Olivia is from Chicago, Illinois, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Africana Studies beginning in the Fall of 2023. They graduated with a B.A. in African and African American Studies from Washington University in St. Louis in the Spring of 2023. She was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and will continue to align herself with the Fellowship as she achieves her Ph.D. Olivia has contributed an archival and oral history-rooted book chapter to Washington University’s Department of African & African American Studies’ Black 1968 book. Olivia’s research explores the contours of twentieth-century African American women’s lives through archival analysis and oral histories. Olivia is deeply interested in the early to mid-twentieth-century United States and the tangible and epistemic manifestations of Blackness during the period, especially regarding African American women. Her work is grounded in Black Feminist Epistemology, Black Queer Theory, and a historical methodological approach.
Department website: africana.sas.upenn.edu/people/olivia-kerr
Last updated: September 2023
