I am an Assistant Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University-Altoona. I teach courses in the history of modern Europe and am presently revising my book manuscript, Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age, for the German Historical Institute’s Cambridge University Press series.

My work focuses on modern Europe, with an emphasis on refugees, migrants, and transnational networks. In general, my research examines how groups of people fashion collective narratives as nations, religions, and diasporas. I have written articles for the peer-reviewed publications German Studies Review, Journal of Mennonite Studies, and Indiana Magazine of History, and the periodicals In These Times and Mennonite. I also have a forthcoming article titled “Rustic Reich: Nazi Impressions of South America’s German-Speaking Enclaves” in Comparative Studies in Society and History and a forthcoming chapter titled “Comparative Narratives: Russlanddeutsch Migration Stories” in a volume titled Beyond the “Volksgruppe”: New Perspectives on Russian Germans between Russia, Germany, and America ( De Gruyter).

From 2014-2017 I also served as a research associate for the global oral history project titled “Seven Points on Earth” that investigates the environmental and religious factors affecting seven Mennonite farming communities around the world. This project was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. From 2016-2017, I was the Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Migration at the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C. and before that I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa where I taught courses for the German Iowa and the Global Midwest public humanities initiative.