My work focuses on contemporary American Material and Visual Culture, and the overlap that exists between these two disciplines. Presently I am completing my master’s thesis on the cultural history of Bling-Bling as both a social movement and a culture that is most recognizable in its visual and material forms. I draw upon a variety of disciplines in my work, including the history of technology, American Studies, sociology, art history and the history of design. I am also working on several articles that explore specific artifactual categories within Bling-Bling such as the spinning hubcap. I examine this artifact from the standpoint of symbolic interactionism theory and the social construction of technology.

I am also working on several other projects that relate to visual and material culture. I am fascinated by how political motifs become embedded in everyday objects and convey ideological messages. One case study that I hope to pursue involves the use of Nazi motifs in housewares by the Third Reich. I seek to understand how everyday objects such as electric fans came to function as overt political tools, artifacts whose political function may have superseded their utility as housewares. My future research endeavors will likely focus on materiality and the world of fantasy objects – artifacts envisioned in literature and visual representations that have not assumed material tangibility. I am interested in how individual and collective fantasy informs the eventual form/function of a given artifact and what factors enable the materialization of an idea into a tangible construct.