Education
2015 PhD, History, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2007 MA, Public History, State University of New York at Albany
2005 BA, Music, Bates College (Magna cum Laude; Phi Beta Kappa)
Employment
2015- Assistant Professor of Public History, Roanoke College
2011-15 Tour Guide, Big Onion Walking Tours, New York, NY
2014 Instructor in Environmental Humanities, School of the Environment, Middlebury College
2013-14 Graduate Assistant, Center for Study of Working Class Life, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2011-13 Instructor, History Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2010-13 Teaching Assistant, History Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2011 Interim Executive Director, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, NY
2010 Urban Park Ranger Fellow, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, New York, NY
2008-09 Education Coordinator, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, NY
2007 Graduate Intern, Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY
Publications
Books
Beyond Hawaiʻi: Native Labor in the Pacific World (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018). Read more about the project here.
Journal Articles
“Make Roanoke Queer Again: Community History and Urban Change in a Southern City,” The Public Historian 39, no. 1 (February 2017): 35-60. Honorable Mention for the 2018 G. Wesley Johnson Award (for the most outstanding article in The Public Historian), National Council on Public History. Included in The Public Historian, 40th Anniversary digital collection (2018), representing “the most significant, enduring, and widely read essays… published since 1978.”
“A Storm in Sāmoa: An Environmental Microhistory,” Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice 21, no. 1 (2017): 2-27.
“Workers of the World’s Oceans: A Bottom-Up Environmental History of the Pacific,” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 3, no. 1/2/3 (2016): 290-310.
“Life and Labor in a Seabird Colony: Hawaiian Guano Workers, 1857-1870,” Environmental History 17, no. 4 (October 2012): 744-782. Reprinted in Environmental History, 40th Anniversary Virtual Edition (2017), representing “path-breaking scholarship that has shaped our field.”
“Boki’s Predicament: The Material Culture and Environmental History of Hawaiian Sandalwood, 1811-1830,” World History Bulletin 27, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 46-62.
Reviews
Review of Katherine Crawford-Lackey and Megan E. Springate, eds., Preservation and Place: Historic Preservation by and of LGBTQ Communities in the United States. In History News 74, no. 4 (2019): 39.
Review of Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet and Timothy J. LeCain, The Matter of History: How Things Create the Past. In Journal of World History 30, no. 3 (September 2019): 459-464.
Review of Kealani Cook, Return to Kahiki: Native Hawaiians in Oceania. In World History Connected 16, no. 1 (February 2019).
Review of Frederic Caire Chiles, California’s Channel Islands: A History. In Environmental History 21, no. 1 (January 2016).
Review of Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright, eds., A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty. In Native American and Indigenous Studies 2, no. 2 (2015): 178-180.
Review of JoAnna Poblete, Islanders in the Empire: Filipino and Puerto Rican Laborers in Hawaiʻi. In Essays in History 57 (2015).
Review of films As Goes Janesville by Brad Lichstenstein and Brothers on the Line by Sasha Reuther. In The Middle Ground Journal: World History and Global Studies, no. 7 (Fall 2013).
Essays
“Lasting Legacy: What Stonewall Means in the South,” WUSSY, June 6, 2019.
“Rethinking Capitalism from New York to Hawaiʻi,” UC Press Blog, June 20, 2018.
“Roanoke Made Me Queer Again,” History@Work, May 9, 2018.
“Who Needs Gay Books?” WUSSY, August 2, 2017.
“Reclaiming Queer Historical Space,” History@Work, February 2, 2017.
“Black eyeliner. Navy blue Infinity scarf. Menstrual bracelet,” Material Culture @ Roanoke College, February 3, 2016.
Gregory Rosenthal and Marjeela Basij-Rasikh, “Many Environmentalisms from New York to Kabul, from the Past to the Present,” Solutions 6, no. 3 (July 2015): 70-74.
“Marx in the Mountains: Poverty and Environment in and outside of the Classroom,” Perspectives on History 53, no. 2 (February 2015): 36-37.
“It’s Been Two Years Since Sandy: The Lesson We Missed,” History News Network, October 19, 2014.
“May Day and the Fight for a Free University,” Tidal, May 19, 2014.
Encyclopedia Entries
“Hawaii,” in The Sea in World History: Exploration, Travel, and Trade, ed. Stephen K. Stein (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2017)
“Bayonet Constitution,” and “Kamehameha,” in Imperialism and Expansionism in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection, eds. Chris J. Magoc and David Bernstein (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2015).
“Hiawatha,” “King Kamehameha,” and “Tonga,” in Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures, and Contemporary Issues, ed. Steven L. Danver (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2012).
“Wilderness Act,” in Encyclopedia of Water Politics and Policy in the United States, eds. Steven L. Danver and John R. Burch (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011).
Pamphlets
Kevin Avery, Gregory Rosenthal, and Elizabeth B. Jacks, The Hudson River School Art Trail Guide (Catskill, NY: Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 2009).
Working Papers
co-authored with the students of SENV 3452A: Environmentalism and the Poor, “Forms of Working-Class / Peasant Environmental Resistance,” available at The Stream: a Blog for the Middlebury School of the Environment, August 25, 2014.
Select Awards and Fellowships
2019-20 Faculty Research Year Award, Roanoke College
2019 Unsung Hero Award, Roanoke City Office of Neighborhood Services (awarded to the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project)
2018 Heritage Education Award, Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation (awarded to the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project)
2018 Honorable Mention, G. Wesley Johnson Award (for the most outstanding article in The Public Historian), National Council on Public History
2018 Honorable Mention, Allan Bérubé Prize (for outstanding work in public or community-based LGBTQ history), Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History, American Historical Association (awarded to the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project)
2016 Rachel Carson Prize for Best Dissertation, American Society for Environmental History
2016 Constance Coiner Award for Best Dissertation, Working Class Studies Association
2015 New England Regional Fellowship Consortium Award
2014-15 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies
2014 Alumni Association Dean’s Choice Award, Graduate School, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2013 Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant, American Historical Association
2013 Bernard Semmel Memorial Award, History Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2013 Arthur J. Quinn Memorial Fellowship, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
2013 Michael J. Connell Foundation Fellowship, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California
2011 Best Teaching Assistant Award, History Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2010 Phi Alpha Theta / World History Association Student Paper Prize (Graduate Division): “Boki’s Predicament: The Material Culture and Environmental History of Hawaiian Sandalwood, 1811-1830”
2009-10 Gardner Graduate Fellowship, History Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2007 Publicly Active Graduate Education Fellowship, Imagining America
2004 William Stringfellow Award for Justice and Peace, Bates College
2003 Vincent Mulford Service-Learning Fellowship, Bates College
Want to know more? Send me an email!
