Graduates of our degree programs pursue a variety of careers, many in academia but others in the non-profit, private, or public sector. Organized below by the year in which they earned their PhD is a list of recent graduates and their initial or current (if known) positions. Also, check out our gallery of alumni publications.
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2020-2021
- Erin Cantos – Upper School History Instructor, Colorado Academy
History Dissertation: “Revolutionary Teachers: Colonial Schooling and Nationalism in the Spanish Philippines”
Advisors: Alfred W. McCoy and William J. Reese - Chad Gibbs – Assistant Professor, College of Charleston
History Dissertation: “Against that Darkness: Perseverance, Resistance, and Revolt at Treblinka”
Advisor: Amos Bitzan
- Kilian Harrer – Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Munich
History Dissertation: “Places of Power and Peril: Reinventing Pilgrimage in Europe’s Age of Revolution”
Advisor: Suzanne Desan
- Emer Lucey – Postdoctoral Scholar, Arizona State University
History Dissertation: “Constructing Childhood Disabilities: Autism and Down Syndrome in America”
Advisor: Richard C. Keller
- Catriona Miller – Visiting Scholar, The Hill School
History Dissertation: “Women Don’t Understand Politics at All: Gender and Decolonization in Cambodia (1900-1970)”
Advisor: Anne R. Hansen
- Scott Prinster – Program Associate, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
History Dissertation: “Reading the Bible Scientifically: Science and the Rise of Modern Biblical Criticism in 19th- and Early 20th-Century America”
Advisor: Susan Lederer
- Hermann von Hesse – Postdoctoral Fellow, Rice University
History Dissertation: “Fortifications, Commerce, and Urban (In)security on the 18th- and 19th-Century Gold Coast”
Advisor: James H. Sweet
2019-2020
- So Yeon Bae – Assistant Professor, Yongin University
History Dissertation: “Rewriting Domitian’s Tyranny”
Advisor: Marc Kleijwegt
- Meggan Bilotte – Chair and Instructor, Windsor Charter Academy
History Dissertation: “Becoming Native: Family Labor and Belonging in the Sugar Beet Fields of Northern Colorado, 1901-1969”
Advisor: Susan L. Johnson
- Francis Gourrier – Assistant Professor, Kenyon University
History Dissertation: “Civil Rights Husbands: A New History of Manhood in the Black Freedom Movement”
Advisor: Nan Enstad
- Dan Guadagnolo – Assistant Professor, University of Toronto
History Dissertation: “Segmenting America: Consumer Marketing from Mass to Niche after 1945”
Advisor: Nan Enstad
- Jillian Jacklin – Lecturer, Democracy and Justice Studies, UW-Green Bay
History Dissertation: Paper Dreams: Working-Class Cultures and Political Drift in the Fox River Valley, 1850s-1950s
Advisor: Susan L. Johnson
- Lin Li – Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
History Dissertation: “Empire of Trauma: Gender and Disability in Trans-Pacific Remembering of Japanese Military Sexual Violence”
Advisors: Viren Murthy and Shelly Chan
- Galen Poor – Historian, SNA International
History Dissertation: “The Four Great Inventions: A Global History of Modern China”
Advisors: Shelly Chan and Florence Hsia
- Piotr Puchalski – Assistant Professor, Pedagogical University of Cracow (Poland)
History Dissertation: “Beyond Empire: Interwar Poland and the Colonial Question, 1918-1939”
Advisors: Kathryn Ciancia
- Ben Shannon – Lecturer, UW-Madison
History Dissertation: “From Christians to Socialists: The Political Night Prayer and the Politicization of Religion in West Germany during the 1960s”
Advisor: Joe Dennis
- Seungyop Shin – Visiting Asst Prof, Haverford College
History Dissertation: “Mediating the New World: Modern Time and Social Change in Late Chosŏn and Colonial Korea”
Advisor: Charles Kim
- Cori Simon – Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma
History Dissertation: “Shadowland: Indian Territory’s Contested Past and Uncertain Future, 1800-1910”
Advisor: Susan L. Johnson
- Sam Timinsky – History Teacher, Neuva School
History Dissertation: “The Overwork System: Japanese Masculinity, Media, and High Growth in Postwar Japan”
Advisor: Louise Young and Sarah Thal - Travis Weisse – Visiting Teaching Associate, Marist College
History Dissertation: “Through Thick and Thin: Americans’ Trust in Dietary Experts, 1945-2005”
Advisor: Susan Lederer
2018-2019
- Adela Cedillo – Assistant Professor, University of Houston
History Dissertation: “Intersections Between the Dirty War and the War on Drugs in Northwestern Mexico (1969-1985)”
Advisors: Patrick Iber, Steve J. Stern, Florencia Mallon - Jeanne Essame – Assistant Professor, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
History Dissertation: “Diaspora as Detour: Haitian Émigrés during the Duvalier years, 1950s-1980s”
Advisor: Brenda Gayle Plummer - Spring Greeney – Teacher, The Baldwin School (Philadelphia)
History Dissertation: “What Cleanliness Smells Like: An Environmental History of Doing the Wash, 1842-1996”
Advisor: William Cronon - Matthew Reiter – Corporate Researcher, SEIU Healthcare
History Dissertation: “The Rustbelt Right: The Midwestern Origins of Modern Conservatism”
Advisor: Anthony E. Michels - Megan Stanton – Lecturer, UW-Madison
History Dissertation: “All in the FamiIy: Ecclesiastical Authority and Family Theology in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”
Advisor: Charles L. Cohen - Kevin Walters – Strategic Research Coordinator, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
History Dissertation: “Experiments in Democracy: A New Institutional History of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, 1925-2000”
Advisor: John W. Hall
2017-2018
- Athan Biss – Teacher, The Baldwin School (Philadelphia)
History Dissertation: “Race Diplomacy: African American International Diplomacy, 1855-1955.”
Advisor: Brenda Gayle Plummer - John Boonstra – Lecturer, Harvard University
History Dissertation: “A Mandate to Protect: Imperial Encounters and Affective Ideologies between France and Lebanon, 1860-1931.”
Advisor: Mary Louise Roberts and Laird Boswell - Yuan Chang – Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technical Institute
History Dissertation: “Xiong Shili, Qian Mu and Modern Chinese Conservatism”
Advisor: Viren Murthy and Daniel Ussishkin - Melissa Charenko – Assistant Professor, Michigan State University
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology Dissertation: “Science as Prophecy: Paleo Perspectives on Environmental Change”
Advisor: Gregg Mitman - Hye Eun Choi – Assistant Professor, NYU-Shanghai
History Dissertation: “The Making of the Recording Industry in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945”
Advisor: Charles Kim - Sergio Gonzalez – Assistant Professor, Marquette University
History Dissertation: “‘I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me’: Latino Immigration, Religion, and Community Formation in Milwaukee, 1920-1990”
Advisor: Cindy I-Fen Cheng - Erin Kramer – Assistant Professor, Trinity University (San Antonio)
History Dissertation: “’The entire trade to themselves’: Contested Authority, Intimate Exchanges, and the Political Economy of the Upper Hudson River Region, 1626-1713”
Advisor: Charles L. Cohen - William Noseworthy – Assistant Professor, McNeese State University
History Dissertation: “Khik Agam Cam: Caring for Cham Religions in Mainland Southeast Asia, 1651-1969”
Advisor: Anne R. Hansen and Thongchai Winichakul - Stephen Pierce – Assistant Professor, Indiana Wesleyan University
History Dissertation: “Charity, Cosmopolitanism, and the City in coastal East Africa, 1750-1930s”
Advisor: Neil Kodesh - Brett Reilly – Analyst, US Department of Defense
History Dissertation: “The Origins of the Vietnamese Civil War and the State of Vietnam”
Advisor: Alfred W. McCoy - Nicholas Strohl – Instructor, Marquette University
History Dissertation: “The Truman Commission and the Promise of American Higher Education”
Advisor: Adam R. Nelson and William J. Reese - Lane Sunwall – Consultant, Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, UW-Milwaukee
History Dissertation: “Mission Aviation: Faith, Publicity, and Cultures of Technology (1908-9150)”
Advisor: Daniel Ussishkin - John Suval – Research Assistant Professor, University of Tennessee
History Dissertation: “Dangerous Ground: Squatters, Statesmen, and the Rupture of American Democracy, 1830-1860”
Advisor: William J. Cronon - Libby Tronnes – Assistant Professor, Bradley University
History Dissertation: “Corn Moon Migrations: Ho-Chunk, Belonging, Removal, and Return in the Early Nineteenth-Century Western Great Lakes”
Advisor: Susan L. Johnson - Berke Torunoglu – Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton University
History Dissertation: “Comparative Imperiology: Autocracy, Citizenship, and Subjecthood in Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1856-1876”
Advisor: David M. McDonald - Richard Evan Wells – Instructor, Minnesota State University-Moorehead
History Dissertation: “The Manchurian Bean: How the Soybean Shaped the Modern History of China’s Northeast, 1862-1945”
Advisor: Louise C. Young - Ryan Wolfson-Ford – Lecturer, Arizona State University
History Dissertation: “Ideology in the Royal Lao Government era (1945-1975): A Thematic Approach”
Advisor: Alfred W. McCoy
2016-2017
- Nick Abbott – Assistant Professor, Old Dominion University
History Dissertation: “Household, Family, and State: Negotiating Sovereignty and Sarkar in the Awadh Nawabi, 1775-1840”
Advisor: André Wink - Grace Allen – Assistant Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
History Dissertation: “Mass Marketing France: French Commercial Expositions from 1946-1968”
Advisor: Mary Louise Roberts and Laird Boswell - Brad Baranowski – Law Student, Boston University
History Dissertation: “America’s Moral Conscience: John Rawls and the Making of Modern Liberalism”
Advisor: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen - Jake Blanc – Assistant Professor, University of Edinburgh
History Dissertation: “The Price of Peace: Itaipu and the Meanings of Land and Opposition in Brazil, 1957-1984”
Advisor: Florencia E. Mallon - Marcelo Casals – Assistant Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
History Dissertation: “Middle Class and Dictatorship in Chile: Consent, Negotiation, and Crisis, 1970-1983”
Advisor: Steve J. Stern - Aaron Dowdall – Teacher, John Burroughs Prep School (St. Louis)
History Dissertation: “‘We Saw Israel’: American and Israeli Workers in the Middle East and Africa, 1948-1972”
Advisor: Brenda Gayle Plummer - Staci Duros – Legislative Analyst, Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau
History Dissertation: “Mourning an Emperor: The Sociopolitical Spectacle of Death, Dynasty, and the Funeral during the Transformation of the Roman Republic to Principate”
Advisor: Marc Kleijwegt - David Fields – Associate Director, CAES, UW-Madison
History Dissertation: “The Influence of Korean Lobbying on U.S.-Korean Relations, 1905–1945”
Advisor: William J. Reese - Sam Gale – Visiting Assistant Professor, UW-River Falls
History Dissertation: “‘It’s a Press Victory’: African American Newspaper Coverage of Black Sports and the Struggle for Racial Equality”
Advisor: William Jones - Paul Grant – Lecturer, UW-Platteville
History Dissertation: “Mutual Religious Change in an African-European Encounter: Ghanaian Christians and their Germans, 1835-1935”
Advisor: Rudy J. Koshar - Rachel Gross – Assistant Professor, University of Colorado-Denver
History Dissertation: “From Buckskin to Gore-Tex: Consumption as a Path to Mastery in Twentieth-Century American Wilderness Recreation”
Advisor: William J. Cronon - David Harrisville – Information Technology Learning Specialist, Legal Services Corporation
History Dissertation: “Fabricating a Righteous Cause: The Wartime Origins of the Wehrmacht Myth, 1941-1944”
Advisor: Rudy J. Koshar - Cam Hutchison – Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia School of Law
History Dissertation: “Regulating the Corporation: Legal and Economic Policy Development in Twentieth-Century America”
Advisor: Colleen A. Dunlavy - Shuma Iwai – Assistant Professor, UW-La Crosse
History Dissertation: “Power and Money in Modern Japan: An Economic Perspective from Yamaji Aizan’s Writings”
Advisor: Louise C. Young - Daniel Kim – Assistant Professor, California State University, Fresno
History Dissertation: “Intelligentsia under Empire: Proletarian Authors, Socialist Feminists, and the Fate of Korean Intellectuals in Japan, 1920-1945”
Advisor: Louise C. Young - Elena McGrath – Assistant Professor, Union College
History Dissertation: “Drinking and Dynamite: Revolution and Social Struggle in a Bolivian Mining Town, 1900-1992”
Advisor: Florencia E. Mallon - Anthony Medrano – Yale College, National University of Singapore
History Dissertation: “Following Fish: Science, Industry, and the Asian Marine Environment, 1822 -1941”
Advisor: Alfred W. McCoy - Alexander Olson – Internal Revenue Service, Canada
History Dissertation: “Between the Oak and the Olive: Environment and Society in Byzantium, 650-1150”
Advisor: Leonora Neville - Alberto Ortiz – Assistant Professor, University of Iowa
History Dissertation: “Redeeming Bodies and Souls: Penitentiary Science and Spirituality in Twentieth-Century Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic”
Advisor: Francisco A. Scarano - Debbie Sharnak – Assistant Professor, Rowan College
History Dissertation: “De Luz y Lucha in Uruguay: Contesting the International History of Human Rights”
Advisor: Steve J. Stern and Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen - Jillian Slaight – Legislative Analyst, Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau
History Dissertation: “Seduction: Sexuality, Authority, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France”
Advisor: Suzanne Desan - Kyle Steele – Assistant Professor, UW-Oshkosh
History Dissertation: “Making a Mass Institution: Indianapolis and the American Public High School, 1900-1954”
Advisor: William J. Reese and Adam R. Nelson - Derek Taira – Assistant Professor, University of Hawaii
History Dissertation: “Imua Me Ka Hopo Ole – ‘Forward, Without Fear’: Native Hawaiians and American Schooling in Territorial Hawaiʻi, 1900-1941”
Advisor: William J. Reese and Adam R. Nelson - Vikram Tamboli – Postdoctoral Fellow, University of London – Institute of Latin American Studies
History Dissertation: “Black Powers and Bush Talk: Histories of Race, Radicalism, and Violence in Twentieth-Century Guyana”
Advisor: Steve J. Stern and Florencia E. Mallon - Billy Warner – Outreach Specialist & Associate Lecturer, Center for the Humanities, UW-Madison
History Dissertation: “Mobility and Muscle: Afghan Migration and the Frontiers of British India, c. 1800-1947”
Advisor: André Wink
2015-2016
- Ashley Barnes-Gilbert – Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
History Dissertation: “River Town Brothel Culture: Sex Worker Mobility, Policing, and Agency, 1870-1940”
Advisor: A. Finn Enke - Ingrid Bolivar-Rameriz – Assistant Professor, Universidad de los Andes (Bogota, Colombia)
History Dissertation: “El Oficio de los Futbolistas Columbianos en Los Anos 60 Y 70: Re-Creacion de las Regiones, Juegos de Masculinidad y Vida
Sentimental”
Advisor: Florencia E. Mallon - Charles Cahill – Trainer, Epic Systems
History Dissertation: “Rescuing the Individual: The Kierkegaard Renaissance in Weimar Germany”
Advisor: Rudy J. Koshar - Skye Doney – Director, George L. Mosse Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
History Dissertation: “Moving Toward the Sacred: German Pilgrimage Practices, 1832-1937”
Advisor: Rudy J. Koshar - Jerome Dotson – Assistant Professor, University of Arizona
History Dissertation: “Consuming Bodies, Producing Race: Slavery and Diet in the Antebellum South, 1830-1865”
Advisor: Stephen Kantrowitz - Daniel Hummel – Program Curator for Academic Communities, Upper House, UW-Madison
History Dissertation: “A Covenant of the Mind: American Evangelicals, Israel, and the Construction of a Special Relationship, 1948-1980”
Advisor: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen - Gregory Jones-Katz – Lecturer, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
History Dissertation: “’The Hermeneutical Mafia’ and the Age of Deconstruction”
Advisor: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen - Maureen Justiniano – Federal Historian, POW Office
History Dissertation: “Navigating Manila’s Labyrinth: Nineteenth-Century Colonial Manila in the Making of a Revolution”
Advisor: Alfred W. McCoy - Daniel Liu – Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology Dissertation: “Visions of Life and Matter: Protoplasm, Scientific Microscopy, and the Origins of Molecular Biology, 1839-1941”
Advisor: Lynn K. Nyhart - A. Scott Mobley – Associate Director, Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy, UW-Madison
History Dissertation: “Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity, 1873-1898”
Advisor: John W. Hall - Patrick Otim – Assistant Professor, Bates College
History Dissertation: “Forgotten Voices of the Transition: Precolonial Intellectuals and the Colonial State in Northern Uganda, 1850-1950”
Advisor: Neil R. Kodesh - Britt Tevis – Assistant Professor, Deakin Law School (AU)
History Dissertation: “May It Displease the Court: Jewish Lawyers and the Democratization of American Law”
Advisor: Tony Michels - Scott Trigg – Postdoctoral Fellow, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, University of Hong Kong
HistoryDissertation: “Innovation or Decline in Post-Classical Islamic Science? Fathallah al-Shirwani and the Commentary Tradition”
Advisor: Michael Chamberlain - Jed Woodworth – Historian, Maxwell Institute, BYU
History Dissertation: “Horace Mann and the Revolution in American Childhood”
Advisors: William J. Reese and Charles L. Cohen
2014-2015
- Melissa Anderson – Editorial Project Manager, Paris Muse
History Dissertation: “The Love of Order:” Race, Violence, and the French Colonial Police in Vietnam, 1860s-1920s”
Advisor: Thongchai Winichakul - Simon Balto – Assistant Professor, UW-Madison
History Dissertation: “‘The Law Has a Bad Opinion of Me’: Policing and Politics in Twentieth-Century Black Chicago”
Advisor: Brenda Gayle Plummer - Sean Bloch – Visiting Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College
History Dissertation: “When Time Stopped: Violence, History, and the Political Imaginary in the Kenya-Somali Borderlands””
Advisor: James H. Sweet - Roberto Carmack – Central Asia and Russia Specialist, U.S. Army Reserves
History Dissertation: “’A Fortress of the Soviet Home Front’”: Mobilization and Ethnicity in Kazakhstan during World War II”
Advisor: Francine Hirsch - Vaneesa Cook – Assistant Researcher, UW-Madison MIA Recovery and Identification Project
History Dissertation: “Thy Kingdom Community: Spiritual Socialists and Local to Global Activism, 1920-1970”
Advisor: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen - Geneviève Dorais – Assistant Professor, Université du Québec á Montréal
History Dissertation: “Indo-America and the Politics of APRA Exile, 1918-1945”
Advisor: Florencia E. Mallon - Ariel Eisenberg – Assistant Professor, Rhodes College
History Dissertation: “‘Save Our Streets and Shelter Our Homeless’: The Homeless Crisis in New York City in the 1980s”
Advisor: William J. Cronon - Katherine Guenoun – Trainer, Epic Systems
History Dissertation: “Between Synagogue and Society: Jewish Women in Nineteenth-Century France”
Advisors: Laird Boswell and Mary Louise Roberts - Anne Giblin – Assistant Professor, Seton Hall University
History Dissertation: “From the Inside-out: Social Networks of Migration from Japan’s Tohoku Region, 1872-1937”
Advisor: Louise C. Young - Ariana Horn – Associate Director of Giving, Gads Hill Center (Chicago)
History Dissertation: “Paved with Good Intentions: The Rise and Fall of the ‘Human Relations’ Movement in Milwaukee, 1934-1980”
Advisor: Charles L. Cohen - Sinae Hyun – Assistant Professor, UW-Whitewater
History Dissertation: “Indigenizing the Cold War: Nation-Building by the Border Patrol Police of Thailand, 1945-1980”
Advisor: Thongchai Winichakul - James McKay – Learning Technology Consultant, University of Wisconsin-Madison
History Dissertation: “The Spiritual Allure of Laissez-Faire: Christian Capitalists and the Ideological Roots of the Enduring Conservative Movement”
Advisor: William J. Reese - Jessica Moore – Lecturer, Iowa State University
History Dissertation: “Procopius and Historical Memory in the 6th Century”
Advisor: Marc Kleijwegt - Terry Peterson – Assistant Professor, Florida International University
History Dissertation: “Counterinsurgent Bodies: Social Welfare and Psychological Warfare in French Algeria, 1956-1962”
Advisor: Laird Boswell - Camarin Porter – Assistant Professor, Western Colorado University
History Dissertation: “De subiecto theologiae: Gerardus Odonis and the Nature of Theological Knowledge and Theological Authority in the Early Fourteenth Century”
Advisor: Karl B. Shoemaker - Lynnette Regouby – Postdoctoral Fellow, New York Botanical Garden Humanities Institute
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology Dissertation: “Sensitive Plant: The Physics of Botany in Eighteenth-century France”
Advisor: Florence Hsia - Javier Samper Vendrell – Assistant Professor, Grinnell College
History Dissertation: “Danger at the Newstand: Homosexuality, Youth, and Mass Culture in the Weimar Republic”
Advisor: Mary Louise Roberts - Jenna Schultz – Instructor, Marian University
History Dissertation: “Erasing the Border: National Identity and the Anglo-Scottish Borderlands, 1552-1660”
Advisor: Johann Sommerville - Casey Stark – Assistant Professor, Bowling Green State University
History Dissertation: “Vesta, her Virgins and the Worship of her Cult during the Roman Imperial Period”
Advisor: Marc Kleijwegt