Through an intersectional and transnational lens, my dissertation project embraces a critical media studies and case study approach to understanding how multiple perpetrator rape (MPR) is depicted through media representations. Intersectionality studies and critical race theory are foundational to my intellectual work. Through my dissertation research I conduct critical discourse analysis and operationalize intersectionality as a research method in order to examine media representations of the rape of Recy Taylor by multiple white men in 1944 Alabama; the wrongful conviction and incarceration of the now Exonerated Five, formerly known as the Central Park Five since 1989; and the rape and ultimate murder of both physiotherapy student Jyoti Singh in Delhi in 2012, and veterinarian Priyanka Reddy in Hyderabad in 2019. By centering historical and contemporary cases, my current work examines multiple perpetrator rape in three principal ways: (1) multiple perpetrator rape as gendered performance or depicted assertions of masculinity and power, largely complexified by issues of race and class; (2) multiple perpetrator rape as spectacle or narrativized ideologies pertaining to the “other” (Hall, 1997), framing experiences of victims, survivors, and perpetrators through visual and verbal representation; (3) multiple perpetrator rape as conjuncture or mediated perceptions of violence and trauma shaped by the complexities of crises and the cultural fusion of political, social, economic, and ideological tensions.

My research has been shared through the International Communication Association conference, the National Communication Association conference, the International Intersectionality conference, the Cultural Studies Association conference, the Critical Mediations conference, the Annenberg Graduate Fellowship Research and Creative Project Symposium, the USC-UPenn Annenberg Summer Doctoral Institute for Difference in Media & Culture, the USC Institute for Intersectionality and Social Transformation, and the National Women’s Studies Association conference.

With a professional background in international human rights nonprofit advocacy, public diplomacy, and the travel industry, I have also worked within the USC Center for Feminist Research as a doctoral scholar, the USC Dornsife Gender & Sexuality Studies Department as a teaching assistant, and the International Journal of Communication as an Assistant Editor. I am co-convener of the Multidisciplinary Intersectional Approaches to the Study of Violence and Trauma Research and Writing Group. I am trained as a Violence Prevention Specialist through Los Angeles feminist nonprofit Peace Over Violence, as an Online Hotline Specialist through the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), and I have volunteered with the USC Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention (RSVP) Department’s peer-to-peer education group known as Violence Outreach Intervention and Community Empowerment (VOICE).