Dr. Chatelain is currently a Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.  Previously, she was a Reach for Excellence Assistant Professor of Honors and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.  She is a proud native of Chicago, Illinois, and she's an even prouder graduate of the following schools: St. Ignatius College Prep, the University of Missouri-Columbia (B.A. Journalism/Religious Studies), and Brown University (A.M. and Ph.D., American Civilization).  She is a scholar of African-American life and culture, and her first book South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration (Duke University Press, 2015) reimagined the mass exodus of black Southerners to the urban North from the perspective of girls and teenage women.

Her latest book, the Pulitzer Prize winning Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black Americaexamines the intersection of the post-1968 civil rights struggle and the rise of the fast food industry.