Masters Alumni 1990-99

The Department of History at Western Michigan University honors its alumni. If you are listed on an alumni page, please contact us with career updates.

1999

Douglas A. Becker

M.A., Labor Relations and Human Resources, Michigan State University (2000)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1999)
B.A., History and Political Science, Saginaw Valley State University (1996)

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Sonya L. Dintaman

Dintaman is director of the Carnegie Public Library of Steuben County in Angola, Indiana.

M.L.S., Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (2001)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1999)
B.A., History, Indiana University, South Bend (1997)

 

Paula Lange

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1999)
B.A., History, Western Michigan University (1991)

 

 

Tatyana Puchkova

Puchkova works at Kirtland Community College as the cultural exchange coordinator.

Daniel J. VandenHeede

VandenHeede is a social studies teacher at Union High School in Dowagiac and sits on the City Council in Niles, Michigan.

 

S. Mark Veldt

Mark received his PhD in History from WMU in 2007.

Lawrence D. Withrow

After 14 years in the U.S. Navy and 15 years working in industry as a maintenance electrician in addition to other jobs, Withrow completed three degrees at Jackson Community College and WMU. He teaches courses in modern East Asian history at Lake Michigan College in Mishawaka, Indiana.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1999)
B.A., Creative Writing, Western Michigan University (1996)
A.A., English, Jackson Community College (1990)

1998

Ion Matei Costinescu

 @email
Costinescu is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Sociology and Social Work at the University of Bucharest.

 

 

Lucia Curta

Curta teaches courses in European and World history at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Ph.D., History, Western Michigan University (2004)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1998)

 

Jane Mund

Dr. Michael A. Ryan

Ryan is an associate professor of history at the University of New Mexico. A specialist in the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean Basin, he has authored and edited a number of books, articles, and chapters. He is the author of A Kingdom of Stargazers: Astrology and Authority in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon (2011), and the co-editor of End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity (2009). He is the editor of A Companion to the Premodern Apocalypse, forthcoming with Brill as part of their Companion to the Christian Tradition series. He is writing a monograph-length study on the occult and magical parameters of charlatanry and fraud in late medieval Venice. Ryan is also a Smithsonian Journeys Expert and lectures on Smithsonian Journeys tours of the Iberian Peninsula.

@email 
Ph.D., History, University of Minnesota--Twin Cities (2005) 
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1998)
B.A., History, University of Florida (1995)

1997

Jason Kent Aikens

Aikens is the collections curator at the Professional Football Hall of Fame. He is responsible for the preservation of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's collection of artifacts and memorabilia and obtaining new donations of memorabilia from current players and NFL teams. He has a Bachelor of Arts in history from Michigan State University and a master's in history from WMU where he concentrated on sports history. Aikens interned at the College Football Hall of Fame and has been working for the Pro Football Hall of Fame since 1997.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1997)

 Randy A. Cotts

Randy is a social studies teacher at Byron Center High School located in Byron Center, MI.

Carson J. Leftwich

Leftwich serves as an administrative assistant for the WMU Graduate College. She has many years of experience at WMU, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in history (1991) and an M.A. (1997). She was a Presidential Scholar, an Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Award winner, president of Phi Alpha Theta, and a Graduate Fellow. Carson has published several articles and reviews and teaches part-time at WMU.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1997)
B.A., History, Western Michigan University (1991)

Michelle Martin

Michelle graduated from WMU with her BA and MA degrees in history. She graduate in May 2022 from the University of New Mexico with a PhD in history and distinction.  Prior to UNM, Martin founded Discovering History in 2006, a historical consulting company that specializes in 19th century history west of the Mississippi. She is also a living historian and photographer. Her company combined all of her passions including history, research, writing, living history, reenacting and photography. Michelle portrays 19th century women in the American West. Many of the women she portrays are unheard of by most and interesting to all. Her dissertation "Gathering around a new fire: The Bemo family, interracial marriage, race, and power in the Mvskoke Nation 1870-1897" was recognized with the Linda Williams Reese Award for the Outstanding Dissertation on Oklahoma History from the Oklahoma Historical Society.  In August 2023 she will be joining the faculty in the Department of History at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma (the capital of the Cherokee Nation) as an Assistant Professor of Native American and Public History

 Dr. Jerry Allen Moon

Moon is chair of the Church History Department in the Seminary at Andrews University, editor of the Andrews University Seminary Studies theological journal, and head elder of the St. Joseph, Michigan, Seventh-day Adventist Church. He and his wife, Sue, graduated from Union College and spent 11 years in pastoral and evangelistic ministry. His favorite classes to teach are Writings of Ellen G. White, History of the SDA Church, and Development of SDA Theology. He has also taught History of SDA Education, Radical Reformation (16th century Anabaptists), and several other courses. He recently co-authored The Trinity: Understanding God’s Love, His Plan of Salvation, and Christian Relationships (2002) with Woodrow Whidden and John W. Reeve. He is co-editor of The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, from Review and Herald. His dissertation, W. C. White and Ellen G. White: The Relationship between the Prophet and Her Son, was published by Andrews University Press (1993).

jmoon@andrews.edu 
Ph.D., Andrews University (1993)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1997)
M.Div., Andrews University (1974)
B.A., Religion, Union College (1971)

Kris W. Rzepczynski

A senior archivist at the Archives of Michigan, Rzepczynski previously worked for 12 years at the Library of Michigan as the Michigan and genealogy coordinator. He has presented at national, state, and local conferences, including the National Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies, Ohio Genealogical Society, Public Library Association, Historical Society of Michigan, Michigan Library Association, and for dozens of local genealogical societies. He is vice-president of Membership for the Federation of Genealogical Societies and a past president of the Mid-Michigan Genealogical Society. He is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan, Historical Society of Michigan, Historical Society of Greater Lansing, and Michigan Library Association.

M.L.I.S., Library and Information Science, Wayne State University
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1997)
B.A., History, University of Michigan

Michelle R. Wright

Dr. Timothy David Willig

Willig serves as assistant professor of history at Indiana University, South Bend, where he specializes in early American and Native American history. His monograph, Restoring the Chain of Friendship: British Policy and the Indians of the Great Lakes (2008) was well received and nominated for several awards, including the Bancroft Prize. He is undertaking a biographical study on Major John Norton of the Grand River, Upper Canada, circa the War of 1812.

twillig@iusb.edu
Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2003) 
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1997)

1996

Anthony P. Glesner

Jack Michael Green

Scott M. Gyenes

Gynes teaches history at York Country Day School and serves as adjunct professor of history, York College of Pennsylvania

Yoshinari Hosaka

Dr. Michael T. Martin

Martin serves as chair of history and associate professor of history and gender and women's studies at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Since 2004, he has taught a wide array of courses on Medieval Europe and also teaches in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program and language department. Martin’s current research interests focus primarily on the Carolingian Era, and the Italian Homiliary and its contribution to early medieval studies and poplar preaching. He is collaborator and co-transcriber of Jean de Vignay’s Miroir Historial and has published articles on a large variety of topics. Recently Martin travelled to Spain to present “History Goes to Hollywood and the Beach: The Strengths and Challenges of Using Film and Fiction to Learn and Critically Analyze History” for the Fourth International Conference History Under Debate in Santiago de Compostela.

Ph.D., History, Western Michigan University (2005)
M.A., Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (1996) 
B.A., English, University of Iowa (1989)

Karen Lynn Miller

Timothy A. Paxton

Barbara Boyink Sears

Phillip H. Slaby

Jo Anne Thomas

Jean-Paul W. Vivian

1995

Gregory Paul Culver

Florin Curta

Curta is a specialist in medieval history and archaeology and a professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Curta has taught a wide array of courses on medieval ethnicity, economic and social history, religion, and archaeology. Curta has published four books, edited four others, and is the author of many chapters, articles, papers, and presentations. His most recent book The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, c. 500 to 1050 (2011) explores the relation between the presence of Byzantine troops and the rise of a landed aristocracy in early medieval Greece. Other works by Curta include The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, A.D. 500-700 (2001) which was named a 2002 Choice Outstanding Academic Title and won the Herbert Baxter Adams Award of the American Historical Association in 2003. His second book, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250 (2006), was published with Cambridge University Press. His third book, Text, Context, History, and Archaeology: Studies in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (2009) is a collection of studies which explores a wide variety of themes, from language, philosophy, and religion in Late Antiquity to medievalism and nationalism, as well as power in the early Middle Ages. Curta is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. He received Western Michigan University’s College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Achievement Award in 2003. Curta has also appeared on several History Channel specials.

M.A., Medieval Studies, Cornell University (1999)
Ph.D., History, Western Michigan University (1998) 
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (1995)
B.A., History and Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Romania (1988)

Kenneth R. Dvorak

Robert Neydon Karrer

Cathleen Melissa Khavari

Karin M. Kovacs

Hui Ping Lui

Robert Carleton Myers

Myers serves as curator of the Berrien County Historical Association.

Eugene Wesley Smith

Byron Leigh Upchurch

1994

David A. DeGroot

J.D., University of Texas School of Law (2000)
M.A., Philosophy (Ethics and Philosophy of Science), Texas A & M University (1996)
M.A., History (History of Ethics), Western Michigan University (1994)

DeGroot is practicing law in Texas.

Jeffrey Lee Kissell

Michael Francis Laabs

Joseph Kent Lutes

Maureen Mae O'Brien

Robin Seage Person

Person has worked in the museum field for over 25 years, learning all facets of museum management, from grant-writing and publicity to collections and exhibition building. Since 2008 she has been the branch director of Historic Jefferson College, an 80-acre state-owned historic site in Washington, Mississippi. Prior to that, she was the executive director of Cottonlandia Museum, a private general museum in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, where she developed the state's largest summer program for students. She is a past president of the Mississippi Museums Association and serves as an officer on the Board of Directors for the Southeastern Museums Conference where she won the Museum Leadership Award in 2009. Person has a particular interest in small museums and enjoys the challenge of utilizing all her skills on a daily basis. She passes on her knowledge by conducting workshop programs for regional and state museum organizations on a variety of small museum management topics. In addition to her day job, she is also a jewelry artisan and has her own company, Face in the Sun Custom Jewelry. If there is still time left in the day after museums and jewelry, she designs mobile web sites for organizations and businesses.

M.A., History (Museum Studies), Western Michigan University (1994) 
B.A., Biology, Albion College (1988)

Kevin B. Vichcales

Michelle Margaret Viera

1993

Judith S. Alspach

Andrea Elizabeth Harger

Scott P. Houting

Arnold William Illanz

Kyle A. Rickard

Erin Schillaci

1992

Daryl R. Ambs

James John Bos

Steven R Cartwright

Sean W. Coakley

John Monro Edwards

Juleen A. Eichinger

Patrick K. Hoffmann

Mary M. Younker

1991

Mohammed Al Sheha

James Frederick Corbus

Marc J. Custer

David B. Diny

Joseph A. Garzelloni

David Martin Klemm

Michael G. Pettee

Carol J. Rizzo

1990

Catherine T. Collopy

Mark Leroy Hayes

Hayes served active duty in the U.S. Navy for four years and as a Naval historian for 20 years.

(Deceased April 2010)

 

 

Daniel M. Huisman

Stephen C. Northrop

Joseph A. Racz, Jr.

(Deceased May 2004)