Corso, Honcho.