Our Team

The Joyner Institute enjoys wide collaborations across Coastal Carolina University and the community. Learn more about our director, staff, and advisory board below.

Leadership

 

Zenobia Harper
Director
zharper@coastal.edu

A resident of Georgetown, South Carolina, Zenobia Harper is an artist and the founder of the Gullah Preservation Society. She has worked as an Artist in Residence with the South Carolina Arts Commission, and her art is featured in numerous galleries and in many private collections. Growing up Gullah, Harper was gifted with all of the rich foundations that the culture has to offer. Now she’s actively working to preserve it for future generations.

Ashlyn Pope, MFA
Co-Associate Director
Assistant Professor, Ceramics and Studio Art
apope1@coastal.edu

Ashlyn Pope is an African American sculptural artist of Gullah descent working with ceramics and textiles. She received her BFA from Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, in Ceramics and Printmaking, and she earned her MFA in Ceramics from Penn State University in 2019. Pope is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Coastal Carolina University.

Tabitha Lowery, PhD
Co-Associate Director
Assistant Professor, English
tlowery@coastal.edu

Tabitha Lowery is an assistant professor at Coastal Carolina University. Within the English Department, she currently teaches African American literature courses. Her work focuses on recovering alternative representations of early Black authors by examining the cultural values of various kinds of readers and editors from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. 

Advisory Board

Orton Bellamy

Mike Chestnut, Myrtle Beach Council Member and Owner, Big Mike's Soulfood

Ron Daise  Inaugural Chair of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission

Veronica Gerald, Director Emeritus of the Joyner Institute

Heather Hodges, Former Executive Director, Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor

Marjorie McIver, Former Whittemore Park Middle School Principal and Community Organizer

Maggi Morehouse, Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies, Coastal Carolina University

Affiliated Faculty

Richard Aidoo
Professor, Politics

Edurne Beltran de Heredia Carmona
Assistant Professor, Spanish

Madison Cates
Assistant Professor, History

Tatiana Height
Lecturer, Sustainability and Coastal Resilience

Tiffany Hollis
Assistant Professor, Educational Studies

Emily Humbert
Assistant Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies

Fredanna Durosimi M'Cormack McGough
Associate Dean and Professor, Public Health

Maggi Morehouse
Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies, History

James Ndone
Assistant Professor, Communication, Media, and Culture

Charles Norton 
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies

David Palmer
Assistant Professor, Anthropology

Gillian Richards-Greaves
Associate Professor, Anthropology and Geography