Rachel Noble-Varney, MFA

Research & Engagement Director

Rachel Noble-Varney background in nonprofit administration, research development, and writing to the Monuments Workshop. Born and raised in central Kentucky, Rachel has twenty-plus years of nonprofit and higher education experience with organizations like Berea College, the Kentucky School Boards Association, the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, and most recently, the Kentucky Geological Survey at the University of Kentucky.

Rachel is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography. Her dissertation investigates over 12,000 unmapped private and community cemeteries in Appalachian Kentucky that elude remote sensing technologies. Combining crowdsourced data, historic land use records, and interviews with caretakers, her project analyzes what makes these burial sites legible across cultural and legal frameworks. 

She holds a BA in Sociology/Anthropology from Earlham College, and an MFA in Poetry from the Ohio State University.