Education:

 Ph.D. in American political/policy history, University at Albany (SUNY), December 2003.

▪ Comprehensive examination areas included twentieth-century U.S. public policy, legal history, nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. culture, and film studies.

                ▪ Dissertation: “Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981.”

                  Dissertation directed by Richard F. Hamm,  Julian Zelizer, Ivan Steen, and Nadieszda Kizenko.                                                                

                  Distinguished Dissertation award, University at Albany College of Arts & Sciences.

M.A., history, cum laude, Pennsylvania State University; B.A., history and English, magna cum laude, State University of New York at Albany.

 Awards/Honors:

2007 Researcher of the Year, NYS Archives Partnership Trust and NYS Board of Regents

 2005-2006 UNC Wilmington Lecturer of the Year

 2003 Distinguished Dissertation Award, University at Albany College of Arts & Sciences. 

2003 Sherry Penney Prize, University at Albany, “bestowed annually on an outstanding woman graduate student in history.”

2000 Phi Alpha Theta Prize for “Bad Case/Good Case: The Outlaw and The Miracle as Legal Tests of Film Censorship.”

 “With Distinction” designation on doctoral comprehensive examination, March 2002.

 Other Academic Activities:

Area Chair, “The City in the Documentary Tradition,” Film and History conference, November 2006.

Consultant to 2006 documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated, directed by Kirby Dick. For more information, see http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/this_film_is_not_yet_rated/  and http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0493459/.

Consultant to 2007 documentary, In God We Trust, on the controversy surrounding separation of church and state.

Managing editor, Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research, published by the Peace History Society and the Consortium on Peace Research, January 1999-January 2000 (one-year appointment).

Conference co-coordinator, Researching New York: Perspectives on Empire State History, 1999 and 2000.

President, 2000-2001, University at Albany History Graduate Student Organization, vice president, 1999-2000.

 Publications:

Books:

 Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981, University Press of Kentucky, 2008.

 The Miracle Case: Burstyn v. Wilson, co-authored with Raymond J. Haberski, Jr. Landmarks in Law Cases series (winner of the 2008 Scribes Award), University Press of Kansas, October 2008.

Articles and reviews:

 Journal of Popular Film and Television book review of Children, Cinema and Censorship by Sarah J. Smith, forthcoming.

 Freedman v. Maryland,” Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, CQ Press, 2008.

 Journal of American History review of documentary Transforming America, vol. 92, no. 3 (December 2005), 1082-84.

 H-Net Book review, American Catholic Lay Movements and Trans-Atlantic Social Reform in the Progressive Period by Deirdre Moloney, H-Catholic website.

http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Catholic&month=0402&week=c&msg=SpAir1j65LJMattYTGbVmA&user=&pw=

 “The New York State Motion Picture Division,” Encyclopedia of New York State (2004).

 Film & History book  review, The Cinema of Generation X, by Peter Hanson, , volume 33.2, 2003.

 “Freedom of the Screen: Joseph Burstyn and The Miracle,” Spring 2002 New York Archives Magazine.

Available online at http://www.nysarchivestrust.org/apt/archivesmag/archivesmag_past.shtml#Spring2002Feature.

 Presentations: 

"Cinematic Liberty & the First Amendment," panel presentation at the Newseum, sponsored by the Freedom Forum, September 15, 2008.

"The Movie that Shocked New York," co-sponsored by the NYS Archives Partnership Trust and the University at Albany, April 7, 2008

" The Turning Point: 1950s, the Supreme Court and the First Amendment," Policy History Conference, May 2008

"The Sixties as History: The Sixties as Memory," panel presentation at the Organization of American Historians (OAH) annual conference, March 2008

“Sandra Day O’Connor,” lecture delivered as part of the UNCW Pathways Great Women series, April 2007.

 “State Film Censors, the Catholic Church, and the ACLU in the Cold War,” Film, Television and the 1950s, Plymouth State University (NH), October 2006.

 “Above the Law/Beyond the Law or Lawful?: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief,” UNC Wilmington, September 2006. 

“72,000 Films: Under the Censors’ Scissors,” Phi Alpha Theta annual banquet keynote speech, UNC Wilmington, April 2006. 

When the Supreme Court Speaks With Many Voices: The 1959 Lady Chatterley’s Lover Decision,” presented at annual meeting of the North Carolina Association of Historians, March 2006.

“From Philadelphia to Baghdad: The Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, 1787,” Constitution Day, UNC Wilmington, September 2005.

"Fighting For Freedom of the Screen: The Legal Battle over State Film Censorship, 1930-1965,” presented at the Organization of American Historians (OAH) conference, March 004. Available online at:

http://www.oah.org/meetings/2004/papers/index.html

“The State Film Censors,” presented at the New York State Library, October 2003.

“State Film Censorship,” featured speaker at Cazenovia College,  March 2003.

 “Bad Case/Good Case: The Outlaw and The Miracle as Legal Tests of New York’s Film Censorship,” presented at joint meeting of the Law and Society Association and the Canadian Law and Society Association, Vancouver, BC, June 2002.  

“The End of Immorality in New York: La Ronde and the Narrowing of Censorship” presented at Researching New York: Perspectives on Empire State History, November 2001.

“Bad Case/Good Case: The Outlaw and The Miracle as Legal Tests of Film Censorship,” presented at Researching New York: Perspectives on Empire State History, November 2000.

 Professional Development:

Vermont State Colleges professional development seminar, November 2002

Castleton State College writing intensive course development workshop, March 2003.

Vermont State Colleges Learning Technologies conference, October 2003

UNC-Wilmington Center for Teaching Excellence workshops, 2004-2007.

University at Albany CETL teaching workshops, 2007-2008

Grants:

2002 and 2003 University at Albany Graduate Student Organization Research Grant.

2003 University at Albany Benevolent Association Award.

2000 and 2001Larry J. Hackman Foundation Research Residency Award, New York State Archives.

 Professional Affiliations:

 Phi Alpha Theta

Historians Film Committee

Organization of American Historians

American Historical Association

American Society for Legal History