Niya Bates is a PhD candidate in History and is pursuing a certificate in African American Studies at Princeton University. She studies 19th and 20th century U.S. history, global environmentalism, and rural cultural landscapes. Her dissertation seeks to connect rural Black cultural landscapes in 19th century Appalachia to global traditions of marronage, and to explore the 20th century legacies of those communities. Prior to coming to Princeton, Niya worked in public history preserving rural African American culture and historic sites in central Virginia. In that time, she also served as the director of African American history and the Getting Word African American Oral History Project at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. She earned a B.A. in African and African American Studies and an M.A. in Architectural History with a certificate in Historic Preservation from the University of Virginia.