About

Brianna Christie was born in St. Anns Bay, Jamaica. Soon after, her mother and brother immigrated to the United States where she was raised in Kissimmee, Florida for the first 16 years of her life.

 

In 2016, she moved to Wells, Maine receiving her high school diploma from Wells High School in 2018. She attended Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Communication with honors distinction. At MCLA, she received the Multicultural Advancement in Leadership and Leadership in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award with her work as Black Student Union's president for three consecutive years.

 

She returned to Maine and entered the Communication graduate program at the University of Maine in the fall of 2022. Brianna received her Master of Arts degree in Communication from the University of Maine in May 2024. Her master's thesis, "The 'Communal Gaze:' How the Collective Community Responds to the Narratives of Sexual Violence Vocalized by Black Women," received the Outstanding Qualitative Maters Thesis Award from the National Communication Association in 2024. Her research theorizes, from within a Black Diasporic experience, the epistemic power communal gazes have on women who share, or consider sharing, their narratives of experiencing sexual violence. Brianna draws from her own lived experience to conduct this meaningful work.​

 

After moving back to the Berkshires in 2024, Brianna is now the Communication and Outreach Coordinator at the David and Joyce Milne Public Library in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She is chair of the library's (Social) Justice, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access committee where she continues to lead the library and its community in initiatives that foster care and belonging.

 

Brianna plans to continue her academic career by getting her PhD in Sociology in the near future.