Masters Alumni 2000-09

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.

2009

Rachel Graf Becker

Becker taught European and World History at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee until 2011 when she moved to Mississippi. Rachel currently works in the Teacher Education Division at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi.

 

 

Jeff Bessinger

Bessinger is the archivist at the Lakeshore Museum Center in Muskegon, Michigan.

M.A. (2009) Public History, Western Michigan University
B.S. (2007) History, Grand Valley State University

Ashley Emerson-Janes

Emerson-Janes completed a certification program in genealogical studies from Boston University in 2011. She a member of the National Genealogical Society, New England Historic Genealogical Society and Association of Professional Genealogists. She runs her own genealogy business, Waypost Research Services, wherein she has completed numerous case studies from local genealogical research to editing monographs for publication.

M.A., Public History, Western Michigan University
B.A., Public History, Western Michigan University

Jack Goodman

Completed his PhD in Medieval History at Western Michigan University in 2017.

 

 

 

Ariana Horn

Ariana is the Associate Director of Individual Giving and Special Events at the Gads Hill Center in Chicago.  She previously worked as a Research Analyst at the Art Institute of Chicago.

PhD (2015), History, University of Wisconsin – Madison
M.A. (2009), History, Western Michigan University
B.A. (2004), History and Anthropology, University of Colorado – Boulder

 

Dennis Miller

Stacey Moore

Moore is enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Western Michigan University, Department of History.

 

 

 

Andrew Peim

After completing his Masters, Peim served as an archaeological field technician in the Kaibab National Forest in northern Arizona. He has also served as a recruiter for a non-profit organization and a legal assistant. He completed his certification to teach social studies at the University of Maryland College Park in 2013 after interning at Montgomery Blair High School.

@email
MCERT, Social Studies Teacher Education, University of Maryland College Park (2013)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2009)

Paul Pipek

Pipik is the director and supervisory curator at the Fort Huachuca Historical Museum in Sierra Vista, Arizona.

 

 

 

Matthew Schuld

Schuld was the museum manager for the Elkhart County Historical Museum in Elkhart, Indiana.  He lives in the Kalamazoo area and works with Summit Tree Sales. Matt also operates a public history consulting firm called YourHistoryMade (yourhistorymade.com).

 

 

David Shoup

Shoup works as an Enumerator for the Census Bureau in Des Moines, Iowa.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2009)
B.A., History and Spanish, Coe College (2006)

 

Laura Taylor

Benjamin Tenney

2008

Krista Anderson Peim

After graduating with her MA in 2008, Peim worked for the National Forest Service and then became a supervising archaeologist with a cultural resource management firm in Baltimore. She earned a master's degree in library science in 2013, specializing in archives, at the University of Maryland. She works for the University of Maryland libraries as a digital imaging assistant with special collections and at the map library of the National Geographic Society in Washington. She then worked for the University of Maryland libraries on a contract-basis. Krista passed away peacefully in September 2017.

M.L.S., Library and Information Science, Maryland College Park (2013)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University, (2008)
Graduate Certificate, Ethnohistory, Western Michigan University (2007)
B.A., Ethnohistory and History, Western Michigan University (2004)

Almyr Lake Bump

Bump is an Operations Officer at Hanscom Airforce Base, in Bedford, Massachusetts.

 

 

 

Dr. Mike Cheyne

Cheyne's dissertation dissertation was titled, "Sitcom Citizenship: Civic Participation within Postwar Suburban Sitcoms, 1952-72." In 2012, he received and accepted a Diversity Pre-Doctoral Teaching Fellowship. He held an internship at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and published an article about Kalamazoo history in an issue of the Michigan Historical Review.

Ph.D., American Studies, University of Minnesota (2014) 
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2008)

 

Terra Engelman

 

 

 

 

Keena Graham

After receiving her MA in 2008, Graham became a park ranger at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve and is now the supervisory park ranger at Russell Cave National Monument in Bridgeport, Alabama. In addition to managing staff and developing educational programs, her current position allows her to work with NASA, consult with NPS historians and visit area colleges and universities hosting workshops on how to obtain careers with the National Park Service with a degree in history.

Amy Hudson

Amy runs a handmade pottery and ceramics business in Kalamazoo, MI.

M.A. (2008) Medieval History, Western Michigan University
B.A. (1999) History, Alma College

Andrew Mutero

Christina Smith

Christina is the Registrar for the Nebraska State Historical Society.  She was previously the Curator for the Greater Southwest Historical Museum.

M.A. (2008) Public History, Western Michigan University
B.A. History, Western Michigan University

 

Jeffery Welc

Welis the archives records clerk for the City of Kalamazoo

2007

Christopher Carr

Matthew Combs

Combs is a Ph.D. student at the University of Kentucky and teaches history courses part-time at Transylvania University.

 @email
Ph.D., University of Kentucky (expected 2017)
M.A., Western Michigan University (2007)

 

Adam R. MacDonald

Dr. Christina Moody

Moody serves as a transcriptionist and development intern at Life History Services, LCC.

 Ph.D., History, The Ohio State University (2011)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2007)
B.A., Medieval History and Women's Studies, Marlboro College (1999)

 

Karika A. Phillips

Phillips serves as associate minister at Second Baptist Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Karika is also the coordinator of Kalamazoo County's Center for Health Equity.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2007)
B.A., Sociology, Western Michigan University (2002)

 

John Stempien

Stempien serves as the Social Studies Department chair at Lowell Middle School.

M.A., Public History, Western Michigan University (2007)
B.A., History, University of Michigan (1997)

 

Jason Stiglitz

After receiving his MA in History, Jason received his MBA from Western's Haworth College of Business in 2010.  He also served as an adjunct instructor in history at Indiana University South Bend and Lake Michigan College.  He is   currently a marketing specialist at Atlas Copco USA in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

Jill Straub

Straub coordinates Aquinas College's Peer Tutoring Services program for Academic and Learning Services and also serves as program advisor for TRiO Student Support Services. In this capacity, she connects students requesting academic assistance in specific classes with experienced, highly qualified and faculty-recommended peer tutors. Additionally, she advises students in class scheduling and is a liaison for TRiO Student Support Services’ students in ensuring their academic needs are being met. As a staff member of Aquinas College since 2000, she also formerly taught Achieving Academic Success classes and in the humanities department. She completed her M.L.I.S. in library and information science, with a concentration on archival administration, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in May 2013. An ardent lover of nineteenth and early twentieth century culture, Straub serves on the board of the Grand Rapids Women’s History Council, the Aquinas College Historical Commission, volunteers at a nursing home and is independently editing a collection of letters from a local homesteader’s wife to her Civil War Union soldier husband.

M.L.I.S., Archival Administration, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2013)
M.A., Public History, Western Michigan University (2007)

2006

Shawn M. Adrian

Adrian is the undergraduate advisor to the Department of English at The University of Utah.

M.A., Public History, Western Michigan University (2006)
B.A. History, Saginaw Valley State University

 

Dr. Jennifer Black

Black is Assistant Professor of History at Misericordia University in Pennsylvania.

Ph.D., University of Southern California (2013)
M.A., Public History, Western Michigan University (2006) 
B.A., Art and Art History, Western Michigan University (2002)

 

Pamela Dye

Pamela is the Director of Development Management for Tribune Interactive.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2006)
B.A., History, The College of New Jersey (2000)

 

Dr. John Fraire

Fraire is vice president for student affairs and enrollment at Washington State University.

Ph.D., History and Humanities, Union Institute & University (2012)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2006)

 

Lawrence Lynn

Donia Pelton

Peter Sewell

Uschett T. Slosh

(Deceased August 2009)

Dr. John M. Smith

Dr. Smith specializes in the history of American sports, U.S. social and cultural history, and African American history. He is assistant professor of history at Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech is starting an interdisciplinary program in sports studies and he is one of the core faculty members helping build the program.

Ph.D., Purdue University (2011)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2006)

Scott VanDyke

Scott teaches Latin, religion and history at Kalamazoo Christian High School.

2005

Sheila Clark

Dr. Coreen Derifield

Derifield recently published an article titled, "'I Thought of the Money that We Could Use': Iowa Women and Industrial Wage Work, 1950-1970," in the Winter 2014 issue of The Annals of Iowa. She is a history and political science instructor at East Central College in Union, Missouri. She is working on a book manuscript titled "Earning Her Daily Bread: Women and Industrial Manufacturing in the Rural Midwest, 1950-1980."

@email
Ph.D., History, Purdue University (2012) 
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2005)

Jennifer Gaydos

Dr. Philip Grace

Dr. Grace is an Assistant Professor of History at Texas Lutheran University.

Ph.D., Medieval History, University of Minnesota (2010)
M.A., Medieval History, Western Michigan University (2005)
B.A., History, Wheaton College (2002)

Trena Sanders

Dr. John Scholl

For his dissertation research, entitled Religious Life in Fourteenth Century Piedmont, John spent a year living in Turin, Italy on a Fulbright grant. He has taught a diverse range of classes and students: math and Bible to middle schoolers, geography and economics to high schoolers, surveys of Western Civilization and U.S. history to college freshmen, and church history to seminary students. He is 7th and 8th grade humanities teacher and serves as the Rhetoric School director and academic dean at Trinity Classical School of Houston, Texas.

Ph.D., Medieval History, University of California in Santa Barbara (2011) 
M.A., Medieval History, Western Michigan University (2005)
B.A., Texas A&M University

Thomas J. Vance

Vance is director of marketing communications at the Kalamazoo Community Foundation.

 

 

 

Antonio Zaldivar

Zaldivar earned his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2014, where he studied under the direction of Teo Ruiz. In the fall of 2014, he joined the History Department at California State University San Marcos. He specializes in the High and Late Middle Ages with primary interests centered on the medieval Crown of Aragon and the western Mediterranean. He is  working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Language and Power in the Western Mediterranean: Vernacular Writing in the Crown of Aragon’s Royal Chancery. In the project, he systematically analyzes what drove the thirteenth-century kings of the Crown of Aragon to begin writing in their realms’ spoken vernaculars (Catalan and Aragonese), what these motivations reveal about contemporary mentalities and language ideologies, and how code-switching (shifting from Latin to the romance languages and back) figured into the crown’s overall governing practices. He is also interested in early modern Spain and Colonial Latin America.

Ph.D., History, University of California Los Angeles (2014)
M.A., Medieval History, Western Michigan University (2005)
B.A., History and Political Science, Florida State University (2002)

Dr. Elizabeth Zanoni

Zanoni wrote her M.A. thesis on changing debates over women's physical culture, femininity, modesty, and gender roles in sport and consumer culture during the 1920s and 1930s. Zanoni continued to pursue her interest in consumer and ethnic and immigration history as a Ph.D. student in the History Department at the University of Minnesota. She defended her dissertation, "Gendered Nations of Consumers: Migration and Commerce between Italy, the U.S. and Argentina, 1880 to 1940," in 2011.

Zanoni started as assistant professor in the History Department at Old Dominion University in fall of 2011. She is teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in U.S. history and U.S. and global migration history. An article based on her dissertation research, "'Per Voi, Signore': Gendered Representations of Fashion, Food, and Fascism in Il Progresso Italo-Americano during the 1930s," was published in the Journal of American Ethnic History 31:3 (Spring 2012), 33-71.

Ph.D., History, University of Minnesota (2011)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2006)
B.A., American Studies, Notre Dame (2001)

Dr. Hanmo Zhang

Zhang is assistant professor of languages, literatures and cultures at SUNY-New Paltz.

Ph.D., Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles (2012)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2005)

 

2004

Michael J. Basista

Basista is a photographer at Red Fox Photo in Pittsburgh.

Michael K. Deen

Douglas Austin Dentino

Genoveva Garcia-Gallardo Carcedo

Carcedo was born in Burgos in the north of Spain. She went on to pursue an extensive international education, which became a life-changing experience for her. She studied humanities both in Spain and in Ireland and received her master's degree in Spanish language and literature from Western Michigan University. She remained in the States to obtain her second master's in Colonial history. Her experiences in foreign countries have motivated her to help those who wish to learn the language and culture of her homeland. She worked for International Studies Abroad—Barcelona for almost four years before becoming the ISA-Bilbao and San Sebastián Resident Director.

Christopher M Jannings

Marius F. Nielsen

Sarah B. Townsend

Samuel P. Welsh

LaDale C. Winling

Winling teaches courses in American history and public history at Virginia Tech as an assistant professor.

Ph.D., University of Michigan (2010)
M.A., Western Michigan University (2004)
B.A., Western Michigan University (2002)

 

2003

Hollie D. Bonnema

Karen Curtis Byrd

Joshua Cochran

Cochran teaches courses in American history at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

Ph.D., History, University of Iowa (2014)
M.A., Public History, Western Michigan University (2003)
B.A., History and Political Science, Aquinas College (2000)

Kelly M. Wilcox

James Allen Williams

Jennifer Helen Wohlberg

2002

Dr. Brian N. Becker

Becker was a lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee from 2009-11, and is currently an assistant professor of history at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. He has taught courses in The Early and Later Middle Ages, Medieval Conquest and Colonization, and The Great Plague and Late Medieval Society. Becker’s research interests focus on the medieval Mediterranean and include cultural interaction, exchange, and colonization, urban history and demography, forms of documentation, ways of knowing and memory, and historiography. His most recent publication is an article entitled “New Evidence for Genoese Cryptography in the Late Fifteenth Century: Antonio De Montaldo’s Cifrario of 1477 and the Defense of Chios against the Ottomans,” in The Ottomans and Europe: Travel, Encounter and Interaction from the Early Classical Period until the End of the 18th Century, edited by Seyfi Kenan. He has presented at national academic conferences as well as those in Sardinia, Turkey, and Portugal. Dr. Becker has translated several works from Italian to English for the Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle.

@email
Ph.D., Medieval History, Western Michigan University (2010)
M.A., Medieval History, Western Michigan University (2002)
B.A., History, University of Missouri-Columbia (1999)

Timothy Alan Ehrhardt

Rev. Ehrhardt is the senior pastor at the First Reformed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2002)

Michael D. Mulligan

Mulligan serves as program support assistant at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was also elected for a second term in 2012 as a board member (and also president) of the Leighton Township Library where he has organized several exhibits.

 

 

Robert Scott Sawall

Mr. Sawall teaches courses in history, political science, and economics at Grand Rapids Community College.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2002)
B.B.A., Industrial Marketing, Western Michigan University (1989)

Stephen Staggs

Staggs is an instructor at Calvin College, teaching classes in World History and American History.

Ph.D., History, Western Michigan University (2014)
Graduate Certificate, Ethnohistory, Western Michigan University (2013)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2002)

 

2001

Leo Barron

LBarron has published numerous articles in Infantry Magazine, Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, WWII History Magazine, and WWII Magazine since 2005. In 2012, Barron published No Silent Night: The Christmas Battle for Bastogne

Post Graduate Study, History, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Graduate Certificate, Intelligence Analysis American Military University (2010)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2001)
B.A., History, College of the Holy Cross (1995)

Michael V. DeVitt

DeVitt is a teacher in Three Rivers Public Schools.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2001)
B.S., English (Secondary Education), Western Michigan University (1985)

Ronald M. Kendzierski, Jr.,

Eric D. Owen

Brian K. Robins

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2001)
B.A., History, Western Michigan University (1990)

2000

Matthew G. Anderson

Anderson is  the curator of transportation at The Henry Ford Museum.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2000)
B.A., Public History, Western Michigan University (1998)

 

James Robert Gavan

Gavan teaches courses in American history at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2000)
B.A., History, Western Michigan University (1994)

 

Michelle Lynn Hill

Ingleright-Telgenhoff is a Teaching Fellow of art education and art history at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

Kelly Ingleright-Telgenhoff

@email
Ph.D., History of Art, Indiana University, ABD
M.A., History of Art, Michigan State University (2004)
M.A., History, Western Michigan University (2000)
B.A., History, Western Michigan University (1992)

Ingleright-Telgenhoff is a Teaching Fellow of art education and art history at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

Marc E. Kline

Kline is a teacher at Gobles High School and teaches U.S. History, A.P. history, government and economics. He is also the Varsity boys basketball and track coach.

M.A., Western Michigan University (2000)
B.S.Ed., Social Studies, Taylor University (1993)

Mr. Scott M. Minehart

Minehart has taught English, world history, AP world history, AP European history, economics, U.S. history, civics, geography, and history of human thought at Gull Lake High School. He is also the boys Varsity soccer coach.

M.A., Western Michigan University (2000)
B.A., Michigan State University (1993)

Cindy Marie Olsen