Swearer Center for Public Service

• Joined Swearer Center Staff in 2022
• Ph.D. History and Women's & Gender Studies, University of Michigan (in progress)
• B.A. History, Bryn Mawr College (2015)

As Assistant Director of Community-Engaged Research at the Swearer Center for Public Service, Grace supports students, faculty and community partners in thinking through community-engaged research ethics, design, practice and assessment. Her responsibilities include directing the Royce Fellowship and the Laidlaw Scholars Program, organizing student workshops, and contributing to the Swearer Center's field-facing efforts.

Grace is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a degree in History. She will receive her doctorate from the University of Michigan after she defends her dissertation, which narrates abused girls' pursuits of freedom from family violence between 1860 and 1960 in the United States. Grace’s research examines how American attitudes toward violence against children have been shaped by social, political, and legal ideas about personhood and the line between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. Prior to joining the Swearer Center, Grace worked as the University of Michigan’s Immigrant Justice Lab Coordinator, coordinating research efforts in support of asylum applications for refugee youth.

“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.” — bell hooks