History | PhD Student Profiles

Fields:  U.S. History, U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-Latin American relations
Dissertation: Transnational Conservatives, El Salvador, and the Development of ARENA
Faculty Advisor: Max Paul Friedman
Education: BA, Syracuse University (2000); MA, American University (2009)

Research Interests: My research looks at U.S.-Latin American Cold War relations, with a focus on transnational state and non-state relations between political conservatives throughout the Americas. My dissertation looks at how those relationships influenced the development of a powerful conservative political party in El Salvador during its revolutionary period of the 1980s.
Email Address: aaron.bell@american.edu

Fields: U.S. Diplomatic History
Faculty Advisor: Max Friedman
Education: BA, University of Colorado; MA, Boston University

Research Interests: War of 1898/Spanish-American War, Progressivism, World War I, Wilsonianism, Colonial Independence Movements and National Self-Determination.
Email Address: ac5668a@student.american.edu

Fields: Modern American History, African American History, American music history, and Jewish American and Israeli history
Dissertation: will be on Jews in Hip Hop as well as a survey of Jewish American and African American cooperation in the realm of popular American music.
Advisor: Alan Kraut
Education: BA, MA, CUNY at Brooklyn College

Research interests: I'm focusing on a scholarly approach to Hip Hop history while focusing on the interactions between African Americans and Jewish Americans. I'll argue that Jews have been a part, first by the means of production, advertising and distribution, of Hip Hop culture from the very start. I will then show how this evolved over the decades and addressing the issue of white help versus white theft when it comes to specific said "black" genres of popular music, and in this case it will be Hip Hop.
Email: danielbcipriani@gmail.com

Fields: U.S.-Latin American Relations; U.S. Foreign Relations
Dissertation: The U.S. Intervention in El Salvador, 1979-1992
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Max Paul Friedman
Education: BA, History and International Affairs, Florida State University; MA, European History, University College London  

Research Interests: 20th Century U.S. foreign relations; insurgency; revolution; empire.
Email Address: bd1100a@student.american.edu

Fields:  Early American History, Women’s and Gender History, Public History
Faculty Advisors: Kate Haulman & Kathleen Franz
Education: BA, History, Colby College (2009); MA, Public History, American University (expected 2014)

Research Interests: Women’s and Gender History, Colonial and Revolutionary America, 18th Century Atlantic World, Cultural History
Email:  lauren.duval@student.american.edu

Fields: Sports History, Baseball History, Oral History, Public History, U.S. History
Dissertation: The Dark Knights: The Major League Baseball Umpire-- Guardians and Protectors of Traditional American Values
Dissertation Committee: Peter Kuznick (advisor), Eric Lohr, Daniel Kerr
Education: BA, American University (2009); MA, American University (2012)
Email: ryan.englekirk@gmail.com

Fields: Nineteenth Century U.S. History, Public History, Digital History
Dissertation: Forthcoming
Faculty Advisors: Peter Kuznick & Kathleen Franz
Education: BA, St. Mary's College of Maryland (2009); MA, American University (2011)
Email Address: jg7138a@student.american.edu

Fields: African American History, 19th Century U.S. History, Memory and Oral History, Public History
Faculty Advisor: Daniel Kerr
Education: BA, Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2007); MA, Anthropology, Columbia University, (2009); MA, Oral History, Columbia University (2010)

Research Interests: I am interested in the idea of post-memory and how one generation passes its memories to the next, looking specifically at how that transfer changes the history being told. My focus is on the retelling of personally traumatic or deeply unsettling experiences in the South during the Civil Rights Era and how those individuals deal with that past in their present lives.
Email: ak9747a@student.american.edu

Fields: Modern Middle East, British Empire
Faculty Advisors: Michael Brenner & Max Friedman
Education: BA, English, University of Florida; MSc, International History, London School of Economics

Research Interests: The economic history of Palestine and modern Israel
Email Address: jl5117a@student.american.edu

Fields:  Disability History, Russian History, Modern European History, International Relations
Dissertation: Disability in the Early Soviet Union
Faculty Advisor: Eric Lohr
Education: BA, International Studies and Political Science, University of Richmond (1999); MA, International Relations, University of East Anglia (2001)

Research Interests: My dissertation focuses on the concept of disability in the early Soviet Union. I examine the evolution of the structures associated with disability and the disabled population's acceptance or resistance to Soviet programs. More broadly, I study cultural and social issues, including disability, gender, race, and class. I continue to have a deep interest in diplomatic history, from 18th- and 19th-century Ottoman-Russian relations to the space race.
Email Address: jl3245a@student.american.edu

Fields: Early Modern Britain, Modern Europe, Modern Britain
Faculty Advisor: April Shelford
Education: BA, English, University of London; MA, History, Kansas State University; MLIS, Catholic University of America

Research Interests: Britain and Empire, History of Science
Email Address: lmloring@gmail.com

Fields: Modern Europe, Modern Germany  
Faculty Advisor: Richard Breitman
Education: BA, History and Spanish, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Research Interests: Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, Modern Spanish history, the Spanish Civil War
Email Address: lm1164a@student.american.edu

Fields: Modern Europe, late 19th/early 20th France, Colonialism
Dissertation: Colonial Governance in the Mediterranean: French Bureaucratic Practices in the Protectorates and Mandate, 1919-1939
Faculty Advisor: Lisa Leff
Education: BA, Austin College; MLA, University of St. Thomas

Research Interests: I'm interested in exploring the relationship between the French state and its empire; how colonial administration served as one site in which French, imperial and local interests interacted; and looking at broader regional ties between colonial administrations around the Mediterranean.

Fields: U.S.-Latin America relations, modern Latin America, history of science and medicine.
Faculty Advisor: Max Paul Friedman
Education: BA, Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania; MA, Anthropology, Brandeis University.

Research Interests: Latin American history, culture, and politics; U.S.-Latin America relations; medical and economic anthropology; history of medicine; history and philosophy of science; science and technology studies; power and violence; critical theory; philosophy
Email Address: cm1221a@american.edu

Fields: Modern U.S. History, Women's and Gender History, Public History
Dissertation: Glamorous G.I. Girls: Constructing Servicewomen's Identities During World War II
Faculty Advisors:  Kathleen Franz & Kate Haulman; Katharina Vester (Committee Member)
Education:  BA, Spanish and Anthropology, Skidmore College; MA, History, American University

Research Interests: Women's and Gender History, Cultural History, Visual and Material Culture, and Fashion History
Email Address: lm7553a@american.edu

Fields: Modern America, US Foreign Relations, National Security and Popular Culture Studies, Immigration History

Dissertation: “Building Tito-Land: US Foreign Aid and the Yugoslav Fantasy, 1948-1963”

Faculty Advisors: Max Paul Friedman, Peter Kuznic, Eric Lohr

Education: Hon. BA, Toronto (2004); MA, Hawaii Pacific (2006)

Research Interests: Louie Milojevic specializes in the history of American grand strategy and foreign policy, with a focus on the role of transnational state and non-state actors, domestic politics, political culture, and ethnic lobbies. Drawing on multi-archival research in the United States and former Yugoslav republics, his dissertation, "Building Tito-Land: U.S. Foreign Aid and the Yugoslav Fantasy, 1948-1963," argues that America's aid commitment to Tito's Yugoslavia was as much a complex public phenomenon, shaped, contested, and sustained in the printed media and citizen town halls, as it was a Cold War strategic exercise conceived and directed in official policy circles.

Email Address: lm5322a@american.edu

Fields: Modern America, American Extremism, particularly right wing extremist groups, white supremacists, and Neo-Nazis
Faculty Advisor: Allan Lichtman
Education: BA, History, Boston University, MA Seton Hall University

Research Interests: Post WWII America, Extremist groups, Racism, and Hate Studies.  
Email Address:  am1537a@student.american.edu

Fields: History of Women, Progressive Era, Twentieth Century and political histories.
Dissertation: Society in Suffrage: An Inquiry Into Whether New York's Elite Socialites Made Voting Fashionable
Faculty Advisor: Alan Kraut
Committee: Alan Kraut (chair), Kate Haulman, Katharina Vester (American University), Dr. Robyn Muncy (University of Maryland, College Park).
Education: BA, Communications & Public Policy, UC Berkeley; MA, Journalism, University of Southern California

Research Interests: Women's suffrage movement, World War II
Email Address: johanna.neuman@me.com

Fields: History of U.S. Foreign Relations; U.S. history since 1865
Dissertation: (Tentative) Vietnamese Activism against US Involvement in the Second Indochina War - a Transatlantic Study
Advisor: Max Paul Friedman
Education: BA International Relations and Journalism; MA Communication

Research Interests: U.S. foreign relations, Franco-U.S. relations, the Vietnam War in the Cold War.
Email: nn9606a@student.american.edu

Fields: Modern U.S. History, Early American History, French Diplomacy
Dissertation: (Provisional) Coming in from the Cold: Harry Truman, American Intelligence, and Cold War France
Faculty Advisor: Max Paul Friedman
Education: BA, International Affairs and French, Florida State University; MA, International Affairs, Florida State University

Research Interests: U.S. Foreign Relations, Intelligence History (general); Franco-American relations, Cold War United States and Europe
Email: sp7625a@american.edu

Fields: American History post-1880, Cold War Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons.
Dissertation: Norman Cousins: Public Intellectual, Anti-Nuclear Activist, Citizen Diplomat
Faculty Advisors: Peter Kuznick, Max Paul Friedman
Education: BA, History, University of Waterloo (2007); MA, History, Wilfrid Laurier University (2009)

Research Interests: My general research focuses on Cold War diplomacy and American social history post-1880. My dissertation attempts to blend a number of different approaches, combining foreign policy, social activism, and intellectual history in order to explore the impact that prominent journalist and leading anti-nuclear activist, Norman Cousins, had on American public discourse and foreign policy during the Cold War.
Email: ap0755a@student.american.edu

Fields: 20th Century American History
Dissertation: ’Strictly Masculine:’ Reforming and Performing Manhood at Tule Lake, 1942-1946
Faculty Advisors: Max Paul Friedman
Education: BA Boston College; MA, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey 

Research Interests: Asian-American, Diplomatic, and Sports History
Email Address: tr7118a@american.edu

Fields: 19th/20th Century European and German, culture, looted artworks and art provenance, intelligence.
Dissertation: Unscrupulous Opportunists: Second-rate German Art
Dealers as Nazi Functionaries during World War Two
Faculty Advisors: Richard Breitman (chair), Lisa Moses Leff, Max Paul Friedman
Education: MA, Historical Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, (2002); MA Thesis: “Project ORION: An Administrative History of the Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU): An Overlooked Page in Intelligence Gathering.”); MSLS, The Catholic University of America (1997); BA, History, University of Maryland, College Park, (1988)
Email: ar3946a@american.edu

Field: 19th and 20th century U.S. History  
Advisors: Alan Kraut, Max Paul Friedman, Jenna Weissman Joselit (GW).  
Education: BA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; MAT, Boston University; MA, History, American University  

Research Interests: Migration, marriage, and gender in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries.

Fields: Modern U.S. history, political history
Advisor: Allan J. Lichtman
Education: MA, American History, Brooklyn College; BA, American History and Political Science, Stony Brook University

Research Interests: American conservatism
Email: sv8991a@student.american.edu

Field: Business history, 19th and 20th U.S. History, Modern Germany, Holocaust
Dissertation: Lawyers, Spies, and Industry: The Dulles Brothers and Transnational Business in Nazi Germany
Faculty Advisors: Peter Kuznick (chair) Allan Lichtman, Richard Breitman, Heather Elms (Kogod)
Education: BA, History, SUNY Buffalo State College; MA, Modern European History, Boston College

Research Interests: Transnational corporate development, U.S. History, War & Genocide, Nazi Germany
Email: jason.weixelbaum@gmail.com

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