About Me

I am a PhD candidate in history at New York University where I study the United States in the world during the long nineteenth century. My area specializations include US immigration, global migrations, and US imperialism. In addition to the research I am undertaking for my dissertation, I strive for a praxis of bringing history out of the academy and into the world through public venues, both physical and digital. To this end, I have worked in education, research, and exhibition departments at major museums and institutions in New York City, and have volunteered as a digital collections and exhibitions consultant for community organizations. I have recently worked as a Data Services consultant for the New York University Division of Libraries where I specialized in Qualitative Data Analysis and Research Data Management.

I currently work as an Immigration Content Specialist for Ralph Applebaum Associates and the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation on the "Reimagining Ellis Island" project for the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. I also serve as the Digital and Public Communications Coordinator for the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in History

New York University 2018–Present

M.Phil. in History

New York University 2021

Advanced Certificate in Public History

New York University 2021

M.A. in Irish and Irish-American Studies

New York University 2017

B.A. in History

Aquinas College 2012

Associate of Arts

Grand Rapids Community College 2007

FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS

Migration Network Graduate Student Award for Research on Migration

New York University 2022

Center for the Humanities Digital Humanities Fellowship

New York University 2021

History Department nominee, GSAS Summer Fellowship

New York University 2021

Berger Fellowship

New York University 2018-2023

MacCracken Fellowship

New York University 2018-2023

Jean Downey Fellowship

New York University 2019 & 2020

Irish and Irish-American Studies Fellowship

New York University 2014 & 2015

PUBLICATIONS

PEER REVIEWED BOOK CHAPTERS

“The Stereopticon: German and Irish Propaganda of Deed and Word and the 1916 Easter Rising”

Ireland's Allies: America and the 1916 Easter Rising University College Dublin Press, 2016

“The Man in Philadelphia: Joseph McGarrity and 1914”

Ireland's Allies: America and the 1916 Easter Rising University College Dublin Press, 2016

JOURNALISM & Public History

“Metadata Dilemmas: Immigrant Records and the Making of a Digital Public History Project”

Esferas 12: Migración y Asilo December, 2021

“How Germany Courted Irish Americans and Supported the 1916 Rising”

IrishCentral.com April, 2017

“The German-American Role in the fight for Irish freedom”

Irish Times December, 2016

Book Reviews

A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: US Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965

Edited by Maddalena Marinari, Madeline Y. Hsu, and Maria Christina Garcia; H-Net.org 2021

The Immortal Irishman

By Timothy Egan; The Gotham Center for New York City 2017

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Public History
Research
Libraries
Journalism
Teaching and Education
Service

Public History, Museums, and Archives

Immigration Content Specialist
Ralph Applebaum Associates, 2023–present

Research and development of content for exhibits at the the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. Serve as primary content specialist for all nineteenth century US history and pre-Ellis Island migration history content. Development of script outline and immigration timeline Focused research of materials for display (artifacts, images, documents) Review and provide feedback on script drafts and final script Functioning in a curatorial role for gallery-specific exhibit elements Collaboration and coordination with project’s Lead Content Specialist and other content specialists on the development and review of historical content for additional galleries and exhibits. Collaborate in the development and review of media briefs and media pieces with RAA media team.

Digital and Public Communications Coordinator
Immigration and Ethnic History Society, 2020–present

Responsible for redesign and development of the IEHS website and digital communications systems in collaboration with IEHS members, board, officers, and external contractors. Direct ongoing maintenance of the website and communication systems for regular operations of IEHS. Supported and promoted online events and publications. Assisted in the editing, design, publication, and distribution of the IEHS’s digital edition of its bi-annual newsletter. Oversaw the newsletter’s transition from print to an exclusively digital publication. Serve on membership and digital projects ad-hoc committees alongside members of the IEHS board.

Historical Researcher
New York Historical Society, 2020–2021

Collaborative research with the Vice President for History Exhibitions et. al. involving the New York Historical Society's archival collections, external archives, and libraries for the development and execution of public history exhibitions. Conducted research, wrote reports, provided historical analysis, and engaged in discussions with the history exhibits team.

Senior Interpretive Guide
National September 11 Memorial & Museum, 2016-2019

Delivered thousands of artifact-based tours in a department that led over 180,000 tours on average per year. Designed and delivered curriculum, live talks, public programs for wide ranging audiences. Collaborated in delivery of live online webinars for thousands of students, reaching over 200,000 students annually in 2018 and 2019. Developed specialized programs for high-ranking government and military officials, foreign dignitaries, survivors, families of victims, and other VIP and stakeholder communities. Trained docents and other public-facing education staff.

Archival Assistant
Archives of Irish America, 2017

Collected, processed, analyzed, and organized metadata for hundreds of oral histories held by Tamiment Library, NYU, in the Archives of Irish America. Ensured consistency, technological compatibility, legal compliance, and accessibility of archival holdings.

research

Asylum Lab Assistant
New York University, New York City, 2021–2022

Worked with a team of researchers sponsored by the NYU Humanities Center and the Bennett-Polonsky Foundation’s Humanities Lab (H-Lab) on an extensive investigation into government record-keeping that pertained to US immigration and immigration policy. Developed and managed Keeping Records and the Golden Gate: U.S. Immigration Control and Pacific Migrations, a digital public history project that stemmed from the H-Lab’s initial research. Trained and managed undergraduate assistants on the development and maintenance of digital exhibitions, collections, and metadata. Utilized Wax, a minimal computing system for building a sustainable static websites.

Research Assistant for Professor Kevin Kenny
New York University, New York City, 2020–present

Sourced archival images, organized payments, and collected documentation for image rights, use, and permission in collaboration with Professor Kenny in the publication of The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (OUP 2023). Provided copyedits and proofed all footnotes and citations to ensure precision of formatting in accordance with professional standards of the field and publisher.

Research Fellow
Irish Visions, New York City, 2017-2021

Primary archival research on the career and life of political revolutionary and intellectual Ernie O’Malley in the Ernie O’Malley Archives at Tamiment Library, New York University. Transcribed hundreds of handwritten manuscripts, collated archival holdings, wrote reports, and applied historical analysis in preperation for the publication of edited collections.

Research Assistant for Professor J. Joseph Lee
New York University, New York City, 2017

Collected and collated archival and secondary source materials for Dr. J. Joseph Lee for use in future publications. Wrote and edited copy for speeches, lectures, and other official and public engagements. Transcribed oral dictation, lectures, and keynote speeches and adapted for publication.

Libraries

Data Services Consultant
New York University Division of Libraries, New York City, 2022-present

Provide qualitative data analysis and research data management support to the faculty, staff, and students of NYU through ask-a-librarian chat service, leading Data Services instructional tutorials, preparing training documentation, participating in select projects, and providing qualitative data analysis and data management support consultations for software packages including MAXQDA, Atlas.ti, Taguette, OpenRefine, Git and others.

Journalism

Writer and Editorial Assistant
Irish America Magazine, New York City, 2015-2017

Conducted interviews with high-profile professionals and public figures. Wrote numerous articles for each issue on topics including politics, history, pop-culture, the arts, and current events. Additional duties included copy-editing, research, fact-checking, transcription, writing online articles and blog posts, and aiding in the digital publication of bi-monthly issues.

Teaching and Education

Intercultural Communication and English Language Instructor
Berlitz Corporation, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 2012-2014

Designed client need-based curriculum and lead programs for intercultural communications, professional development, and foreign language instruction in classroom and corporate settings for a diversity of students of all ages and backgrounds. Clients included the Federal Republic of Germany, Solcom, DKMS, et. al. throughout the Baden-Württemberg region. Functioned as a cultural liaison, teaching not only language but also intucultural understanding and communication.

"Asylum in Crisis" Graduate Student Instructor
New York University, New York City, Spring, 2020

Planned and designed interdisciplinary semester-long undergraduate course with faculty and graduate instructors, cross listed in both History and Spanish and Portuguese departments at NYU. Co-taught weekly plenary sessions and led weekly colloquia which examined the history of U.S. immigration policy over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Led students in developing competencies for the creation of machine-readable and linked open data metadata schemas and optimizing user experience interfaces for building digital public history projects. Collaborative coursework culminated in an ongoing digital history project, Keeping Records and the Golden Gate: U.S. Immigration Control and Pacific Migrations and a special issue of Esferas, focused on migration and asylum in which faculty, graduate instructors, and students all contributed.

[ For museum education, see also: Senior Interpretive Guide ]

Service

Volunteer Digital Collections and Exhibitions Consultant
Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, New York City, 2020-2022

Advised MoRUS archivists on best practices and industry standards for sustainable digital collections and exhibitions using static sites, minimal computing, and long-term hosting platforms. Built machine-readable metadata to allow searchability and accessibility for collections. Customized digital exhibitions and collections platform using Markdown, HTML, and CSS. Trained and oversaw MoRUS’s collections and exhibitions teams on the development, deployment, and maintenance of publicly accessible digital collections and exhibitions, namely the Green Oasis Community Garden/Gilberts Garden Records and Fly Prints Collection.

Volunteer Digital Collections and Exhibitions Consultant
Coronavirus Chronicles Archive, 2020-2021

Supported development of a crowd-sourced digital archive and public history project designed to share and preserve the everyday stories of all people during the global pandemic. Managed collections acquisitions, supported metadata schema and ontology development, and advised on systems for digital presentation of collections.

Invited lectures, conference papers, & professional activities

INVITED LECTURES
CONFERENCE PAPERS
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Invited Lectures

“Migrants, Guerilla Gardeners, and Squatters: Sharing Authority in Designing Digital Community History Projects.”
Guest lecture; Creating Digital History. Invited by Profesor Leah Potter, New York University, New York City, October 13, 2022.

“Asylum Lab: Collaborative Research and Migrant Records.”
Workshop; New York University Center for the Humanities, April 20, 2022.

“Writing the History of Migration: Archives, Advocacy, and Disappearing Records.”
Panel discussion; monthly NYU history department faculty seminar, March 22, 2022.

“Sites of Power: Immigration Restriction, Border Control, and Archives.”
Guest lecture; Migration, Immigration, and Asylum in the Americas. Invited by Professor Sibylle Fischer, New York University, New York City, February 14, 2022.

“Transnational Nationalism: Radicals, Rebels, and Immigrant Diasporas, 1898-1918.”
Guest lecture; Irish History. Invited by Professor Jason Duncan, Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, November 4, 2021

“Creating Digital Collections; The National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Migrations, and Immigration Control.”
Fellowship presentation: New York University Center for the Humanities Digital Humanities Showcase. New York University, New York City, October 7, 2021

“Oral Histories of the Forgotten; Race, Gender, Public History and Prejudice after 9/11”
Guest lecture: Adventures in Interviewing: Oral History, Method, and Theory. Invited by Professor Miriam Nyhan Grey, New York University, New York City, March 10, 2020.

“September 11 Health Effects and Immigrant Labor on ‘The Pile.’”
Guest lecture: Adventures in Interviewing: Oral History, Method, and Theory. Invited by Professor Miriam Nyhan Grey, New York University, New York City, April 23, 2019.

“German and Irish Diasporic Interactions in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.”
Guest Lecture; Global Diaspora: The Irish Case. Invited by Professor Barry McCarron, New York University, New York City, September 7, 2017.

“German Official Espionage and Irish Anti-Imperialism in Europe, America, and South Africa, 1899-1919.”
Guest Lecture; Advanced Honors Seminar-Spies in Ireland: Literature and Surveillance. Invited by Professor Kelly Sullivan, New York University, New York City, November 8, 2016.

Conference Papers

"Whose Records? Asylum, Archives, and the Administrative State."
Roundtable; NewYorkScapes Culture Mapping Symposium. New York City, April 7, 2022.

“German and Irish Diaspora Interactions: Boer War, World War, and Revolution.”
American Conference for Irish Studies, National Conference, University of Missouri. Kansas City, Missouri, March 31, 2017.

“Jeremiah A. O’Leary and the American Truth Society: Americanist, Propagandist, Revolutionary, Peace Advocate, Traitor, or Saboteur?”
American Conference for Irish Studies, National Conference, University of Missouri. Kansas City, Missouri, March 31, 2017.

“Boer Fever: The Cause and Consequences of Irish and German American Diaspora Relations.”
American Conference for Irish Studies, Mid-Atlantic Regional: Ireland’s Global Dimensions, New York University. New York City, New York, October 29, 2016.

“German and Irish Propaganda Before and After the Easter Rising.”
Independent Spirit, America and the 1916 Easter Rising: A symposium to enlighten, interrogate, and locate Ireland’s Rising in its trans-Atlantic context. New York City, April 22, 2016.

“The Deed and the Word: German Support in America for the Easter Rising in Practice and in Print.”
American Conference for Irish Studies, National Conference: The Worlding of Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame. South Bend, Indiana, March 30, 2016.

Professional Activities

“Narratives, Trauma, and Public Memory.”
Panel moderator, Traversing the Gap: Relevance as Transformative Force at Sites of Public Memory. National September 11 Memorial and Museum conference in conjunction with Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, June 20, 2019.

“The Failures of Revolution: The Unrealized Aspirations in Connection with 1916.”
Panel chair, American Conference for Irish Studies, National Conference. University of Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, March 31, 2017.

“Global Irish Studies: The Comparative and Transnational Approach.”
Panel chair, American Conference for Irish Studies, National Conference. University of Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, March 31, 2017.

“1916: An International and American Effort for Revolution in Ireland.”
Panel chair, American Conference for Irish Studies, National Conference: The Worlding of Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame. South Bend, Indiana, March 30, 2016.

Dissertation

Against One Hundred Percent Americanism: The Pro-Immigrant Perspective and its Limits, 1890-1930

My dissertation examines a cohort of intellectuals, activists, reformers, and politicians who fought against exclusionary legislation and programs of forced acculturation espoused by the proponents of “one hundred percent Americanism.” American presidents, Anglo-Saxon elites, and grassroots activists invoked one hundred percent Americanism primarily in the 1910s and 1920s in campaigns against non-Anglo European immigrants and their descendants. Yet I show how this nativism stemmed from a broader drive for the racial and cultural homogenization of the American population that also targeted Asian and Latin immigrants, as well as African-Americans and Indigenous-Americans. Rather than merely highlighting the story of the under-studied pro- immigrant vanguard at a time when demands for restriction reached fever pitch, I examine the fight against one hundred percent Americanism in its many forms, exposing the strengths of the pro-immigrant position, but also the possibilities that its blind spots foreclosed.

Voices against One Hundred Percent Americanism:

  • He sees the new peoples here with a new vision. They are no longer masses of aliens, waiting to be "assimilated," waiting to be melted down into the indistinguishable dough of Anglo-Saxonism. They are rather threads of living and potent cultures, blindly striving to weave themselves into a novel international nation, the first the world has seen.

    Randolph Bourne, "Trans-National America," 1916
  • We do not believe that the mixture of the great racial stocks hass ever produced an inferior people or lessened human capacity. Clean blood of whatever stock is good human blood. And so races continue to evolve, ever changing, ever intermixing, yet each one ever vainly sure it is of pure lineage and superior to other men. Humanity, or civilized humanity, if you please, will enver realize or miss its mission until races come to undertand their commen ancestry and each will mingle with the other trusfully, without each dogmatically assuming its own right to thrus its culture upon the other, for race virtues and dogmas, like race bloods, are themselves not unmixed.

    Aurthor C. Parker, on the Alleged Racial Inferiority of Indians, 1914

Get In Touch.

Use the form below to reach out!

Error boy
Your message was sent, thank you!