Our Team
Rachel L. Swarns
Director, Hidden Legacies
Rachel Swarns is an associate professor of journalism and the director of Hidden Legacies: Slavery, Race and the Making of 21st Century America, an initiative of the Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University. The project brings journalists, scholars, students and communities together to promote and produce research and reporting that illuminates the experiences of people of color in the United States. Swarns is the author of The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church (Random House, 2023); American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama (Amistad/Harper Collins, 2012) and a co-author of Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2017.) In 2023, she was elected to the Society of American Historians. In 2024, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dionne Ford
Editor
Dionne Ford is an award-winning journalist and author. She is a co-editor of Slavery’s Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation (Rutgers University Press, 2019) and the author of Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance and Intergenerational Healing (Bold Type Books, 2023.) Her work has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell artist residency program and others. In 2023, she was appointed to the New Jersey Reparations Council, a commission established to confront and repair the state’s deep and often overlooked involvement in slavery.
Amanda Coopersmith
Researcher and Project Coordinator
Amanda Coopersmith is a techie-turned-journalist thinking critically about the intersection of tech and social issues. She holds a Master’s Degree from NYU Journalism in Cultural Reporting and Criticism and a B.S. in Product Design from Stanford University.
Fajr Baig
Undergraduate Assistant
Fajr Baig is studying Biomolecular Science at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She is a student assistant at NYU Journalism and an undergraduate researcher at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Student Contributors
Summer Research Lab 2024
Chloe Bragg
Global Liberal Studies
Samantha Donndelinger
Journalism/Creative Writing/Gender and Sexuality Studies
Timothy Fraher
Journalism/Politics
Kate Serrano
Journalism/Sociology/Public Policy Analysis
Abbie Thompson
Journalism/Gender and Sexuality Studies
Spring 2024 – Undergraduate Students
Blair Bao
International Relations / Journalism
Chloe Bragg
Global Liberal Studies
Abigail Chang
Gallatin School of Individual Study
Samantha Donndelinger
Journalism/Creative Writing/Gender and Sexuality Studies
Timothy Fraher
Journalism/Politics
Ray Kao
Theatre/Journalism
Alekah Laing
Journalism/Media, Culture, and Communication/Cinema Studies/Documentary
Maya Masa’deh
Gallatin School of Individualized Study
Kate Serrano
Journalism/Sociology/Public Policy Analysis
Abbie Thompson
Journalism/Gender and Sexuality Studies
Stephanie Wong
Media, Culture, and Communication/English and American Literature/Journalism
Fall 2023 – Graduate Students
Talia Barrington
Cultural Reporting & Criticism
Maya Brown
Reporting the Nation & New York
Arielle Domb
Cultural Reporting & Criticism
Taylor Irish
Magazine & Digital Storytelling
Curtis Rowser III
Magazine & Digital Storytelling
Alexa Sarci
News & Documentary