Leah Busby

Prior to joining the folklore program, Leah Busby (MA 2023) was employed as a lawyer specializing in high-profile wrongful conviction cases, Leah succeeded in freeing three men who had been wrongfully imprisoned for decades. More recently, she has worked as a visual artist and is learning jazz piano. Her creative work led her to a deep interest in altar-making, along with the belief systems, narratives and visual dynamics that surround them. Her research will take her to Cuba and possibly other sites in the Caribbean, where she is interested in exploring how altars—like jazz and public sculpture—straddle public/private borders and are vulnerable to time and the environment as they open up forms of collaboration and improvisation.