Students

Amelia Blakely

Graduate Research Assistant

Amelia has Bachelor's degrees in Journalism and Philosophy from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. As she pursues her M.A. in Public History at MTSU, she is working with the Center on a preservation assessment of the Coomer Barn in Rutherford County.

Amelia is interested in rural American history, environmental history, and economic history. Visit her Web site at www.ameliablakelywrites.com.

Deja Gooch

Graduate Research Assistant

Deja is in her second year with the Center. She has contributed to the TPS-MTSU Program, including creating a poster on the World War II home front for the National Council for the Social Studies conference. She also produced a pamphlet for the Townsend Cultural Center in Franklin County. Currently, she is working on the National Register nomination for Pine Forest Cemetery in Wilmington, N.C., and doing research for a Tennessee National Heritage Area project with Johnsonville State Historic Park. 

Deja is a graduate of Tennessee State University. Her research interests include African American migration and displacement from the 18th century to the present, with a focus on the 20th century. She is also interested in urban renewal and gentrification.

Kate Hughes

Graduate Research Assistant

Kate is working on documentation of Stony Point, an 18th-century house in Hawkins County in East Tennessee, which is also the focus of her dissertation. In her work with the Center she is also assisting with the Cherokee Removal Memorial Museum at Blythe Ferry, various African American history projects, including the Merrill-Williams House in Williamson County, the collections of the Matt Gardner Homestead Museum in Giles County, and a number of Civil Rights sites in Alabama. In 2022, she completed an exhibit for the Tanner Rosenwald School in Newport, Tennessee, and assisted with a building survey for the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. Additionally, she has a close working relationship with the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive, founded by Center alums Dr. Tiffany Momon and Dr. Torren Gatson.

Kate previously served as a historic preservation fellow at the Center, assisting with Trail of Tears research and examining new directions at East Coast museums in interpreting southern material culture, particularly with respect to enslaved life and post-emancipation history.

Her research focuses on the 18th- and 19th-century material culture of the American South, with an emphasis on exploring marginalized and ignored histories through objects, architecture, and place. Kate has previously worked at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Historic Charleston Foundation, the McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she contributed to the landmark exhibition and accompanying catalogue, Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina.

Kate has a B.A. from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. from Sotheby's Institute of Art. Visit Kate’s LinkedIn page.

Bethany Hollingsworth

Graduate Research Assistant

Bethany has a B.A. from Bethel University and is working towards her M.A. in Public History. As a graduate student in a course taught by Center research professor Dr. Stacey Graham, Bethany contributed to the Moore Family Farm brochure in 2023. She is now working with the Union Ridge Cemetery in Bedford County to create a non-profit organization for the cemetery and guidelines for similar cemetery organizations. This project is related to the Center's report on the Chapman-Singleton House and nearby community cemeteries, completed in 2024.

Bethany's research interests include historically excluded communities, Black and African American history, Queer history, descendant-community outreach and relationship-building, and diversity, equity, and inclusion and accessibility in museums.

You can learn more about Bethany at her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethany-hollingsworth-702299259/

Joshua Brown

Graduate Research Assistant

Joshua is a graduate of Anderson University, where he majored in History and Spanish. He is currently assisting with a historical assessment of the Morton Funeral Home in Columbia, Tennessee. Joshua's research interests are in African American history, slavery, and Caribbean history.

Joshua's LinkedIn profile can be found here.

Liz Nahach

Graduate Research Assistant

Liz received her B.A. in History from Truman State University. She is working at the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County and assisting with the Auburntown Bank National Register nomination. Liz is interested in the Civil Rights era, African American neighborhoods and urban renewal, and the use of race in advertisements.

Josie Teague

Graduate Research Assistant

Josie is a recent graduate of Eastern Kentucky University, where she majored in History. She is working at the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County. Josie's main research interest is the Civil Rights movement in rural communities.

Rhyder Cowart

Graduate Research Assistant

Rhyder has a Criminal Justice degree from Northeast Alabama Community College and a History degree from MTSU. He is helping coordinate Tennessee History Day for the Teaching with Primary Sources-MTSU program. He is also researching biographies for the Toussaint L'Ouverture Cemetery in Franklin. Rhyder's research interests include the Cherokee Nation, the WWII home front, and WWII military campaigns.

Paige Hurley

Graduate Research Assistant

Paige has degrees from Columbia State Community College and Eastern Mennonite University, where she majored in History and Political Science. She is working on the Toussaint L'Ouverture Cemetery project. Paige is interested in the history of Middle Tennessee, women's history, and nadir and community formation in Tennessee.

Jessica Hanson

Graduate Research Assistant

Jessica is pursuing her Ph.D. in Public History and has previous degrees from MTSU (Ed.S.) and Jacksonville State University (M.A. and B.A.). Jessica worked on the Riverside Farm Heritage Assessment Report and Interpretation Plan, as well as exhibit panels for Riverside. She also contributed to the Smith-Trahern Mansion Heritage Development Report. For her dissertation, she is researching Black woman historic preservationists and community members at sites associated with writer Zora Neale Hurston.

Jessica is interested in oral history, material culture, and community outreach with historically underrepresented groups, including researching enslaved or post-emancipation individuals and landscapes.

Her digital porfolio and LinkedIn profile provide additional information.

Aisha Karamustafic

Graduate Research Assistant

Aisha is a recent graduate of MTSU, where she majored in History. She is working on an African American history tour for the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County and on a walking tour of Red Boiling Springs. Aisha's research interests are in the Bosnian genocide and the World War II home front in Middle Tennessee. You can learn more about her here: https://ak8a11.wixsite.com/aisha-kara.

Stephen Simmons

Graduate Research Assistant

With a B.S. and an M.A. from MTSU in hand, Stephen is a doctoral student in the Public History Ph.D. Program. He is working on a historic cemetery survey of Cannon County. He is also providing assistance for the Trail of Tears project that the Center is doing with the Georgia Department of Transportation. Stephen's interests are in cemeteries, the roots of southern violence, ethnohistory, and southern Indigenous history. See his LinkedIn profile for more information.

Ellie Smith

Graduate Research Assistant

Ellie has a B.A. in History and Religious Studies (with a Holocaust Studies certificate) from Albright College and a Master of Theological Studies (with a Jewish Studies certificate) from Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is processing the microfilm collection at the Gordon Jewish Community Center Archives. Her research interests include Holocaust and Jewish studies, America in the 20th century, and Jewish history in the American South.