Historian. Associate Professor. Author.
Hi! I'm a historian of 20th century U.S. history, gender, public history, oral history, and military history.
In central Pennsylvania, I'm an Associate Professor of History and Peace and Conflict Studies at Messiah University.
I recently published Earning Their Wings: The WASPs of World War II and the Fight for Veteran Recognition (UNC Press, 2023).
I'm a former museum curator and NEH grant recipient.
about me
I'm an Associate Professor of History at Messiah University in central Pennsylvania where I teach courses on 20th century U.S. history, gender, public history, and war and memory. I received a 2020-2022 National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Dialogues on the Experience of War grant for a program focused on generating dialogue with female veterans. For this grant, I led discussion workshops with veterans at the Military Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
I'm currently co-editing an anthology, Exploring the Human Costs of Flight: A History of Aviation, Trauma, and Emotions, with historians Jason Crouthamel and Jorden Pitt.
My interviews and presentations have appeared on C-SPAN 3 and PBS. I served on the advisory board and interviewed in a documentary aired on PBS entitled Charlotte Mansfield - A Woman Photographer Goes to War. (Mansfield was in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II.)
I've presented at conferences including the National Council on Public History, Society for Military History, American Historical Association, Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, the British Commission for Military History’s New Research in Military History Conference, and the Waging Peace Conference sponsored by The Dale Center for the Study of War & Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. I've given invited talks at Historic Fort Snelling in Minnesota; The Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York City; and Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Prior to my position at Messiah University, I was Director of the Keirn Family World War II Museum in Loretto, Pennsylvania where I curated museum exhibits and a WWII Veterans Oral History Project.
[Photos: Teaching a course in Washington D.C. (courtesy of Kelan Amme) and giving a guest lecture at Texas Tech University.]
teaching
Public History
This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of public history. Public History takes academic, historical research and makes it accessible to the public. It can take various forms, including but not limited to historic sites, museums, archives, oral history interviews, documentary films, government agencies, monuments, memorials, and historical societies. Some of the questions public historians have to answer include what/whose history to document/preserve, how to discuss controversial topics, how to generate public interest in historical subjects, and how to present historical knowledge to the public. You will get hands-on experience in public history at a local archive and create a public history project in collaboration with a community partner.
Students created panels with biographies of historic local women for the Civic Club of Harrisburg.
In the media
-U.S. National Archives' Women's History programming, March 2024.
-Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History’s Book Breaks, January 21, 2024.
-Historians at the Movies podcast commentary on Masters of the Air episodes 1&2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8.
-Podcast interviews on From Balloons to Drones, New Books Network, Modern Scholar Podcast, Military Historians are People Too, The Tattooed Historian Show, Why We Fight.
-Interview with Brasil de Fato on U.S. military women’s history and female veterans, 2022
-Advisory Board and Documentary Interview, Charlotte Mansfield - A Woman Photographer Goes to War (2020) on the Women’s Army Corps, Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State University
-American Historical Association panel aired on C-SPAN 3