Advisor: Mark M. Smith

Education: BA in English, Arts Studies Minor, Magna Cum Laude, N.C. State University, 1993

Kay is pursuing a PhD in American History since 1789. One of her passions is vintage motorcycles – to her, the machines themselves are history in motion. Her dissertation will focus on the history of motorcycling in the United States, and how that history can be understood through sensory experience, which reveals the larger social, economic and political contexts of motorcycle culture.

She has ridden motorcycles for 15 years and has owned quite a few bikes over the years. Currently you may see her riding around campus on either her 2011 Heritage Classic or her 1974 FLH. The ’74 is by far her favorite bike out of all the machines she has owned, and it inspired her interest in the history of the sport, industry and culture.

Kay has lived in Lexington, KY, Raleigh, NC and Lancaster, NY. She now calls Cayce, SC home. She has been owned by Boykin Spaniels since 1988, and she has informed her current Boykin, Riggs, that his job is to get her through graduate school.