Gwendolyn Wallace (she/her) is a multidisciplinary humanities scholar and award-winning children’s book author from Connecticut. Her work is animated by transnational and decolonial traditions within Black feminist studies. Gwendolyn’s wide-ranging interests lie at the intersections of racial formation, histories of the body, and the spatial logics of colonialism. Some of her past research has explored Gullah Geechee medico-botanical traditions, histories of medical experimentation on African American communities, and school policing and surveillance technologies in New York City. Lately, she has become increasingly focused on environmental history, particularly the cultural and scientific production of coastal landscapes in the context of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. She is equally excited to explore her passions for public history education, youth engagement, participatory research methods, and creative forms of knowledge-making during her time at MIT.
Gwendolyn holds a BA in the history of science and medicine from Yale University and an MA in public history from University College London. Before starting her PhD, Gwendolyn worked as the inaugural fellow at the International African-American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. She serves on the board of The Reproductive Equity, Access & CHoice (REACH) Fund of Connecticut, the state’s first abortion fund.
