History Graduate Student Association officers
President:
Amelia Serafine is currently finishing PhD coursework, studying the nineteenth and twentieth-century United States with an emphasis on urban and gender history. Amelia has presented work at conferences on topics ranging from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the hobo in Gilded Age popular culture.
Vice President:
Gregory Ruth is a second year PhD student in Loyola's History Department. Working in nineteenth and twentieth century America, his recent projects touch on topics of capitalism, consumer culture, urbanism and the environment, ethnicity, gender, violence and memory, as well as celebrity culture. His public history experience includes museum work, oral history projects, and library special collection employment. A former high-school history teacher, Ruth is also interested in pedagogical practice in the contemporary classroom.
Treasurer:
Laura Johns is a 2nd year MA student in Public History. Her research interests are in 19th century American history, the American Civil War, and Public History. Her work emphasizes the shaping of public memory and the Civil War’s impact on public spaces. She is the 2012-2013 Cuneo Fellow.
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Secretary:
Grace Pekar is a masters candidate for public history, who has been in the museum field for three years. She currently is the museum manager for the Hinsdale Historical Society, board member of the Western Springs Historical Society, and committee member of the Chicago Emerging Museum Professionals. She also volunteers for the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) and other historical institutions in the Chicago area.
Media Coordinator:
Rachel Boyle is a PhD student in U.S. and Public History. As a scholar she researches representations of gender and violence in nineteenth century urban culture. As a public historian she is invested in creating digital and physical spaces for community dialogue on intersections between the past and the present. In her spare time she consumes and pontificates on popular culture.
Public History Committee Chair:
Anne E. Cullen, a second year Public History Masters student, also aids the History Department as a Public Media Graduate Assistant. She has completed internships at Chicago’s Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and Manhattan’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum. She currently assists with the Chicago Community Trust Oral History Project. Her research interests include US history, women's and gender history, and 20th century popular culture.
