Tatiana McInnis joined NCSSM in August 2021 as an instructor of American Studies and Humanities. She is the author of “To Tell a Black Story of Miami.” Originally from South Florida, she has lived and taught in Nashville, Tennessee, and Williamstown, Massachusetts, and is thrilled to be in the Raleigh-Durham area. She earned her doctorate in English from Vanderbilt University in 2017, teaching there as an instructor in English and Cultural Studies classes where she designed and led courses including “Rethinking the U.S. South,” “Caribbean Diasporas in the U.S.,” and “Behind Bars: The U.S. Prison-Industrial Complex.” She conducted research on representations and mechanisms of anti-Blackness in contemporary American literature, U.S.-Caribbean immigration politics, and, as she puts it, “how race takes place,” or the spatial manifestations of racial hierarchies in the 20th and 21st centuries. After finishing doctoral work, she joined Vanderbilt University’s American Studies program as a lecturer before serving as the Associate Director at the Davis Intercultural Center at Williams College, where she collaborated with students, faculty, and staff to integrate equitable practices across campus, consulted on curricula, and taught. Most recently, she served as a Visiting Professor in the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department at Texas Christian University. She also holds a master’s degree in English, also from Vanderbilt, and a bachelor’s in English from Florida International University. When she’s not with her students, you’ll find her snuggling her dog, Hurston as in Zora Neale, “hiking” extremely moderate trails, reading, or tending to her mini garden.