Overview
LaVerne Gray comes to the iSchool after recently completing her PhD in the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her dissertation, “In a Collective Voice: Uncovering the Black Feminist Information Community of Activist-Mothers in Chicago Public Housing, 1955-1970,” explores Black feminist agency in community development within constructed urban spaces. The study employs qualitative analyses of archival documents, to reveal a Black Feminist Information Community(BFIC) framework. Her research was supported through the 2017 Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) Fellowship, where she used archives throughout the city of Chicago to explore evidence for her research.
Using Critical Race and Black Feminist perspectives, LaVerne Gray’s research explores information location and value in marginal community spaces. She is keenly interested in African-American historical information collectives and archival-evidence analysis.
