Ph.D., history: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (2019)
Dissertation: “The War on Winter: How Americans Put Down Roots on the Northern Plains, 1854-1949”
Passed comprehensive exams in the following fields:
United States history to 1877
United States history since 1877
Europe since 1815
Teaching
American West
United States environmental history
M.A., history: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg (2011)
Thesis: “ ‘Fierce Winds and a Blank Whiteness’: The Culture of Dakota Winter, 1870-1915”
M.S., journalism: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008)
MS project: A report on Americans’ views on Abraham Lincoln in 2008, the eve of the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth; published by the Lincoln Heritage Museum of Lincoln, Illinois, in the Lincoln Newsletter
B.A., history and rhetoric double major: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2007)
University of Arkansas: graduate assistant, lecturer
History 4463: History of the American Frontier (fall 2019)
History 2013: History of the American People since 1877 (fall 2017, spring 2018, fall 2019, spring 2020, spring 2021, summer 2021, fall 2022, spring 2023, fall 2023, spring 2024)
History 2003: History of the American People to 1877 (fall 2014, spring 2015, fall 2018, summer 2020, fall 2020, spring 2022)
History 1113: Institutions and Ideas of World Civilizations I (fall 2021)
UNIV 1001: University Perspectives (fall 2020)
Virginia Tech: graduate assistant
History 1115: History of the United States, 1607 to Civil War (spring 2011)
“Above the Fortieth Parallel: Technology and Winter Security on the Northern Plains, 1854-1949,” presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology in Milan, Italy, on October 25, 2019
“From Ground to Wires to Air: Winter Communication by Telegraph, Telephone, and Radio on the Northern Plains, 1854-1949,” presented at the annual meeting of the Agricultural History Society in Washington, D.C., on June 8, 2019
“Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Plus Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radios: Connection, Security, and Winter on the Northern Plains, 1920-1949,” presented at the Midwestern History Conference on May 30, 2019, in Grand Rapids, Michigan
“Testing Modernity: Government and Technology on the Northern Plains in the Winter of 1948-1949,” presented at the Annual Meeting of the Arkansas Association of College History Teachers on October 5, 2018, in Little Rock
“Government, Technology, Neighbors: Comparing the Experiences of the Winters of 1880-1881 and 1948-1949 on the Northern Plains,” presented at the Northern Great Plains History Conference on September 21, 2018, in Mankato, Minnesota
“ ‘Fierce Winds and a Blank Whiteness’: The Culture of Dakota Winter, 1870-1914,” presented at the Brian Bertoti Innovative Perspectives in History Graduate Conference on March 26, 2011, in Blacksburg, Virginia
Daniel S. Dupre, Alabama’s Frontiers and the Rise of the Old South (Western Historical Quarterly, spring 2019)
R. Gregory Nokes, The Troubled Life of Peter Burnett: Oregon Pioneer and First Governor of California (Pacific Northwest Quarterly, winter 2018-2019)
Skills Repurposing Weekend Program, Center of the American West, January 31-February 2, 2020, in Boulder, Colorado
During the weekend, delivered two talks to audiences of graduate students and multidisciplinary academics titled “Encircled by Neighbors, Open to the Elements: Social Capital and Northern Plains Winters, 1854-1949” and “Trapped by Progress?: Technological Innovation and Winter Security in the Northern Plains, 1854-1949”
Nominated for the 2019 Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize of the Society of American Historians by the University of Arkansas History Department
James S. Chase Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Presentation, for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Arkansas Association of College History Teachers, 2018
Honorable mention, Graduate Paper Award, Northern Great Plains History Conference, 2018
Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship, University of Arkansas, 2013-2017
Jesse Taylor Jr. Endowed Scholarship in History ($2,500), 2017
Based on student evaluations, made the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students for fall 2007 teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Assistant editor, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Fayetteville (August 2015-August 2017)
Research assistant, University of Arkansas (August 2013-May 2014)
National History Day judge, Bentonville, Arkansas, March 7, 2020
Virginia Tech (August 2009-May 2010, August-December 2010)
Assisted with the following courses:
United States, 1607 to 1865
Research and writing seminar on Roanoke, Virginia
American South, 1607-1900
Europe since 1945
University of Illinois (August 2007-May 2008)
Led laboratory section of an introductory journalism class
Institute of Reading Development (May-August 2009 and 2010; May-December 2012)
Instructed students in classes designed for different ages, ranging from kindergarten to adult
Taught reading skills including phonics, skimming, and notetaking
Taught two-weekend course on college-level reading skills on the campus of the University of West Virginia, Morgantown, in October 2012
Also led classes in the Chicago area; Newburgh, New York; Roanoke, Virginia; and Providence, Rhode Island
Daily Illini (Champaign, Illinois)
Illinois Alumni (online)
Lincoln Newsletter (Lincoln, Illinois)
News-Gazette (Champaign, Illinois)
Sheridan Press (Sheridan, Wyoming)