DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Meryl Alper (B.S. Communication Studies and History, ’05) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. She is the author of Digital Youth with Disabilities (MIT Press, 2014) and Giving Voice: Mobile Communication, Disability, and Inequality (MIT Press, 2017), which received an Honorable Mention in the Media and Cultural Studies Category of the 2018 PROSE Awards sponsored annually by the Association of American Publishers.

Danika Jo Anderson (BA, 2016) writes, “After graduating in 2016, Danika moved to Chicago and worked for two years in the Corporate & Securities practice at Baker McKenzie, an international law firm that focuses on cross-border M&A and global reorganizations. This past fall, she enrolled as a JD candidate at Notre Dame Law School where she is involved in the Business Law Forum, Women’s Legal Forum, and Exoneration Project. Danika plans on returning to Chicago after law school with hopes of working in international corporate transactions, white collar investigations, or international arbitration.”

Jeanne Barr sends word from Chicago, “I’ve been teaching history for 20 years at Francis W. Parker, an independent school in Chicago. I work on democratic education initiatives at the school -- Student Government, Model UN, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, etc.”

Ed Berkowitz (PhD) has retired as professor of history at George Washington University, He occupies his time by writing a history of the National Academy of Medicine--strictly work for hire- and by teaching an adult education class at a nearby college. He also has a contract with the University of Chicago Press for a book on the history of social welfare policy, a final draft of which is due in June 2019.

Michael Breidenbach (WCAS ’08), Assistant Professor of History at Ave Maria University, became a Visiting Research Scholar at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 2019. His research concerns the history of early American political, legal, and religious thought. His recent work has been published in William and Mary Quarterly, and he is co-editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to the First Amendment and Religious Liberty. His current book project is entitled, The Pope’s Republic: Liberties and Loyalties in Early America, an intellectual history of religious liberty and church-state relations in the Atlantic World. His essays have recently appeared in The Atlantic and The Washington Post, and he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton and a visiting scholar at Oxford and Cambridge, where he earned his Ph.D.

Sebastian Buffa recently returned from a Fulbright Filmmaking Grant in Cochabamba, Bolivia and Cartagena, Colombia. His project is a series of short documentaries featuring local emerging artists who are blending traditional and contemporary influences in their work. The series is in post-production, with release scheduled for 2019. Sebastian currently works as a freelance filmmaker in Chicago, IL, and continues to produce, shoot and edit ChiBrations, a monthly video series highlighting Chicago’s top soul artists, performing live in-studio.

Frank A. Cassell (Ph.D, 1968) reports, “Since retiring as President of the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg in 2007 my wife and I have lived in Sarasota FL. I have immersed myself in the local history scene serving on both the county historical commission and the county History and Preservation Coalition. I also chair the planning group arranging the centennial celebration of Sarasota County. My 2017 book, Suncoast Empire: Bertha Palmer, Her Family, and the Rise of Sarasota, 1910-1982, won the Silver Medal for nonfiction issued by Florida Book Awards. This April my new book, Creating Sarasota County, was published.”

Augustus Cerillo, Jr. (Ph.D. 1969) shares an informative update, “This past year i received some surprising news. My dissertation, “Reform in New York City: A Study in Urban Progressivism” (1969), was published in 1995 by Garland Press. I pretty much forgot about it, going on to other publishing interests. To my surprise (and shock) earlier this year I received a letter from Routledge Press in London, asking me if I was the Augustus Cerillo who authored Reform in New York City; They wanted to republish the book as part of a series on urban topics. I agreed, and Routledge published the volume. The dissertation was done under the supervision of Robert Wiebe.
I taught for 33 years at California State University, Long Beach, retiring in the year 2000. I also taught as an adjunct at Vanguard University (Assemblies of God). I have two children (A daughter who is a medical doctor and a son who is a businessman; they have given me 5 grandchildren, two boys and three girls ).

Shawn Clybor (Ph.D. 2012) currently lives in Harlem, New York, and recently accepted a position as a history teacher at Dwight-Englewood School, an independent school in Englewood, New Jersey. In October, his essay “Constructive Complaints and Socialist Subversion in Stalinist Czechoslovakia: E.F. Burian’s Scandal in the Picture Gallery” was published in the edited volume Perceptions of Society in Communist Europe through Bloomsbury Press. He is also the lead translator and content localization advisor for Attentat 1942, an award-winning “serious” video game about the Nazi occupation of Prague during World War Two, developed by Charles University in Prague. He has presented the game at various awards competitions and games festivals, including IGF and Indiecade. Since 2014, he has been a collection manager and archivist for the Richard S. Frary collection of Eastern European avant-garde art and books.

John Collins (BA, 2006) brings us up to date, “I graduated with a history degree in 2006. I did a year in Americorps through the Vista program in Chicago. Then I did an MPHIL in early modern history at the University of Cambridge where I wrote a dissertation on Early Modern Irish political history, with a focus on Catholic held towns in the 17th century. I finished first in my class and from there attended the University of Virginia where I received a PhD in history in 2013. I wrote my dissertation on the making of martial law in England and the English world in the early modern period. It was published as a book with Cambridge University Press in 2016 as Martial Law and English Laws, c. 1500- c. 1700. I have also been published in the Journal of British Studies and the Princeton Companion to Atlantic History and I have recently had an article accepted in Past and Present.
Since 2013, I have been teaching in the history department at Eastern Washington University where I teach Western and World Civ. English and Irish history as well as the history of the British Empire and legal history. I teach everyone from freshman to master’s students.”

Ian (Kobi) Cooper (BA ’01) has lived in 7 countries on 5 continents before returning to Jerusalem. For the past 12 years he has used his various loves of history, geopolitics and strategic/security studies, religions, languages, culture, food & wine, outdoor adventure, hi-tech and innovation as a licensed tour guide in Israel (a 2-year licensing program, the equivalent of a master’s degree). He creates and runs personalized tours for families, individuals, religious groups, companies, universities and schools. He can be found at www.tourguideofisrael.com.

Since graduating from the double degree program (BA History, BM Saxophone Performance, 2002), Geoffrey Deibel completed an MM in 2004 at NU and a DMA at Michigan State and is now the Assistant Professor of Saxophone at Florida State University’s College of Music. He has performed and taught throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe.

Ryan Erickson (History, ’09) writes, “In the-almost-ten-years since I left NU, I’ve bounced around the country working in the government and non-profit sectors in policy-related fields. Most recently, after a stint at Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank in Washington, DC, working to pass laws like increases to the minimum wage in states, I’ve come home to New England to serve as a policy advisor to Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo. My biggest area of work here in RI is our state’s response to the opioid crisis--a cause near and dear to my heart since losing my brother to overdose in 2016. I still get back to Chicago fairly often, and I love seeing the family of friends I made at NU when I go out.
Excited to hear from the Department--and I wish everyone, especially Prof. Binford, very well!”

William Gable (BA ’67) notes that a history major prepared him for graduate school at the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, ‘71. He served a rural parish in Appalachia (SW Virginia) but soon became a community organizer for problems regarding US Forest Service land practices. His history studies provided skills for research into exploitation of mountain people, co-writing An Oral History of Konnarock Virginia (1997, out of print), and religious research for a book in progress concerning the misuse of the concept of “God” in contemporary society and Christian thought. He is also a practicing artist blacksmith, a craft with a long history, and he was executive director of a local craft cooperative for 23 years.

David Gaynon (BA, 1973) reports, “I am a 1973 Northwestern graduate with a History degree. I am now retired but after graduation I enjoyed a career first as an archivist and later as a records manager. Over the last decade I became increasingly involved with e-discovery/litigation support and believe that a history degree combined with some computer skills provides a solid foundation for such a career. One of the challenges of this career involves improving communication between information technology and legal professionals that frequently misunderstand one another because of their different world views. The study of history helped me understand both of their perspectives and work with IT to operationalize legal requirements.”

Steven Gish (BA, 1985) went on to graduate school at Stanford, where he focused on South African history (MA, 1988; PhD, 1994). His latest book is Amy Biehl’s Last Home: A Bright Life, a Tragic Death, and a Journey of Reconciliation in South Africa (Ohio University Press, 2018). It tells the story of the only American killed in South Africa’s political violence during the last decade of apartheid, and her parents’ extraordinary gestures of forgiveness in the years that followed. Gish is a Professor of History at Auburn University at Montgomery.

Lauren L. Greenwood (BA ’07) graduated from the Drexel University Physician Assistant Program in 2014 and is working as an Orthopedic Physician Assistant in Chicago’s northern suburbs.

Anita Olson Gustafson (History MA 1985; Ph.D. 1990) is starting her third year as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of History at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. Prior to her appointment, she worked for nineteen years at Presbyterian College, a liberal arts college in Clinton, South Carolina. In addition her appointment in the history department at Presbyterian, she served as department Chair, Dean of Academic Programs, and Interim Provost. Her book, Swedish Chicago: The Shaping of an Immigrant Community was published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2018.

Rafael Henriquez (WCAS ’16) currently lives and works in New York City. He is originally from The Bronx, NY.
Rafael currently works at a social services agency, providing educational advocacy services for children with special medical or mental health needs. He also supports a community-run ESOL program on weekday evenings.
In fall of 2018, Rafael applied to a number of Master’s of Public Administration/Policy programs. So far, he has been accepted to several programs. Rafael believes returning to school will help him manage programs and lobby for additional resources for vulnerable populations. Specifically, Rafael hopes to do this to support populations at risk of homelessness in Northern California.

Steve Herr (BA 1972) writes, “I just retired on June 1, 2018 as a tenured Assistant Professor of English at Leeward Community College in Pearl City, Hawaii. I am married to another Northwestern graduate from June 1972: Beth Kupper- Herr (Beth Anne Kupper). She also retired in June 1 as a tenured Professor and Learning Resource Coordinator at Leeward Community College.”

Marisa (Johnson) Almeida (BA, 2010) brings us up to date on her life, “I graduated in 2010 into a tough job market, with no idea what I wanted to do. I took a job at the FBI as an intelligence analyst, and my history studies proved instrumental. My job involved becoming an expert in a specific area; reading and taking in a lot of disparate, typically qualitative information; making connections across data sets; and summarizing my analysis for senior leadership, in writing and in oral briefings. It was, however, less of a cultural fit... so I moved on to consulting at Deloitte. From there, I headed to business school at UC Berkeley, and now I’m a Product Marketing Manager at Square, a fintech company that empowers small business owners through its ecosystem of SMB tools. In fact, the products I work on are developer tools, something I knew nothing about and probably the most technical marketing role I could have landed in.
I’ve had a wide range of experiences in different industries in my short career so far, and the key to success has been my ability to learn quickly, analyze different types of information, identify trends, and ask critical questions. These are all skills I honed as a history major. Oh, and writing -- such an underrated but critical skill to have in business, no matter what your function. So, I guess I’d share with current undergrads that your history courses will teach you skills that last long past graduation, even if it doesn’t seem like that when you’re writing a research paper on the failure of economic reform in revolutionary Egypt at midnight and wondering if you’ll wind up unemployed. And your first job out of school absolutely does not dictate your career path -- I never could have predicted that I’d be a marketer for a tech company, and I’m sure in another 8 years I’ll be surprised at where I’ve landed, too.”

Dale Knobel (Ph.D. 1976) retired in 2013 after fifteen years as President and Professor of History at Denison University in Ohio. Now living in Austin, Texas, he has joined the boards of Southwestern University, the American University of Sharjah (U.A.E.), the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, and the TMF Foundation. During 2018-19, he is serving as Interim President of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations of Jacksonville, Florida. After years of begging, he’s finding it fun to give money away.

Katie Krall (BA 2018) graduated from Northwestern in three years and now works in New York City for Major League Baseball (MLB) in the Office of the Commissioner. After spending her undergraduate years writing papers on the Chicago Cubs of the 1930s, Hack Wilson, baseball in Cuba under Fidel Castro, and the Negro Leagues, Katie was selected as one of the inaugural MLB Diversity Fellows – a program designed to promote women and people of color into front office executive roles. She will spend three years rotating among the League Economics, On-Field Operations, and Labor Relations Departments at the Commissioner’s Office.

Mark Kuhl (BA - WCAS 85, MS - SESP85) writes, “I just retired after teaching history for 33 years in the Social Studies Department at Lake Forest High School. I can honestly say that my undergraduate degree in history from Northwestern University (augmented by a Master of Science in Education from N.U. in 1985 and a Master of Arts in History from the University of Virginia in 1990) really prepared me for success in my teaching career. I taught World History and Advanced Placement United States History, and I felt my content knowledge base was exceptionally strong. I would attribute this to the stable of fine instructors I was fortunate to have had and to the range of classes that I was able to complete in the department (further enhanced by the quarter system at N.U.). There was literally no course that I completed in the department that did aid me in my career. I was also a part-time instructor at the College of Lake County, and a reader for the Advanced Placement U.S. History exam. In both of these areas, I also felt very well-prepared.
Perhaps your newsletter is looking for some more unusual uses that N.U. history majors have pursued vis-a-vis their degrees. My story might seem traditional. But, I can attest that the quality of the offerings in the history department served me extraordinarily well for decades.”

Mary E. Laur (WCAS 91) is now senior editor in the Books Division at the University of Chicago Press, responsible for overseeing The Chicago Manual of Style; the associated Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing series; and the long-running History of Cartography series. She still identifies as a historian by training and draws on the narrative and historical thinking skills she developed at NU in both her personal and professional lives.

William R. Levin (B.A. (Phi Beta Kappa) 1970) earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in the history of art at the University of Michigan (1973, 1983). His dissertation addressed philanthropic institutions in Italy during the late-medieval/early-modern period. He has published widely on this topic over the past thirty-five years, with special focus on the Misericordia confraternity of Florence and its artistic patrimony. He taught Italian art history for the Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s semester-abroad program in Florence from 1977 to 1981, then courses covering the entire Western artistic tradition from 1983 to 1986 at Minnesota State University at Mankato and, from 1986 to 2010, at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, retiring as a full professor. He still resides in Danville and remains active researching, publishing, and presenting papers at conferences and at other colleges and universities.

Ronald Lorton (BA, History Honors, 1969) obtained a Masters in International Affairs at Columbia’s School of International Affairs (now Public and International Affairs). Ron entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1971. His assignments included postings in Kathmandu, Paramaribo, Islamabad, Peshawar and Consul General in Calcutta (Kolkata), as well as a number of positions with the Department of State in Washington, DC. In his last position at State as Director for International S&T Cooperation, Ron led a U.S. team which negotiated an S&T agreement with the European Union. During the 1984-85 academic year, Ron was a Mid-Career Fellow at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Following his retirement from State in 1997, Ron served as Director of the international office at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, until retiring for the second time in 2006. Since then he has lived in San Antonio, TX, traveling when possible and taking on some volunteer work.
Ron credits his entire career and his life-long interest in international diplomacy to the late Prof. Richard W. Leopold and his legendary seminar in the history of American diplomacy.

Paul Marchegiani (BA, 2000) serves as Vice President, Business Affairs at Warner Bros., where he negotiates talent and rights deals for the Warner Horizon Television studio. Prior to his work in the entertainment industry, Paul received his J.D. from Berkeley Law and practiced litigation at two major law firms in San Francisco for five years.

Brian Maxson (PhD, 2008) completed a term as assistant dean of graduate studies at East Tennessee State University in 2016. Since then he has returned to teaching and researching full-time. His latest co-edited book, Languages of Power in Italy (1300-1600), was released by Brepols in late 2017.

Fiona Maxwell (BA in History and Theatre, 2018) is currently a first-year History PhD student at the University of Chicago, where she focuses on nineteenth and early twentieth century U.S. cultural history. Building off of her Northwestern History senior thesis, she intends to continue researching children’s programs and the performing, visual, and literary arts at Chicago settlement houses.

Greg Paus says, “My history major served me well. After NU, I spent a year studying law, then switched to Architecture. After working for 2 architectural firms in Boston, I moved to Northern Vermont in 1975 and started my own firm. I have fortunately been successful, and continue working because I enjoy the work so much. Every project and client is different, and keeps my creative juices flowing!”

Anatoly Pinsky (BA ’99) is Assistant Professor of Soviet and Contemporary Russian History at the European University at Saint Petersburg (EUSPb). He received in his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University in 2011 and has worked at the EUSPb, a graduate institute in the humanities and social sciences, since 2012.

Michael Quear (BS ChemEng – NU) attests to the power of a good teacher. “I want to say that Carl Petry was among the best professors that I had as a student at Northwestern. Even though I was a ChemEng major he always encouraged my interest in History and expanding my horizons. Indeed, years later he had an impact on my decision to leave the Chemical Engineering profession (Union Carbide). I subsequently applied for and was awarded an AAAS Science, Engineering & Diplomacy Fellowship at the U.S. Department of State after which I spent 20 year as staff on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science & Technology (see attached). Without Professor Petry’s interest and encouragement during my undergraduate years I would never have made this leap.”

John Read (BA 1969) writes, “Thanks for the email. I’m a Richard Leopold legacy, having been influenced by him in Diplomatic History and via his sponsorship of NROTC. I’ve retired after a fairly decent career as a trial lawyer mostly with Vorys Sater in CLE and am now spending time as a docent at the Palm Springs Art Museum.
Your timing’s fortuitous. Last night I read an interview of the 80-something British author Penelope Lively. In it, she confessed decades-old regret at having “read” history at Oxford instead of literature. Now she’s glad she chose history. It provided here with context. Lively’s comments rang a familiar chord—which your email re-rang. For a while, I kind of took my history major for granted. No longer. Just this year I’ve wrestled with this historical mystery/tragedy: Why were there 3 million indigenous North Americans in 1500 and only 180,000 in 1890.
I’m particularly grateful not just for Leopold’s mentorship at NU, but also for having been exposed to Hannah Arendt’s chronicle of the then-very-recent Eichmann trial in a course styled Intellectual History of the US and a sophomore-year Western Civ. TA named Howard Solomon who taught me how properly to answer an essay question.”

John F. Reiger (Ph.D. 1970), Professor Emeritus of History, Ohio University-- Chillicothe, enjoys retirement, especially the time spent with his two young grandsons. His American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation (2001, expanded edition) continues to be used in environmental history classes at a number of universities, and his essay, “For ‘Generations Yet Unborn’: George Bird Grinnell, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Early Conservation Movement,” will appear in a forthcoming book on Roosevelt from the University of Nebraska Press.

Elisabeth Rivard (WCAS 2012 Art History major, History minor, European concentration) currently works at the Jewish Museum in New York City within the digital department. She majored in Art History at Northwestern, and went on to earn a M.A. through the graduate program at Williams College. Though she completed a minor in History while at Northwestern, she regards this educational foundation as an essential aspect of studying art history, both at NU and beyond. She is most interested in the social/cultural history of art, so an understanding of history has been indispensable. Elisabeth writes that Professor Hayes’s “History of the Holocaust” course has constantly informed her work at the Jewish Museum, because it relates to many of the exhibitions and works on display.

Stanislav Rosenberg reports, “I went on to receive a Fulbright Fellowship to Germany, a fellowship from BAEF for a MA at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and received my MBA at The Wharton School. I worked in NYC, London, Frankfurt, Kiev, and Moscow in finance, consulting, and industry. Currently I am the Head of Industry Analytics CIS at BCG in Moscow.”

Since graduating from Northwestern in 2006 with a History BA and Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2007 with a Curriculum and Instruction EdM, Charles Rosentel has been teaching: grades eight through 12; courses including World Studies, US History, US Government, English-Language Arts, and Composition; and at schools from TechBoston in Massachusetts to Chicago’s Farragut Career Academy and Collins Academy to Champaign’s Franklin Middle School. Now in his seventh year at Pritzker College Prep in Chicago, he serves as History Department Chair, teaches World History and AP World History, co-leads Film Club (with his wife), and co-coaches Speech and Debate.

The B.A. in History combined with an interdisciplinary concentration in Asian studies at Northwestern prepared Mark Roth (WCAS 1980) for a 34 year career with the U.S. Government in Washington DC. His career began as a researcher in Asian affairs at the Library of Congress and then 30 years as an intelligence specialist in the U.S. Intelligence Community. Since retiring from full time work, Mr. Roth is an adjunct instructor at Chicago State University teaching classes in CSU’s security and intelligence studies program.

Daniel Sack (BA 1984) is a program officer for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He oversees the peer review process for programs that award grants to scholars pursuing research in a variety of humanities fields. Sack received a PhD in religious studies from Princeton University, focused on the history of American religion. He has published two books, Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture (Palgrave, 2000) and Moral Re-Armament: The Reinventions of an American Religious Movement (Palgrave, 2009). He has taught and done administrative work at Hope College and the University of Chicago.

Jim Sanders (Ph.D. African history 1980) writes, “I graduated just in time for a severe recession that made finding a job, any job, nearly impossible. I spent several years as an itinerant laborer wondering if I had wasted all those years of study. My experiences as an employee for Evanston’s Robinson Bus Company, driving Jewish children to Hebrew School, after their regular school day, might have turned into a novel, had I stuck with it.
In April 1984, I received an offer from the Department of Defense, the result of applying to every federal agency for which I was even remotely qualified. Hours spent in the Evanston Public Library copying addresses out of the U.S. Government Manual eventually paid off. And so, with all my worldly possessions packed into two suitcases, I arrived in D.C. that spring to commence my new career as an Africa area intelligence analyst. I was lucky. Others like me were still making doughnuts in Boston.
Certain skills proved especially valuable. Being able to review large amounts of raw data quickly and then write a coherent account of what could be reasonably concluded from it, and what could not, turned out to be a common task. Oral presentation skills helped, too, as briefings represented a staple of an analyst’s diet. Travel opportunities usually involved locations not written about in the FT Weekend edition, yet my acquaintance with obscure corners of the U.S. Embassy in Paris might have been of interest to Balzac.
After 20 years at DoD, I moved over to the Department of State, where I did essentially the same work in much nicer surroundings, but with no less bureaucracy. If the making of foreign policy resembles a sausage factory, its implementation is even messier. I have no illusions about how governments work, but they are far better than the alternative. And, “The Swamp,” as its detractors call it these days, is a fascinating place. Its denizens include colorful reptiles, to be sure, but also some of the most interesting people you could ever hope to meet. Many inhabit obscure niches.
I retired in 2012. Not having to commute on the Beltway probably has increased my lifespan. My office at State formed a wind instrument ensemble to play on various occasions, such as the annual Christmas party, so I had picked up my trumpet several years before hanging up my badge and clearances. Retirement thus includes a lot of music. I eschewed signing on as a contractor the day after I walked out the door, a common practice here, but unwise, except in cases of financial need.
A diversity of interests, skills, and abilities can be a lifesaver. Many enlightening interactions with professors occur years after leaving campus. I correspond with Robert Lerner. His biography of Ernst Kantorowicz reads like a Saul Bellow novel. Eka’s Laudes Regiae is spiritually haunting, though Lerner says Eka was not a believer, and even disliked music—very odd since many laudes and acclamations are musical in cadence and Eka immersed himself in them. I also write occasionally to my minor field advisor Jim Sheehan, now a prestigious professor emeritus at Stanford. He is no less awesome than when he taught at NU, but I’m grown up now, know more, have a range of experience under my belt, and wish therefore that I could do my minor field studies with him in these new circumstances. U.S. higher education needs a new business model that includes a role for alumni. Thanks to technology, everything these days is interactive and there is no reason why universities cannot apply that concept by inviting their spawn back to engage with those preparing to launch.
For years, all of my college degrees were irrelevant. Like the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, my ‘real’ education was a long process of ‘unlearning.’ That said, it pays to stay alert and flexible. Opportunities often come like a thief in the night and are fleeting.”

Matt Sappington (BA, 2013) earned his JD from the University of Michigan Law School (’16). He served as a judicial law clerk to the Hon. Michael M. Mihm of the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois (’16-17) and the Hon. Amalya L. Kearse of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (’17-18). Matt now lives in Washington, D.C., where he is a litigator for the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.

Ian Saxine is currently Visiting Assistant Professor at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. His first book, Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier was published by NYU Press as part of its Early American Places series in April 2019.

Joseph Schorer writes, “Millie Calhoun and I both graduated in 1975 from CAS as history department majors. We attended different law schools, but mutual friends re-introduced us in 1984. We married in 1986 and have lived in suburban Chicago since 1988. We have two sons, both of whom turned down admissions to Northwestern to go to college on the West Coast (University of California at Berkeley for Max, Pomona College for Nicholas). Joe was part of the small group of alums who founded the Richard W. Leopold Lecture Program in the early 1990s. The Lecture Program’s terrific speaker this year was Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico.”

Joshua Schwartz (BA, 2015) has focused on Middle East security in the private and non-profit sectors. He lived in Israel for 1.5 years, studying Arabic intensively and working for a human rights NGO in Jerusalem and national security think tank in Tel Aviv. He is currently pursuing a Master of International Affairs at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), focusing on international security and international economics.

Will Slauter (B.A. in history, 2000) is teaching in France at Université Paris Diderot and has just published a book titled Who Owns the News? A History of Copyright (Stanford University Press).

Joel Spears (History 1987) founded the Early Music at the Barn series in 2002 in a converted Dairy barn in Grayslake, IL. This music series focuses on music from the early classical, baroque, renaissance, and medieval periods and attracts audiences from around the Chicago area, and artists from the US and abroad. Concerts have been featured on live broadcasts on local station WFMT 98.7FM.

Kathryn R. Strong (WCAS ’08, LAW ’12) is a senior associate in the Chicago office of the international law firm Baker McKenzie. She practices international corporate law with a focus on cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

Andrew Sund (MA 1993) has developed a career in the administration of institutions that focus on access to higher education for people traditionally underrepresented in colleges and universities. In Chicago, he served as president of St. Augustine College, an institution focused on serving the Latino population, for nine years. He is currently president of Heritage University in Toppenish, WA, where the focus is to serve the Native American and Latino communities of the region. In addition to his Master’s, Andrew holds a Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“This is Mike Tetelman (PhD 1997). I am with the non-profit human development organization FHI 360 and am based in Washington, DC. I work on programs and initiatives worldwide to improve education, economic participation, and civil society and peace building.”

After a 2 year VAP at New York University in the Department of Italian Studies, and 1 year fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Melissa Vise (Ph.D. 2015) began a tenure track job in History at Washington and Lee University this past Fall and became a Lauro De Bosis Fellow at Harvard University in the Spring.

Rachel Waxman (BA 2011) writes, “I’m currently in the fifth year of my PhD in history at Johns Hopkins, where I’m writing my dissertation on the politics of sugar consumption during the French Revolution. This past spring I received a Chateaubriand research fellowship to Paris.”

William White (Ph.D. 1974) reports, “My 43 year career as a college teacher was interrupted when Saint Joseph’s College unexpectedly closed its doors in May 2017. After an unplanned year ‘off’, Purdue hired me to teach in its new great books program -- Cornerstone. During that year, I filed thousands of Charles Halleck’s county prosecutor papers which were untouched in an attic for close to 90 years. My article on his papers was published Dec. 2018 in the Indiana Magazine of History.”

William Willingham (Ph. D., 1972) continues as a consulting historian, working the in the fields of water resources development, architectural history, historic preservation, community history, and Early American history. He recently published Grit and Ink: An Oregon Family’s Adventures in Newspapering, 1908-2018 (Salem, OR: EO Media Group/Oregon State University Press, 2018). He has two more books coming out in 2019, and resides in Portland, Oregon.

Terrence H. Witkowski (B.A. History, 1970) writes, “After leaving Northwestern with my B.A. in History, I went on to business schools, receiving an M.S. in Management from UCLA in 1972 and a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in 1980. I have been teaching at California State University, Long Beach since 1982 where I am Professor of Marketing and Director of the International Business Program. Most of my academic research has been in marketing and consumption history. I have published 25 articles and book chapters on these topics plus a book, A History of American Consumption: Threads of Meaning, Gender, and Resistance (Routledge, 2018).”

After 12 years of teaching US History at the National Cathedral School for Girls and rising to the position of Social Sciences Department Chair, David Zimand shifted to work in school administration, first as Director of General Studies and then Assistant Head of School of the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital and now as Head of School of Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto, CA.