Education

• Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, African American Studies
• Graduate Certificate, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Public History
• B.A. Vanderbilt University, African American and Diaspora Studies

Bio

A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Dr. Yelana Sims received her undergraduate degree in African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University and both her Ph.D. in African American Studies and graduate certificate in Public History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. 

Her research interests include histories of race, technology, and gender and sexuality in the U.S.. Dr. Sims is currently completing her first book manuscript, tentatively titled When the Flesh Knows It Is Flesh: Black Women, Sex Work, and Technology 1880-2000, which examines African American sex workers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their interactions with technology, focusing on how technological advancements were used to surveil and convict as well as advertise and enrich sex workers of this period. Dr. Sims argues that Black women have been historically utilized as machines of reproduction, physical labor, and meaning-making which has complicated their interactions with technological innovations. 

Dr. Sims enjoys teaching courses on women’s history, African American history and culture, technology histories, and the links between all three.  

Her research has been supported by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Public History Program, the Harvard University Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, and others.