Sierra is a PhD candidate in the Department of History and a graduate minor candidate in the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She currently serves as a University Dissertation Fellow, during which she will complete her dissertation project examining the long civil rights movement in Minnesota.  Her research interests include the civil rights movement, Black women's care activism, Black feminist theories and Black midwestern activism. She has presented work at premier research conferences namely the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and Organization for American Historians (OAH). 

Aligning with her passion for public history, Sierra served as the Managing Editor for Picturing Black History (PBH) during the 2025-2026 academic year. PBH is a project that publishes public-facing photographic essays about Black life and history.  She currently serves as the National Publications Director for the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), where she also sat on the ABWH Bibliography Committee, which launched a booklist database on Black women’s history in June 2025. 

Dissertation chairs: Drs. Tiyi Morris and Hasan Jeffries 

Relevant Teaching Experience: 

• Instructor of record for Intro to Modern U.S. History (SU25, AU25, and SP26)

Selected Publications and Book Reviews

• "A Mother's Power: The Bravery of Mamie Till Mobley" in Picturing Black History: Photographs and Stories that Changed the World (2024)
• The Brave Court Testimony of Mose Wright

• Keisha Blain. Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America. Journal of Mississippi History 85, No. 1-2  (Spring/Summer, 2023): 94-95