Graduate Student Bios

 A.J. Boyd is a fourth-year doctoral student studying 20th-century African American history and is interested in the history of race, gender, and war. Her research focuses on Black female soldiers in the World War II Women’s Army Corps. Specifically, she examines how Black women officers used the culture and hierarchy of the military to their own advantage, while also managing intracommunal tensions over respectability and racial liberalism. Through her research, she considers the significance of Black women’s archival practices in producing an alternative narrative to the popular memory of World War II. A.J. earned her B.A. from Indiana University Bloomington in History and African American & African Diaspora Studies.