Class of 2024
(She/Her/Hers)
Hometown: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Major: Sociology
Minors: Spanish, Brazilian and Global Portuguese Studies
Ever since I was young, I’ve had a profound interest in entertainment and media. While most children probably aspired to be a nurse, firefighter, secret agent, or teacher, I wanted to be Hannah Montana. Her songs were too catchy, fashion too iconic, and persona too electrifying for me not to. Although this phase eventually passed, my affinity for music and visual arts remained—hence my involvement in chorus and theater, embarrassing attempts at producing an album, and voracious appetite for literature.
On the flip side, I’m incredibly perturbed by social inequality. I’ve had the fortune of both working to mitigate it through my membership in various identity organizations (e.g. Black Student Union, Queer-Straight Alliance, Black Student Alliance, DukeNAACP, and Duke Business Oriented Women) and learning about its foundations and manifestations in my sociology classes. I consider figures like Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Michelle Obama, Trevor Noah, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Bryan Stevenson my inspirations, and I seek to have a similar positive impact in the world.
Recently, I’ve been intrigued by the ways in which my two foci intersect. I’ve realized that media—especially advertising/marketing—is a particularly salient area in which inequality is reproduced, primarily because of its reach and reliance upon cultural tropes. Thus, I believe that it can be an important site for social change, and one that I desire to be a part of.