Summary
My time as Research Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Art History and at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University has been productive and has allowed me to advance the field of digital history and digital humanities in significant ways. My research work has centered on three primary foci: improving the teaching and learning of historical thinking skills, at both the secondary and university level, increasing open access to cultural heritage materials through the use of standardized and interoperable digital technologies, and the central importance of collaboration to successful digital work. Pursuing these interests, I have served as the primary investigator or director of over a dozen grant-funded and contract research projects with funding totaling nearly $9 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, the National Historic Publications and Records Commission, the U.S. Department of Education, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and numerous cultural heritage institutions. I have consulted with a wide range of libraries, archives, and museums, including the Naval History and Heritage Command, the Minnesota Historical Society, and Oregon Public Broadcasting. In conjunction with this work, I have given four significant guest lectures, 20 conference presentations, produced articles, reports, and white papers, and served on a variety of committees and advisory boards for national scholarly organizations, such as the American Historical Association, and the Oral History Association. All of my work during these years has been conducted with an explicit awareness that it must serve as an example to the field, and that I am working to create replicable models of practice and scholarship in an effort to provide national leadership on digital public history, digital preservation, and digital humanities more generally. Finally, although not part of my official duties as research faculty, I have completed my first book manuscript, which is under contract with the University of Chicago Press.