Restorative History and Community Engagement Fellow
Ava Smigliani is a current fellow with the JMJP program and graduated with a degree in history at George Mason University this summer. Throughout her time in the program, she has worked to support the establishment of the Dark Branch Descendants organization, centering the voices of enslaved descendants when it comes to the interpretation of plantation history, as well as acting as a genealogical historian, creating cohesive family trees based on Freedman’s Bureau archives. Along with the rest of the fellows from the summer, she also worked to design a framework and systems of archiving for the Chipman Center, which will be replicated in partnering institutes.
