History | Faculty & Staff Directory

Assistant Professor

Professor Beers will be away from AU in academic year 2011-12 as a visiting fellow at Exeter University in the United Kingdom.Professor Beers's research focuses on modern Britain. She is particularly interested in the ways in which politics both infl... [More]

Professor

Richard Breitman teaches courses in modern European history and German history. He is the author or co-author of nine books and many articles in German history, U. S. history, and the Holocaust. His most recent books are editions of the diaries of Ja... [More]

Assistant Professor

Mary Ellen Curtin has a Ph.d from Duke University and is a historian of modern African American and women's social and political history. Her first book Black Prisoners and Their World documented the experiences of black convict laborers in the Sout... [More]

Professorial Lecturer

Warren Dym is a historian of science and technology, and early modern Europe. He publishes on earth science and mining history. His first book is Divining Science: Treasure Hunting and Earth Science in Early Modern Germany (2011). Dym taught at Buckn... [More]

Associate Director of Initiative for Russian Culture and Assistant Professor

Anton Fedyashin received his BA from St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD where he studied the Great Books. He completed an MA at Harvard University in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies and went on to defend his doctoral dissertation a... [More]

Associate Professor

Eileen Findlay graduated from Oberlin College and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she held a Jacob Javits fellowship. Findlay's first book, Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920 was published with ... [More]

Associate Professor

Prof. Franz holds degrees in museum studies and American Civilization from Brown University. She specializes in 20th Century US cultural history with a focus on popular culture and the history of technology. She's also an active curator and public hi... [More]

Associate Professor

Max Paul Friedman specializes in 20th-century U.S. foreign relations. A graduate of Oberlin College and U.C. Berkeley, he was a Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow and has taught at Boulder, Tallahassee, and Cologne. His book, Nazis and Good Neighbors... [More]

Professorial Lecturer

Randall Geller specializes in the history of Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict within its Middle Eastern context, and teaches a wide range of courses dealing with multiple aspects of Jewish History. He recently completed his Ph.D. dissertation at ... [More]

Assistant Professor

Mary Frances Giandrea is the author of Episcopal Culture in Late Anglo-Saxon England, the first full-length study of the many roles, both secular and religious, of bishops in tenth and eleventh-century England. Her research interests include Anglo-Sa... [More]

Professorial Lecturer

Claire Goldstene is an historian of the United States with interest in intellectual history, labor history, and political economy. Her research has focused on the idea of equal economic opportunity in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries... [More]

Assistant Professor

Kate Haulman is a historian of early America whose teaching and research interests also include women’s/gender, social and cultural history. She is the author of The Politics of Fashion in Eighteenth-Century America (University of North Carolina Pres... [More]

Assistant Professor

Justin Jacobs is a historian of modern China whose research interests lie in empires, ethnicity, and borderlands. His first book project, Empire Besieged: The Preservation of Chinese Rule in Xinjiang, 1911–71, includes all three. In it, he aims to pl... [More]

Assistant Professor

Dan Kerr has recently published Derelict Paradise: Homelessness and Urban Development in Cleveland, Ohio where he seeks answers to the question, "Who benefits from homelessness?" The book takes the reader on a sweeping tour of Cleveland's history fro... [More]

Instructor

Piotr H. Kosicki specializes in the transnational history of 20th-century Europe, focusing particularly on religion, politics, and the history of ideas. He is currently preparing a book manuscript concerning the relationship between Catholicism and s... [More]

University Professor

Alan M. Kraut is Professor of History and an affiliate faculty member in the School of International Service. He is a Non-resident Fellow of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. He specializes in U.S. immigration and ethnic history, the... [More]

Associate Professor

The author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America and coeditor of Rethinking Cold War Culture, Professor Kuznick is currently writing a book about scientists’ opposition to the Vietnam War. As director of America... [More]

Associate Professor

Lisa Leff is a historian of Europe since 1789 whose research focuses on Jews in France. Her first book, Sacred Bonds of Solidarity (Stanford UP, 2006), examines the rise of Jewish international aid in 19th century France; her current research examine... [More]

Professor

Allan J. Lichtman received his PhD from Harvard University in 1973 with a specialty in modern American history and quantitative methods. He became an Assistant Professor of History at American University in 1973 and a Full Professor in 1980. He was t... [More]

Senior Administrative Assistant

Tracey joined the History Department in the summer of 2011. Her primary duties include; assisting faculty and students, managing the History and Jewish Studies budget, course scheduling, and coordinating daily operations.She began a Master of Public ... [More]

Director of Initiative for Russian Culture and Associate Professor

Eric Lohr is a historian of Russia and East Europe with an affiliate appointment in the School of International Service. He directs the AU Initiative for Russian Culture. He received his M.A. in Russian Studies and Ph.D. in History from Harvard Unive... [More]

Instructor

Chair, Department of History

Pamela S. Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's and Gender History and is Chair of the Department of History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program. A specialist in American Jewish history and women’s history, she teaches a variety ... [More]

Distinguished Historian in Residence

Anna K. Nelson teaches courses related to the History of American Foreign Relations from 1783 to the present. She wrote her dissertation and published on the diplomacy of the 19th century before moving her research into the post World War II period. ... [More]

Administrative Assistant

Lauren Pav joined the History Department as a staff member in May 2011 after receiving a bachelors degree in history at American University in Spring 2011. When she is not assisting faculty and students and planning events for the department, she can... [More]

Associate Professor

April Shelford is an intellectual historian of early modern Europe. Her first project was a study of the Republic of Letters in the seventeenth century, which focused on the French érudit Pierre-Daniel Huet (1621-1720). A two-year visiting pro... [More]

Assistant Professor

Professors Sims has received numerous awards and prizes, including the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for Excellence in Teaching and the Charles Warren Center Dissertation Writing Fellowship. She has served as tutor, research assistant, and writing instr... [More]

Director of American Studies

Katharina Vester is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the American Studies Program at American University in Washington, D.C. She specializes in cultural theory, transnational studies, and the dynamics of power in everyday practices. She... [More]