Biography:

Gabrielle co-directs the Center and is the Colored Convention Project’s founding faculty director. She is an award-winning teacher and scholar of African American studies and nineteenth-century literary history and culture. Gabrielle is known for her collaborative work including an edition of Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig as well as dance/poetry performance pieces on Wilson, David Drake or “Dave the Potter,” the Colored Conventions and Mary Ann Shadd Cary.

She holds a named chair at Penn State with appointments in English, African American Studies, History, and the Libraries, and is a Senior Library Research Fellow at the University of Delaware. Gabrielle works closely with the Center’s graduate and undergraduate researchers, administrative leadership, with other Centers and department heads in the College of Liberal Arts, and national teaching and library partners to facilitate the entire project. She is a co-editor of The Colored Conventions: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century (UNC Press, 2021).