About Me

EDUCATION
Georgetown University (1993-1998)
Ph.D. Russian and East European History (1998); Minor Modern European History
Dissertation: “Raised from Ruins: Restoring Popular Allegiance Through City Planning in Sevastopol, 1944‑1953” (Mentor: Richard Stites, Ph.D.)

University of Missouri-Columbia (1989-1993, 4.0 GPA, Valedictorian)
AB, AB Summa cum Laude with Honors in History and Russian Area Studies (1993)
Phi Beta Kappa (Most Distinguished Undergraduate, 1992)

TEACHING AND ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE
Dickinson College (Associate Professor and Department Chair 2006-present; Assistant Professor 2002-2006; Visiting Assistant Professor, 2000-2002)
University of Missouri-Columbia (Visiting Assistant Professor, 1998-2000)

COURSES TAUGHT AT DICKINSON COLLEGE

  • History 107, Europe Since 1789
  • History 204, Historical Methods
  • History 230, Modern Germany
  • History 232, Modern Italy
  • History 253, Russia: From Clans to  Empire (previously “Russia to 1894”) (with FLIC option)
  • History 254, Russia: Quest for the Modern (previously “Russia Since 1894”) (with FLIC option)
  • History 304, Collateral Research (various topics)
  • History 313, Modern Eastern Europe (new course at Dickinson; cross-listed with Judaic Studies)
  • History 375, Europe’s Dictators (with FLIC option; new course at Dickinson)
  • History 376, Holocaust (new course at Dickinson; cross-listed with Judaic Studies)
  • History 404, Urban History (Senior Seminar and new course at Dickinson College)
  • First-Year Seminar: Philosophical, Literary and Technological Utopias
  • Russian Area Studies 100, Russia and the West (team-taught, overload)
  • Numerous independent studies

TEACHING AWARDS:

  • Constance and Rose Ganoe Memorial Award for Inspirational Teaching (2004)
  • Gamma Sigma Alpha National Honor Society Professor of the Year (2004)
  • Student Senate Professor of the Year (2003). Nominated 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008.

 RESEARCH GRANTS

  • The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship (2009, deferred)
  • Dana Research Assistantship (Spring 2008, AY 2008-09)
  • Central Pennsylvania Consortium Mellon Grant (summer 2007)
  • J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (July 2004-June 2005)
  • American Council of Learned Societies Library of Congress International Studies Fellow (summers 2004/2005)
  • National Council for Eurasian and East European Research National Research Competition Award (July 2004-June 2006)
  • National Council for Eurasian and East European Research Policy Research Fellowship (July 2004-June 2005, declined)
  • International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) Short-term travel grant (Summer 2005)
  • R&D Scholarly Project Grant (Moscow, Summer 2003; Washington, DC, Summer 2004)
  • Mellon Grant for Student-Faculty Research (Summer 2002)
  • Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Seminar (Summer 2002)
  • Dana Internship Grant (2001-2002)
  • Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies: Short-term Grant Scholar (Summer 1999)
  • American Council of Teachers of Russian: Research Scholar, Moscow/Sevastopol (1996-1997)
  • Center for the Study of Russia and the USSR: Research Fellow, Moscow (Summer 1995)
  • Georgetown University: Piepho Competitive Research Grant (1996)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS         

  • From Ruins to Reconstruction:  Urban Identity in Soviet Sevastopol after World War II. (Forthcoming with Cornell University Press, fall 2009)
  • Today’s Travel through Sevastopol’s Past: Post-communist Continuity in a ‘Ukrainian’ Cityscape "Cities after the Fall of Communism: Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity" in John J. Czaplicka, Nida Gelazis and Blair A. Ruble, eds., (Johns Hopkins University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2009).
  • “Where Each Stone is History”: Travel Guides in Sevastopol after World War II in Anne E. Gorsuch and Diane P. Koenker, eds., Turizm: The Russian and East European Tourist under Capitalism and Socialism (Cornell, 2006), 163-185.
  • Whose History is “Our” History: The Influence of Naval Power in Sevastopol’s Reconstruction, 1944-53 in Endangered Cities: Military Power and Urban Societies in the Era of the World Wars Roger Chickering and Marcus Funck, eds. (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2004), 177-191.
  • Twentieth Century Russian Revolutions: The Impact and Limitations of Western Influence in Russia and Western Civilization: Historical and Cultural Encounters, Russ Bova, ed. (M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 113-141.
  • Imagining Sevastopol: History and Postwar Community Construction, 1942-1953 (National Identities, July 2003), 123-139.
  • Accommodation and Agitation in Sevastopol: Redefining Socialist Space in the Postwar ‘City of Glory’ in Socialist Spaces: Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc, David Crowley and Susan Reid, eds. (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 23-45.
  • Local-Outsider Negotiations in Sevastopol’s Postwar Reconstruction, 1944-53 in Provincial Landscapes: The Local Dimensions of Soviet Power, Donald J. Raleigh, ed., (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001), 276-298.
  • Entries for “Cold War” and “Cosmopolitanism” in Encyclopedia of Russian History, James Millar, ed. (Macmillan, 2003)
  • The Troussoff Collection at Dickinson College in John and Mary’s Journal (2001)

CURRENT RESEARCH

  • The Houses of Spanish Children in the USSR, 1937-51 (new book project)

RECENT INVITED LECTURES AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT/SERVICE

  • Keynote speaker, International Conference on Local Memories in a Nationalizing and Globalizing World (16 October 2009, Antwerp, Belgium, forthcoming)
  • Stanford Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies,  Ukrainian Lecture Series, "Sevastopol: The Making of a Russian City in Ukraine" (13 March 2009)
  • Interview on program “Novosti Sevastopolia” about my research in the city archive. (Sevastopol, Ukraine, Channel NTS, 22 October 2004)
  • “Was Any Experience ‘Typical’ in the Holocaust?” (Warsaw, Poland, 22 May 2003)