About Me

I am a native Kentuckian and Appalachian. I completed my BA at Murray State University in 2011 and my MA at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, in 2014, both in history. Thereafter, I spent several years at the University of California, San Diego in a PhD program in modern European history. During this time, I completed a Fulbright Research Fellowship at the Ruhr University Bochum (2018-2019), where I researched the German coalmining industry in the Ruhr industrial region and the politics of its coalminers. After the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to make some career changes and finally made solid moves away from academia and toward working in public history in 2023. I've spent the last year working at the Liberty Hall Historic Site in Frankfort, Kentucky, the home of Kentucky's first US senator, John Brown, and his descendants, from 1796 until 1934. I currently live in Louisville, Kentucky, with my wife Courtnee and our two large cats.