Biography:

Eden Mekonen is a dual-title Geography and African Studies PhD candidate and Bunton Waller Scholar at Penn State University. She joined the Center for Black Digital Research in Fall 2022, where she currently works as the Digital Project Manager and Metadata Curator for the Colored Conventions Project, as well as serving on the Douglass Day Community Engagement Committee. Her research interests include digital cultural preservation, collective memory, soundscapes, and community memorialization within/across Horn of Africa diasporas; as well as transnational mutual aid practices and (digital) placemaking. Eden earned her M.S. in Geography at Penn State and her Bachelor's degree in Critical Theory and Social Justice with a Postcolonial Theory emphasis and Interdisciplinary Writing minor from Occidental College.