I am an historian of republics and their long legacies, specializing in the relationship between ancient Rome and early modern Europe and America. My passion is teaching and researching republican cultures, revolutions, gender, freedom of speech, newspapers, theater, and citizen education.

I grew up in Amarillo, in the “panhandle” of Texas. Competing in Lincoln-Douglas debate first introduced me to the world of political philosophy and questions of liberty, rights, equality, and justice. My passion for these topics led me to double major in Political Science and Great Texts of the Western Tradition at Baylor University, where my senior honors project focused on the relationship between education and citizenship.

In 2006, I won the Marshall Scholarship, which generously funded two graduate degrees in the United Kingdom: a master’s degree in Renaissance Literature at the Queen’s University in Belfast, focusing especially on the poet John Milton, and a second master’s degree in Political Thought and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge in England (King’s College), researching the writings of Renaissance humanist educators. Returning to the US, I completed my Ph.D. in History at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. At Hopkins I specialized in British History, with minor fields in Medieval History, Spanish History, and French History.

In 2013, I joined the faculty of Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, the second oldest Catholic university in the United States. Teaching students for over a decade at a small, liberal arts university has challenged me to think creatively about our historical past and to share this enthusiasm with others. My humanities courses are frequently interdisciplinary, covering a wide range of topics from Ancient Greece to 1850. In 2020, I received tenure and promotion to associate professor, and in 2026 earned promotion to professor.