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Current Position

Assistant Professor (since 2005)

Previous Positions

Visiting Assistant Professor (2004-2005)
Lecturer (1998-2004)

Education

• Ph.D. in History (emphases in American history and history of technology), University of Virginia, May 2002.
• M.A. in History, University of Delaware, 1989.
• B.A. in History, University of Delaware, 1985.

Dissertation

“Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City” (University of Virginia, 2002). Advisor: Brian Balogh (bb9s@virginia.edu). A free .pdf scan of the entire dissertation is available at: http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/dlnow/3056852

Research Emphasis

Historical aspects of engineering, technology and society, especially since 1700. Social implications of engineering. American society, transportation and engineering in the early twentieth century.

Publications

Book under contract: Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. Under conditional contract with MIT Press, for publication in its “Inside Technology” series. Publication expected in 2007.

Article: “Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street,” currently under peer review for publication in Technology and Culture.

Article: “From Public Street to Motor Thoroughfare: The Social Reconstruction of the Street and the Motor Age Revolution in the American City.” Currently seeking publication through Journal of Urban History.

Book review: “Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture,” by J.A. Jakle and K.A. Sculle. Environmental History, vol. 10 no. 2 (April 2005), 343-344.

“William Phelps Eno,” Oxford Dictionary of American National Biography (Oxford University Press, 1999).

“Fighting Traffic: U.S. Transportation Policy and Urban Traffic Congestion, 1950-1970” ( study in technology, policy and society). Essays in History, vol. 38 (1996). In its online article on "Traffic," Encyclopaedia Britannica named this article one of “The Web’s Best Sites” (see http://www.britannica.com/search?query=traffic&submit=Find&source=MWTEXT.)
The article is available online at: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH38/EH38.html.

Recent Conference Papers

• “Street Rivals: Jaywalkers versus Jay Drivers” (a study in the social construction of the American city street, 1910-1930). Presented May 21, 2005, at the University of Toronto’s conference: “The Car in History: Business, Space and Culture in North America.” To participate in this conference I was awarded a grant by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Conference organizers: Steve Penfold (University of Toronto) and Dimitry Anastakis (Trent University). I am currently seeking publication of this paper as an article.
• “Traffic Safety for the Motor Age.” Society for the History of Technology, Atlanta, October 18, 2003. Panel chair: Thomas Zeller, University of Maryland. Commentator: Robert Post (independent writer). Organizer: Jameson Wetmore, University of Virginia.

Honors, Awards, Grants

• Awarded the Thomas E. Hutchinson Faculty Award “for dedication and excellence in teaching,” December, 2005. This award is given annually by the Trigon Engineering Society to one faculty member in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
• Voted “Most Engaging Lecturer” by Engineering Student Council, February, 2005.
• Nominated by four students and two faculty colleagues for an All-University Teaching Award, February, 2005. This nomination was initiated by the four students.
• Awarded a grant in December, 2004, by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada to attend a conference at the University of Toronto in May, 2005.
• Four times awarded student-bestowed mid-term teaching honors, in which the instructor accompanies an outstanding student in a third-year honors ceremony, 2000, 2001, and 2003.
• Finalist, Teaching Excellence Award, Seven Society, University of Virginia, spring 1996.
• McCormick Fellow, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, West Branch, Iowa, February 1996 (including $1,000 research grant).

Teaching Experience

Since August, 1998, all teaching experience has been at the University of Virginia, in the engineering school’s Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS), formerly called the Division of Technology, Culture and Communication (TCC). From 1998 through fall, 2005, I taught 48 sections (about 1,350 students total), concentrating in history of technology, writing, and thesis research. All sections were writing intensive.