History |
People
People
Faculty
Name | Title | Contact Information |
|---|---|---|
 Matthew A. Sutton (Pullman) | Department Chair Berry Family Distinguished Professor in the Liberal Arts 20th-century United States, cultural, and religious history | Wilson-Short Hall 301E 509-335-8374 sutton@wsu.edu CV |
 Robert Bauman (Tri-Cities) | Professor of History American history and public history | WSU Tri-Cities 509-372-7249 rbauman@wsu.edu CV |
 Peter Boag (Vancouver) | Professor and Columbia Chair in the History of the American West American West, the Pacific Northwest, modern America, the environment, and sexuality | VCLS 208F 360-546-9719 boag@wsu.edu Visit the American West & Pacific Northwest website |
 Ryan W. Booth (Upper Skagit) (Pullman) | Postdoctoral Teaching Associate 19th-century US, Indigenous, military, and American West | Wilson-Short Hall 318 509-335-1258 ryan.booth@wsu.edu |
 W. Puck Brecher (Pullman) | Professor of History Early and Modern Japan | Wilson-Short Hall 309 509-335-3267 wbrecher@wsu.edu CV |
 Andra Chastain (Vancouver) | Assistant Professor of History Modern Latin America, transnational history, urban history, and the history of technology | WSU Vancouver (360) 546-9331 Andra.Chastain@wsu.edu CV |
 Julian Dodson (Pullman) | Assistant Professor, Career Track Modern Latin America, Borderlands, Religious, Cultural, and Gender history, Global History | Wilson-Short Hall 343 509-335-0193 julian.dodson@wsu.edu |
 Rebecca Ellis (Pullman) | Assistant Professor, Career Track Modern Latin America, Labor and Gender History, History of Medicine, Global History | Wilson-Short Hall 345 509-335-5570 rebecca.ellisdodson@wsu.edu |
 Brigit Farley (Tri-Cities) | Associate Professor of History Russian and East European history | Tri-Cities CIC 202C 509-372-7357 bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu |
 Kenneth Faunce (Pullman) | Associate Professor, Career Track Nineteenth and twentieth century U.S. History, race/ethnicity, gender studies, drugs in history and popular culture | Wilson-Short Hall 322 509-335-7554 kfaunce@wsu.edu |
 John Finkelberg (Pullman) | Postdoctoral Teaching Associate | Wison-Short Hall 347 509-335-1170 john.finkelberg@wsu.edu |
 Steven M. Fountain (Vancouver) | Assistant Professor, Career Track Native-newcomer contacts, colonial North America, and the role of animals in history, indigenous peoples in the fur trades, wildlife management in North America, and the legal culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Alta California | VCLS 208T 360-546-9738 sfountain@wsu.edu Faculty Webpage |
 Robert Franklin (Tri-Cities) | Assistant Professor, Career Track Assistant Director and Archivist of the Hanford History Project, Director of the Hanford Oral History Project | CIC 202H, Tri Cities Campus 509-372-7678 robert.franklin@wsu.edu |
 Marlene Gaynair (Pullman) | Assistant Professor of History | Wilson-Short Hall 313 509-335-8886 marlene.gaynair@wsu.edu |
| Sabrina González (TriCities) | Assistant Professor of History | sabrina.gonzalez1@wsu.edu |
 Luz María Gordillo (Vancouver) | Assistant Dean for Inclusive Excellence College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences Associate Professor and Program Leader of History Twentieth century U.S. History, Chicanx, Latinx, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the History of Medicine | WSU Vancouver VMMC 202U gordillo@wsu.edu Website |
 Lawrence B. A. Hatter (Pullman) | Associate Professor of History Graduate Studies Director Early America, Atlantic World, Borderlands history | Wilson-Short Hall 319 509-335-7298 lawrence.hatter@wsu.edu CV |
 L Heidenreich (Pullman) | Professor of History Chicana/Chicano Studies, Queer Studies, History and Culture of 19th-Century Greater Mexico | Wilson-Short Hall 349 509-335-6883 lheidenr@wsu.edu |
 Shawna Herzog (Pullman) | Assistant Professor, Career Track Imperialism, gender, modern Britain/ British Empire, and slavery in the Indian Ocean World | Wilson-Short Hall 314 509-335-8381 sherzog2@wsu.edu |
 Theresa Jordan (Pullman) | Professor, Career Track, Director, History and Social Studies Undergraduate Education Program Secondary Teacher Education, World History, European Medieval History and Roman History | Wilson-Short Hall 341 509-335-4030 tjordan@wsu.edu |
 Gracjan Kraszewski (Pullman) | Wilson-Short Hall 340 509-335-9898 gracjan.krazewski@wsu.edu |
|
 Noriko Kawamura (Pullman) | Professor of History Arnold M. and Atsuko Craft Professor U.S. foreign relations, U.S.–East Asian relations, and modern Japanese history | Wilson-Short Hall 350 509-335-5428 nkawamura@wsu.edu CV |
 JoAnn LoSavio (Vancouver) | Assistant Professor, Career Track Cultural history of transnational exchange and migration, sports, youth, women’s history, and processes of decolonization | joann.losavio@wsu.edu |
 Robert McCoy (Pullman) | Associate Professor of History Public History | Wilson-Short Hall 337 509-335-3985 rmccoy@wsu.edu |
 Alan Malfavon (Pullman) | Assistant Professor of History Colonial Latin America, 19th Century Latin America, Mexico, Afro-Mexicans, Greater Caribbean, Atlantic World, Veracruz | Wilson-Short Hall 351 509-335-3354 alan.malfavon@wsu.edu |
 Jodie Marshall (Pullman) | Teaching Post-doctoral Instructor | Wilson-Short Hall judith.marshall@wsu.edu |
 Laurie Mercier (Vancouver) | Professor of History United States, the American West, the Pacific Northwest, immigration and migration, and American labor | WSU Vancouver 360-546-9646 lmercier@wsu.edu Webpage |
 Brenna Miller (Pullman) | Assistant Professor, Career Track Modern Europe, Empires and Nations in Eastern Europe, 1500–present | Wilson-Short 315 509-335-1242 brenna.miller@wsu.edu |
 Nikolaus Overtoom (Pullman) | Associate Professor (Scholarly CT) Ancient Greece, Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic world, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, late antiquity, ancient Parthia, and ancient militarism | Wilson-Short Hall 319 509-335-7973 nikolaus.overtoom@wsu.edu Webpage CV |
 Sue Peabody (Vancouver) | Meyer Distinguished Professor of History and Liberal Arts Affiliate Faculty, Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Early modern Europe, Atlantic and Indian Ocean, world slavery and race, History in Media and Popular Culture | WSU Vancouver 360-546-9647 speabody@wsu.edu CV Webpage |
 Jeffrey Sanders (Pullman) | Professor of History Environmental, Pacific Northwest, and U.S. West history | Wilson-Short Hall 353 509-335-7508 jcsanders@wsu.edu Visit the American West & Pacific Northwest website |
 Eugene Smelyansky (Pullman) | Assistant Professor, Career Track History of religious persecution in medieval Central Europe and history of urban culture, society, and environment | Wilson-Short Hall 342 509-335-7425 eugene.smelyansky@wsu.edu |
 Jesse Spohnholz (Pullman) | Professor of History Early modern European social, cultural, and religious history | Wilson-Short Hall 310 509-335-7506 spohnhoj@wsu.edu CV |
 Clif Stratton (Pullman) | Associate Professor, Career Track Vice Chancellor for Academic Engagement, WSU-Pullman History of race, empire, immigration, capitalism, and the environment in US and world history | Wilson-Short Hall 320 509-335-2798 clif.stratton@wsu.edu |
 Raymond Sun (Pullman) | Associate Professor of History Social history of religion, modern German history, Holocaust and genocide studies, military history | Wilson-Short Hall 339 509-335-4622 sunray@wsu.edu CV |
 Orlan Svingen (Pullman) | Professor of History Public and United States history | Wilson-Short Hall 321 Office: 509-335-5205 Cell: 509-432-4541 svingen@wsu.edu |
 Jennifer Thigpen (Pullman) | Associate Professor of History Director of the Global Bachelor of Arts in History Director, ADVANCE WSU 19th-century U.S. history, women and gender, colonialism, and the West | Wilson-Short Hall 311 509-335-8375 jthigpen@wsu.edu Course information |
 Lipi Turner-Rahman (Pullman) | Instructor History of Islam, orthodoxy and Qur’anic interpretation, feminist Islamic exegesis, Transnational Islam and Bollywood | 120B Terrell Library 509-335-4849 ilipi@wsu.edu |
 Xiuyu Wang (Vancouver) | Associate Professor of History Modern Chinese history, ethnicity, religion and nationalism in China, modern East Asian history, and world history | WSU Vancouver 360-546-9174 xiuyuwang@wsu.edu CV Webpage |
 Charles Weller (Pullman) | Associate Professor, Career Track Religious-cultural relations and identity, Central Eurasian, Middle Eastern, Western-Islamic and world/global history | Wilson-Short Hall 348 509-335-4705 rc.weller@wsu.edu |
 Katy Whalen (Pullman) | Associate Professor, Career Track Assistant Director, Roots of Contemporary Issues Program U.S. labor, immigration, and race | Wilson-Short Hall 324 509-335-1613 kathleen.whalen@wsu.edu |
 Aaron Whelchel (Vancouver) | Associate Professor, Career Track Education, nineteenth-century British Empire | 360-546-9578 awhelchel@wsu.edu |
 Ashley Wright (Pullman) | Director, The Roots of Contemporary Issues World History Program Associate Professor of History Modern Britain, colonial Burma, British Empire, World History | Wilson-Short Hall 312 509-335-4743 ashley.wright2@wsu.edu |
Emeriti Faculty
| Name | About |
|---|---|
 Margaret Andrews 1979–1996 mwa-jlb@telus.net 604-688-6407 | Margaret lives in Vancouver, British Columbia and is busy with a range of volunteer work at home and abroad. In Vancouver she guides school tours as a docent at the Vancouver Art Gallery and works with elementary school students at a nearby public school, giving one-on-one reading practice to grade 1 students and doing whatever is helpful for a grade 4/5 teacher, most recently arithmetic remedial work. Once or twice a year she volunteers at schools in the Indian sub-continent, commonly in the Himalayas. Recent assignments have been in Sikkim, Assam, and Himachal Pradesh. In November 2013 she will be in a remote Nepalese village. Occasionally she is simply a tourist, for example in the Utah canyon country and in tribal northeast India. Official retirement photo from 1996. |
 Susan Armitage 1978–2008 armitage@wsu.edu | Sue Armitage lives in Portland, Oregon. In 2010, she and Laurie Mercier published Speaking History (Palgrave Macmillan), a collection of oral history excerpts illuminating U.S. history since 1865. She remains a coauthor of the US history textbook Out of Many now in its eighth edition. Most recently, in October 2015, she published Shaping the Public Good: Women Making History in the Pacific Northwest, which presents a new view of the history of the Pacific Northwest and how women of all races and ethnicities created it. |
 LeRoy Ashby 1972–2008 ashby@wsu.edu | LeRoy Ashby’s book, With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830, was released in paperback, with a new introduction, in 2012. He was the guest editor of a special edition on Popular Culture in the Organization of American Historians Magazine of History (April 2010). His essay, “The Church Committee’s History and Relevance,” was published in Russell Miller (ed.), U. S. National Security, Intelligence and Democracy: From the Church Committee to the War on Terror (Routledge, 2008). |
 Fritz Blackwell 1969–2004 blackwell.fw@centurytel.net | Academic & Professional Interests Blackwell taught courses on South Asia and world history and was the former director of the Asia Program at Washington State University. Publications He is an associate editor for the Journal of South Asian Literature and has co-edited a volume of Indian poetry and a collection of American letters from East Pakistan. Blackwell has published numerous reviews and articles in Ariel, South Asia in Review, Asiaweek, Journal of South Asian Literature, and Indian Literature. His lastest book, India: A Global Studies Handbook, was published by ABC-CLIO, Inc. spring 2004. Official retirement photo from 2004. |
 David L. Coon 1971–2008 | David retired from WSU spring 2008 after teaching at the university for 37 years. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1972. David’s areas of specialization were Early America, the American Revolution, and the history of American agriculture. Spring 2008, he won the College of Liberal Arts William F. Mullen Excellence in Teaching Award. That prize recognizes faculty members who exemplify excellence with an emphasis on involvement with students and student groups outside of the classroom. He won the university-wide Burlington Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Instruction in 1988. In addition, he also won and the Academic Advisor of the Year Award from Golden Key National Honor Society in 1987. |
 Edwin P. Garretson, Jr. 1970–2008 epgjr@wsu.edu | Ed received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Early Modern European History and Austrian History. He retired from in the spring of 2008 after teaching at WSU for 38 years. Ed is an active member of the Uniontown Community Development Association (Dahmen Artisan Barn project), the Palouse Scenic Byway Committee, the Pullman Chamber Lentil Festival Committee, and the Whitman County Historical Society. Local History has become his love as he works on editing the Historical Society journal, the Bunchgrass Historian, and organizing the materials, volunteers, and finding guides of the Historical Society archive in the Gladish Community Center. |
 Candice Goucher cgoucher@wsu.edu | Candice Goucher is the author of many journal articles, chapters in books, reviews, and essays. She was the co-lead scholar on Bridging World History (funded by a $2.28M grant from Annenberg and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting). Her recent work includes Congotay! Congotay! A Global History of Caribbean Food (ME Sharpe/Routledge, 2014) and the two-volume world history, co-authored with Linda Walton, World History: Journeys from Past to Present 2nd edition (Routledge. 2012), translated into Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese. With Graeme Barker, she co-edited Volume 2 of the Cambridge History of the World: A World with Agriculture (Cambridge University Press, 2015). In 2015, the World History Association awarded her the ”Pioneer in World History” prize.She was the Trent R. Dames Fellow in the History of Civil Engineering (2014-15) at the Huntington Library, while researching a new book on the history of iron in the Atlantic World. |
 Jerry Gough 1969–2010 gough@wsu.edu | Jerry received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1971 and began teaching at WSU that year. During his tenure, he taught the history of science and technology and early Britain. Jerry ‘s articles have appeared in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Isis, Osiris, the British Journal for the History of Science, Technology and Culture, and Ambix. He has served as the editor of The Plutonium Story: The Journals of Professor Glenn T. Seaborg, 1939–1946 (Battelle Press, 1994) and recently co-authored a book with departmental colleague Richard Hume, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction (Louisiana State University Press, 2008). |
 Steven Hoch steven-hoch@wsu.edu | |
 Richard Hume 1968–2010 rhume@wsu.edu | Richard received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1969. His areas of specialty are the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. Richard also taught American surveys and courses on the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras. Richard ‘s articles have appeared in journals such as the Journal of American History, the Journal of Southern History, and the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Hume co-edited, with F.N. Boney (University of Georgia) and Rafia Zafar (University of Michigan), God Made Man, Man Made Slave: The Autobiography of George Teamoh (Mercer University Press, 1990). He has recently co-authored a book with departmental colleague Professor Jerry B. Gough, Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction (Louisiana State University Press, 2008). |
 Steven Kale 1991-2023 kale@wsu.edu | Professor Kale retired from WSU-Pullman in 2023 after a thirty-two year appointment. His research and teaching focused on 19th-century French and European history. He published two books, numerous articles, and contributed to a number of collections. Kale taught courses across the curriculum, including lower division, upper division, and graduate courses, from the French Revolution to Postwar Europe. He served as Director of Graduate Studies for 10 years and was department chair in 2009 and from 2015-2019. |
 Kathryn E. Meyer 1992–2008 klmeyer@gmail.com | Kathy retired in May of 2008 after teaching for 19 years at Washington State University. She received her Ph.D. from WSU in 1992. Between 1989 and 2008, she taught a wide assortment of courses, including Roman Republican History, Women in the Ancient World, Food in World History, and World Civilizations. She was also the advisor of the WSU History Club, which she helped found. She lives with her husband, Doug, on a farm just outside of Pullman. They enjoy international and domestic travel. She is active in the Whitman County Historical Society, and she is currently working on several writing projects that she never managed to finish while she was teaching. |
 Jacqueline Peterson 1983–2010 jpeterson1@vancouver.wsu.edu | Jackie received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1981. Peterson taught Native American, North American, and public history at WSU Vancouver. She curated and directed a 7,000-square-foot traveling museum exhibition funded by NEH titled Sacred Encounters: The Society of Jesus and the Indians of the Northwest and her publications include Sacred Encounters: Father De Smet and the Indians of the Rocky Mountain West (University of Oklahoma Press, 1993) and The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Metis in North America, ed., with Jennifer S.H. Brown (University of Manitoba Press, 1991). |
 Mary Watrous-Schlesinger and Roger Schlesinger Roger (Professor) 1968–2006 Mary (Senior Instructor) 1991-2006 schlesin@wsu.edu | Roger and Mary retired at the end of the 2006 spring semester. They are enjoying their new life and homes on the Hawaiian island of Molokaíi and at Port Angeles, Washington, with plans to visit various destinations around the world. Roger joined the department in 1968. During his 39 years of service, he taught Renaissance and Reformation, published 4 books, received several teaching awards, and served as chair of the department from 1993 to 2005. Mary came to WSU in 1984 to pursue a doctorate in Latin American history. After her career as a graduate student, she remained in the department as a senior instructor. She developed popular courses on the history of world trade and food, co-edited one book, and also received a number of teaching awards. Official retirement photo from 2006. |
 Robert Staab 1997–2009 rstaab@wsu.edu | Dr. Staab taught history courses primarily related to the Middle East and world civilizations until 2009. His interest in the Middle East started in 1965 when he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 1980, with a focus on Middle East studies, Turkish and Islamic history. His recent research interests focused on social and cultural 19th-century Istanbul. |
 David Stratton 1962–1993 dstratton@wsu.edu | Professor Stratton is busy in retirement teaching an occasional class at WSU and working on research for a book involving, as a case study, the influence of railroads and major highways on a western town. In 2002, at the College of Liberal Arts Awards Ceremony, he was awarded the Dean’s Distinguished Contribution Award and a Certificate of Appreciation (in grateful acknowledgement of 40 years of dedicated service to Washington State University). His most recent contribution to the college was the publication of 2 booklets: The Liberal Arts at Washington State University and The Grand Old Lady: Albert W. Thompson Hall (Old Administration Building). He is the author of Tempest over Teapot Dome: The Story of Albert B. Fall (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998). Official retirement photo from 1993. |
 Marina Tolmacheva tolmache@wsu.edu | Marina's publications number over 130 and include The Arabic Sources of the 13th–14th Centuries for the Ethnography and History of Africa South of the Sahara (Moscow, 2002, in Arabic and Russian); The Pate Chronicle (Michigan State University Press, 1993); “The Muslim Women in Soviet Central Asia” (Central Asian Survey, 1993); “Ibn Battuta on Women’s Travel in the Dar al-Islam” (Women and the Journey, Washington State University Press, 1993), “Intercultural Transmission and Selection: Greek Toponyms in Arab Geography,” in Tradition, Transmission, Transformation (Leiden: Brill, 1996), and “Female Piety and Patronage in the Medieval Hajj,” in Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, and Piety (St.Martin’s Press, 1998). |
 Richard Williams 1974–2011 sarek@Q.com | Dr. Williams received his Ph.D. in Ancient History from Michigan State University in 1973 and started teaching at WSU the following year. During his tenure, Williams taught courses on the history of ancient Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe. He is interested in the use of electronic presentations in the classroom and has remodeled his lecture classes into PowerPoint presentations. Williams is also the Webmaster for the Whitman County Historical Society. Williams received the President’s Faculty Excellence Award for Instruction in 1992 and has received two NEH Summer Institute Awards. His most recent article (co-authored with his wife, Burma P. Williams), “Finger Numbers in the Greco-Roman World and Early Middle Ages,” was published in Isis (December 1995). The Williamses’ current research focuses on Roman mathematics and computing. Dr. Williams now resides with his wife, Burma, in Spokane, WA. |
Staff and Administrators
| Name | Title | Contact Information |
|---|---|---|
Matthew A. Sutton | Department Chair Berry Family Distinguished Professor in the Liberal Arts | Wilson-Short Hall 301E 509-335-8374 sutton@wsu.edu CV |
 Lawrence B. A. Hatter | Graduate Studies Director | Wilson-Short Hall 323 509-335-7298 lawrence.hatter@wsu.edu CV |
Ashley Wright | Director, Roots of Contemporary Issues Program | Wilson-Short Hall 338 509-335-3985 ashley.wright2@wsu.edu |
Jennifer Thigpen | Associate Professor of History Director of the Global Bachelor of Arts in History Director, ADVANCE WSU | Wilson-Short Hall 311 509-335-8375 jthigpen@wsu.edu Course information |
 Brandy Wiser | Finance Budget Manager | Johnson Tower 701 509-335-4626 bwiser@wsu.edu |
 Debbie Heston | Fiscal Specialist | Johnson Tower 701 509-335-0443 djengle@wsu.edu |
 Frank Hill | Academic Coordinator/Instructor | Wilson-Short Hall 301B 509-335-5670 fhill002@wsu.edu |
 Claudia Mickas | Graduate Program Coordinator | Wilson-Short Hall 301D 509-335-0432 claudia.mickas@wsu.edu Office hours: M-F 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m |
 Lauri Sue Torkelson | Academic Coordinator | Wilson-Short Hall 301C 509-335-4475 torkelson@wsu.edu |
| Department of History Main Office Contact | Wilson-Short Hall 301 | PO Box 644030 Pullman , WA 99164-4030 | Phone: 509-335-5139 Fax: 509-335-4171 Email: history@wsu.edu |