I hold a PhD in History from the University of Toronto and am a professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada) as well as the Senior Advisor, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the Office of the Provost and VP Academic. Before coming to Wilfrid Laurier University, I was an associate professor of History at Queen’s University (Canada). A historian of Modern Canada, my work focuses on the histories of Blacks, race immigration and the law. It seeks to illuminate the contours of Canadian modernity by exploring Canada's emergence as racial state through its histories of white supremacy, slavery, colonization/immigration, segregation and Jim Crowism. Much of my work considers how these practices were legitimized, and in some instances contested, by the rule of law and legal institutions.

My ongoing research interest continues to the histories of the Canadian racial state through multiple perspectives, archives and lenses. I am currently finishing a study of colonization, race and the Canadian state. I am also working on a small history of Blackness, urban danger and the carceral city in Canada as well as starting work on the biography of a well known Black Ontarian parliamentarian and lawyer.

• Shortlisted for the 2010 Ontario Speaker's Book Award

I have research assistantships available for students interested in Black Canadas, race, immigration and the law in Canada. I am willing to work with graduate students in these areas as well.

• Race On Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario's Criminal Courts, 1858-1958 (Toronto: UofT Press and the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 2010)
• Editor. The History of Immigration and Racism in Canada: Essential Readings (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2008)
• Editor. The African Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays (Toronto: UofT Press and the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History)