Profile

Sandie Blaise received her PhD in Romance Studies (French and Francophone Studies) from Duke University in 2019. Her interests include contemporary Haitian literature and culture, migrant studies, book marketing, and the production and circulation of literary works and identities. Since 2013, she has also been involved in projects related to community-based language learning, innovation, and public humanities.

Blaise was the 2018-2019 Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship Graduate Fellow. Her project, “Language Matters: Innovating Programming through Community Engagement,” explored alternative and innovative ways to facilitate linguistic acquisition and cultural orientation among French-speaking refugees in the United States, particularly those from African countries, and to enhance student learning through community outreach activities. From 2014 to 2017, she also collaborated on the Radio Haiti Archive, a trilingual (English/French/Haitian Creole) repository which makes radio broadcasts documenting political, social, and cultural issues during the dictatorship accessible to all.