Current History Graduate Students

Sydney Barry

Joanie Davis

joan.davis@student.montana.edu

My name is Joanie Davis, and I'm a passionate high school history teacher who's been teaching at an experiential high school in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for the past four years. Originally midwestern grown, I love the bitter cold and never shy away from a pond hockey game. When she’s not in the classroom, you’ll likely find her skiing, mountain biking, trail running, or exploring the outdoors with her beloved Pyrenees-Husky mix, Shasta. A die-hard fan of all Chicago sports teams, Joanie combines her love for history and adventure in every aspect of her life.

Zachary Hust

Zachary is interested the animals that we rely on in our lives and their change over the course of history. This interest came from working with a wool company for many years and learning about the history of different breeds of sheep. After graduating from MSU in 2025 with a degree in History Teaching and choosing not to go into the education field, Zach came back to MSU to pursue higher education, while periodically baking some treats for the other graduate students.

Dominic LeShock

dominic.leshock@student.montana.edu

Dominic is interested in contemporary histories of the militarized American West with a specific focus on air power, cold war competition, and communities impacted by the closure of military bases. He hopes to use his career experience in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the Military Industrial Complex to inform balanced analyses of the United States' use of western land and communities and the long-term debts incurred by the Peace Dividend. Dominic is an avid motorcyclist, outdoorsman and photographer.

Samuel Ravenscroft

samuel.ravenscroft@student.montana.edu

My name is Sam and I am from Staffordshire in England! I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of York specialising in American history, and I am now studying for my Masters! I spend most of my time playing volleyball, as well as following my local soccer team (Up the Villa), and taking part in lots of outdoor activities!

Denise Boynton

denise.mboynton@student.montana.edu

Denise is a Ph.D. student with an interest in U.S. empire and neocolonialism, focusing on Puerto Rico. She is particularly interested on how Indian federal laws and policies were transferred transnationally.

Travis Carioscia

travis.carioscia@student.montana.edu

Travis studies environmental history and history of science. He is particularly interested in Antarctic science and exploration with an emphasis on subglacial lake access, ice core science and the rise of climate science in extreme environments since the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958. Other topics of interest include: Victorian science, Mountain Studies, and Geology.

Carol Chang

carol.chang@student.montana.edu

Carol is a PhD candidate studying twentieth century Native American art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She holds a bachelor's degree in fine arts and an associate's degree in environmental science. Her work combines museum history, Native American history, and art history in order to study the development of modern Native Arts, from the Santa Fe Indian School to the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Angus Cummings

angus.cummings@student.montana.edu

Angus is interested in studying the history of land management and conservation in the Western United States. He hopes to draw from his experiences recreating and working for conservation projects in the West to inform his studies. He also aspires to work on historical projects to educate and engage community stakeholders in decisions regarding the landscapes they love and rely upon. He enjoys skiing, running, hiking, drawing, and photography.

Robert Elliot III

Georgie Karahalis

georgiannakarahalis@montana.edu

Georgie is a doctoral student focusing on the history of uranium’s use in power production, weapons development, and national security during the Cold War. She recently received her Master of Arts in History from the University of Wyoming in which she studied the history of Wyoming’s extractive industries, energy resources, and the culture of economic development between 1862-1979. When Georgie is not busy teaching, researching, or writing, she can be found running, cross-stitching, or cooking.

Meeri Kataja

Meeri is originally from Finland, and this will be her first time in Montana. While living in Hancock, Michigan for 5 months she developed interets in Finnish immigrants/Finnish Americans. Her research interest is Finnish immigrants in resource extractive areas in the U.S, and their relation to the environment.

Amy Megowan

amymegowan@montana.edu

Amy is generally interested in environmental history, the history of science, borderlands history, and public history. Her dissertation specifically looks at the effect of envirotechnical landscapes on community building in Arizona's mining towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Alex Miller

alexandermiller4@msu.montana.edu

Alex Miller is a PhD student studying western US history, environmental history, and resource geography. His research focuses on public lands and outdoor recreation in the twentieth century West. Within this focus, he is especially interested in economic and cultural change in rural amenity towns within Utah’s Colorado Plateau. Alex received his MA at Colorado State University, where he researched backcountry skiing and environmental advocacy in the Intermountain West.

Katie Montana

katherine.montana@student.montana.edu

Katie's research interests include the effects that the Great Depression and Second World War had on cultural communities within the United States. She earned her undergraduate degree in Modern History across the pond at the University of St Andrews. She has had two history articles published -- one that examined the reasons behind the defections of artists during the Cold War and another that analyzed the legalities behind the first trial of Mary, Queen of Scots. You will never catch her on campus without a cup of tea in her hand.

Corinne Neustadter

Corinne is an MA/PhD student interested in environmental and public history. Originally from Colorado, she is particularly interested in public lands management and recreation. Her research focuses on the creation and management of the national parks ideal, using Rocky Mountain and Banff national parks as case studies for the National Park Service and Parks Canada, respectively. She holds a dual B.A. in History and Political Science from Colorado State University. She is also interested in mountain studies, extractive industries, and the rise of tourism-based economies in the American West. When she isn't researching or writing, you can find her hiking, running, or skiing on public lands.

Kieran Palen

Matthew Stump

Matthew is conducting research at various archives including the Nebraska Historical Society – Lincoln, Montana Historical Society – Helena, the Coos County Historical Society – Coos Bay, Or., and the Oregon Historical Society – Portland, Or. The result of this research will show the various ways in which money, trust, and debt were non-material technologies used during the Gilded Age American West to create a system (that still exists today) that favored White Anglo men, while excluding the ‘Other.’ Using inter-disciplinary techniques, secondary source work includes psychology, economics, anthropology, and statistics. Matthew’s dissertation is a biography of a railroad, mining, fishing/cannery, and timber baron named Elijah ‘The Profit’ Smith.

Tyrel Tyner

Yvette Towersap

yvettetowersap@montana.edu

Yvette is studying the history of the Shoshone and Bannock people in the Greater Yellowstone region including southwest Montana. She has a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, a Masters in Environmental Law, and another Masters in U. S. History. Her interests are Native American tribal histories, political/treaty history, native gender and public history.