History MA Student Profiles (or “what can I do with that?”)
Our M.A. students follow a range of paths after graduation. A substantial number pursue Ph.D.'s and end up as University Professors. Others work in libraries, museums, archives, think-tanks, non-profits, the state and federal governments, journalism and media, book publishing, and the corporate world (i.e., Amazon) to name but a few. You will find below a collection of some of our recent M.A. students with a short description of how they fared after graduation.
Dana Smith, MA (2011): went on to receive Ph.D. from Queen Mary College, University of London, then post-doc at NYU, now tenure-track assistant professor at Keene State College, NH. Buy her 2022 book on Amazon:
Lauren Fedewa, MA (2018): Fulbright in Germany 2018-2019 and now finishing up Ph.D. in History at University of Toronto.
Alix Harrow (Heintzman), MA: is a successful science-fiction author, see this NPR piece . She has won a Hugo award (the top award in science fiction!) and her book was most recently reviewed in the New York Times, where she wrote her own opinion piece.
Mark Alexander, MA (2015): went on to do PhD at George Washington University, now staff researcher at the Levine Institute for Holocaust Education at the at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Michelle Magin, MA: went on to do PhD at University of Manchester, UK, now Associate editor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the leading English-language journal in the field, at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington.
Michael Diambri, MA (2020): is now Recruiter at Skills Alliance | Biotech, a pharmaceutical company based in Seattle, find him on LinkedIn.
Kassandra LaPrade Seuthe, MA (2016): is now acquisition curator in the archives of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Nate Gondelman, MA (2016): is now deputy director of Center for Academic Success, UVM.
Christie Nold, MA (2008): Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine 2008-2010, currently social studies teacher, South Burlington High School. See this recent VPR piece on her teaching.
Michelle Sigiel, MA (2013), M.L.I.S. (2017 Simmons College): currently librarian at the Jewish Book Center, Amherst, MA.
John O’Sullivan, MA (2003): author of multiple books on coaching and youth sports, President and CEO of the Changing the Game Project, which seeks to get parents and pressure out of youth sports:
Kiara Day, MA (2020): now works as a history editor at McGraw-Hill publishing. Find them on LinkedIn.
Ron Macneil, MA (2019): is now a PhD candidate in twentieth-century US history at the University of New Mexico. He did his MA at UVM while working as a history teacher in Burlington schools, and after his retirement he began the PhD program. His MA thesis utilized the Warren Austin papers at UVM's Silver Special Collections.
Kason Hudman, MA (2019): is the director of operations at the non-profit Peace & Justice Center in Burlington.
C. Max Kendall, MA (2016): went to Japan to teach English after completing his MA degree. COVID kept him there longer than they intended, but he recently returned to the United States and is teaching at a community college near his native Detroit.
Adam Quinn, MA (2016): is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oregon, with a dissertation that focuses on the environmental and labor history of computers. He recently had articles published in Radical History Review and Smithsonian Contributions to History and Technology.
G. Scott Waterman, MA (2015): began the MA program after becoming an emeritus professor of psychiatry at UVM. He conducted the bulk of his MA thesis research at the Tamiment Library & Wagner Labor Archives at New York University. He is also the Chair of the Miller Center of Holocaust Studies Board of Advisors.
Carl Greer, MA (2013): began the MA program after retiring from the US Coast Guard. He now combines teaching at Hillsborough Community College in Florida with work as a VA benefits advisor.
Ben Lindsey, MA (2012): currently works for Penguin Random House as a product manager for eBooks. Directly after his M.A. program, he did similar work at Amazon.
Courtney Smith (now Courtney Barter-Colcord), MA: is now a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in medieval history at Princeton. She published two articles from the M.A. thesis, including one in the top tier “Journal of Medieval History.”
Maria Carriere, MA: is finishing her first year as a doctoral student in medieval history at Fordham University after defending a first-rate MA thesis here last year.
Sarah Chute, MA: is now pursuing a history Ph.D. on a full scholarship at University of Toronto. Her 2021 M.A. thesis was “Bound to Slavery: Economic and Biographical Connections to Atlantic Slavery Between the Maritimes and West Indies After 1783”. Check out her U of T page.
Franco Paz, MA (2018): is now a PhD candidate at Harvard, working on Early American History. See the article he wrote about Harvard’s bad behavior:. Paz has a book contract with Portfolio. Ends of the Earth, is due in 2025.
Erik Wallenberg, MA: is now a Ph.D. candidate (CUNY) and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at New College Florida. He just wrote “Staging Environmental Racism: The Free Southern Theater’s Environmental Justice Script and Documentary Theater,” in The Journal of African American History,
Ruby Daily, PhD Northwestern and just got a tenure-track job at the University of Arkansas in British cultural history.
Stephen Hausmann (2011) Ph.D. Temple, assistant professor at St. Thomas University, St. Paul, Minnesota
Chris DeMairo (2016), archivist at Smithsonian Gardens, part of the Smithsonian Museums.
Angie Grove (2015), director of the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in Burlington.
Alex Lehning (2012), director of the St. Albans (Vermont) Museum.
Brandon Moblo (2013), archivist at Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Kieran O’Keefe (2016), Ph.D. George Washington University 2022, visiting assistant professor Lyon College.