T’Sey-Haye Preaster is project coordinator for phase two of Documenting the Now (DocNow) at MITH and a doctoral candidate in American Studies at the University of Maryland. She received her B.A. in African American Studies and Sociology from Smith College and her M.A. in American Studies from the University of Maryland. Prior to graduate school, T’Sey-Haye served for nearly a decade in community philanthropy as a program assistant for The Rhode Island Community Foundation where she worked on statewide grant-making initiatives and community advocacy campaigns for affordable housing, women and girls, LGBTQ equity, nonprofit excellence and Black philanthropy.
T’Sey-Haye has held related research and administrative fellowship positions with the Council on Foundations; the Aspen Institute’s Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation as a William Randolph Hearst Fellow; graduate assistant and conference planning coordinator for the American Studies Association; as well as inaugural graduate research and teaching positions with the Do Good Institute and School of Public Policy’s Do Good Now: Innovation and Social Change course(s) and the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) Social Innovation Scholars Program at the University of Maryland.
Prior to joining MITH and DocNow, T’Sey-Haye served as graduate assistant coordinator for events in the office of marketing and communications for ARHU. Her dissertation, tentatively titled “(Re)Defining Black Women in Philanthropy: New Narratives of Voluntary Action for the Public Good at the Intersections of Race, Gender and Class,” examines the histories and lived experiences of Black women working strategically to (re)define the meaning and mission of philanthropy (e.g., gifts of time, talent, treasure and testimony) for/by Black communities in the United States.
