J.T. J
- Research Program Mentor
PhD at University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
Expertise
United States History; U.S. Immigration/Migration History; History of U.S. Social Movements; American West; Nineteenth-Century U.S.; Colonial North America; History of Religion; U.S. Cultural History; U.S. Social History
Bio
I received my PhD in History from UC Berkeley in 2023. I am a historian of the United States, with particular interest and expertise in the early and nineteenth-century U.S., cultural history, history of religion, and history of migration and mobility. At Berkeley, I have taught as an instructor of record and teaching assistant, running discussion sections, designing and evaluating written assignments, and meeting with students one-on-one. In the classroom and for general audiences, I have taught on a range of historical topics, including the history of photography, ghosts and mediums in the U.S., the family, the U.S.-Mexico border, the social history of the American Revolution, literacy and the cultural history of reading and writing, tourism and travel, immigration policy, civil rights and social movements, and much more! So, I would be thrilled to assist students in any research and analytical exploration of culture and society in U.S. history! I am a born and bred east coaster, originally from Pittsburgh, PA, and attended a small liberal arts college in New York. Usually you can find me fiddling with the guitar, mindlessly consuming true crime and thriller and horror movies, bouldering at the climbing gym, and (what I spend the vast majority of my time doing) hanging out with my cat, Hazel. I currently reside in Washington, DC. I am a Presidential Management Fellow at the Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.Project ideas
Migration in America's Long Nineteenth Century
This project explores any aspect of migration/immigration/emigration history between the late eighteenth century and the early twentieth century. This period saw a large amount of human movement into, out of, and within the U.S. and North America. Additionally, this period saw dynamic growth of immigration regulation, policy, and legal restriction. Students can choose to focus on any aspect of human mobility or compare several. Subject matter for a research project is entirely up to the student! Possible topics include but are not limited to the history of nativism, enslavement and transportation, the legal history of immigration, Indigenous dispossession and removal, trans-national Chinese migration, Irish Famine immigration, western settler migration and/or the Gold Rush, immigrant life in cities, citizenship, or the U.S.-Mexico border.
U.S. Social Movements
In this research project, students will explore one or more social movements in nineteenth or twentieth-century U.S. history. Students may choose to focus on significant civil rights movements, such as women's rights and feminism or the fights against racial segregation and disenfranchisement, the Chicano Movement, or the American Indian Movement. Or, students may choose to focus on other institutional reform movements, such as antislavery and abolitionism or educational or prison reform. Students may also be interested in exploring a multitude of other important social and moral reform movements including temperance and prohibition, dietary reform and/or animal rights movements, environmentalism and conservation, or conservatism and progressivism.