Jillean McCommons is a Ph.D. student in History at the University of Kentucky. A Detroit native, she spent most of her youth in the rural Black communities of Stanislaus County, California. After finishing her B.A. at Michigan State University, she taught English as a Second Language in rural Northeastern Brazil. She earned a M.A. in Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies with an emphasis in Afro-Brazilian history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a M.S. in Information from the Univeristy of Michigan. Prior to returning to graduate school in 2017, she worked as a public librarian in Michigan, California, Minnesota, and Kentucky. Her Op-Ed columns have been published in the Lexington Herald-Leader, the History News Network, and Newsweek. She is recipient of the Lyman T. Johnson Fellowship, the Robert S. Lipman Graduate Fellowship, and the 2018 Eller & Billings Student Research Award.

"Recovering the Lives of Black Banjo Players: The Case of John Homer Walker." African Americans in Western North Carolina & Southern Appalachia Conference, University of North Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina, October 2017.

"Black Appalachian: The Construction of a Regional Identity." American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, November 2018. (Panel organizer: Black Appalachia: Garveyism, Youth Protest, and Identity in the 20th Century.)