Research Interests
My research and teaching is focused in the areas of American environmental history, the history of America’s built environments and landscapes, American maritime history, and local/regional history. I am also a principal participant in our department’s Public History Program where I teach courses in historic preservation, documentation methods, and cultural resource management. I have conducted numerous field schools focusing on historic preservation, museology, oral history, and local history. In my role as a public historian and historic preservationist, I have worked with the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maryland Departments of Natural Resources, the Michigan State University Museum and the New Jersey-based Bayshore Discovery Project, as well as a consultant to numerous museums and governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Publications
Recent Journal Articles:
Fish for All: An Oral History of Multiple Claims and Divided Sentiment on Lake Michigan, Co-author Kristin M. Szylvian (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2003).
* 2003 Award of Merit-Historical Society of Michigan
“Great Lakes Commercial Fishing Architecture: The Endurance and Transformation of a Region's Landscape/Waterscape.” In Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture X, eds. Kenneth Breisch and Alison Hoagland, 217-232. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005.
“Overseeing the Family of Whitefishes: The Priorities and Debates of Coregonid Management on America’s Great Lakes, 1870-2000. Environment and History 11(May 2005):163-194.
“Domesticated Waters: Delaware Bay Oystering’s Science and Technology in Ecomuseological Perspective.” In MaritimeTechnologies: Transactions of the International Committee For The Conservation of Industrial Heritage, 117-122. Athens, Greece, 2000. |
